Nine Months Old

Even though I never did a blog post about Jacob turning nine months old and now he is almost ten months old, I wanted to be sure to post his stats from his nine month checkup and some other fun things he is doing (mostly for my own documentation).

He had his nine month checkup on March 8th and Dr. Smyth said he was growing very well. He weighed in at 20 lbs, 5 oz (which seems heavy to me for a nine month old, but it is average - the 50th percentile). His length was 28.15 inches, again in the 50th percentile. His head also measured in the 50th percentile so all in all, he is average, which is good!

Dr. Smyth was a bit concerned about him still having a bit of torticollis and she thought she noticed that his left eye didn't open as big as his right. Also, his head is still mis-shapen from him having a flat spot on his left side when he was a newborn. She said that we could do an MRI just to make sure that everything was ok with his head, but instead we opted to go back in 6 weeks for her to look at his head again. I, personally, don't think there is anything wrong and he is still getting PT for his torticollis, so I am confident that he will grow out of it soon. (Note: when we went back to see the doctor a week later for his rash & cough, she said that since seeing us on March 8th she had noticed a lot of babies & kids who had one eye that seemed to not open as much as the other. She even mentioned that she noticed it on her own daughter, who is a teenager. She admitted that she may have overeacted a bit suggesting the MRI. I knew that!)

Here are a few things that I jotted down about Jacob when I was originally going to do this post three weeks ago:

• He started eating "whole" foods (instead of just pureed). Some that he had tried as of the beginning of March - pears, peas, cheerios, bread, and pieces of cheese.
• We have been practicing using sign language, although Jacob hasn't shown the ability to do any of the signs. The ones that I have used most with him are "more", "milk", & "eat".
• He did start doing something that looked like a clap, but could have been the sign "more". I am still working on figuring out which one it is.
• He stayed with my Mom & Dad all day on Feb 13th so Keith and I could spend the day together in Williamsburg as a Valentine's Day treat to ourselves. We did some shopping, had a yummy dinner and even got drinks at the Williamsburg Lodge that evening. Jacob did pretty well with my parents, although he was fussy quite a bit and my Mom attributes that to him not being able to nurse all day. He hasn't taken a bottle in months so I didn't leave one for them. I did leave some breastmilk and she used it in his cereal, but I think he probably missed the "sucking" part of the nursing.
• While he was with my Mom, she introduced him to drinking water from a "real" cup (not a sippy). She has a little plastic cup that she has had for years (I'm sure I used it when I was little!) and Jacob took to it very well. Of course, a lot of it dribbled down his chin, but he is getting better and better at it. He actually prefers drinking from a cup to drinking from a sippy and that is good, although that means someone has to help him with the cup versus him doing it himself with the sippy.
• Like I posted in February, one of Jacob's top teeth popped through and so far, the other one has not appeared. He has been drooling a lot and his gums have been red and swollen off and on for the past month so I thought for sure it was coming soon.
• Jacob started crawling at the end of February and he has gotten better and better at it. As of the beginning of March, he was still pretty content with just sitting and playing with his toys. He didn't really seem to have the need to get up and go. I'm sure this is going to change but for now I am ok with it.

I am sure that there are a lot of things that I am forgetting since this post is more than three weeks overdue. Stay tuned for his ten month post where I will have a lot more to share, hopefully coming in the next few weeks.