As I sit down to write this, it’s 6 days past Nathan turning nine months old, and I haven’t even taken pictures for this post. Life has been moving pretty fast, and I haven’t had the chance to reflect on Nathan’s milestones until now!

Growth

Nathan just went to the doctor last week for his 9-month check-up, and he’s back to his usual 75th percentile for height/length and 25th percentile for weight. He had a nasty battle with teething and thrush last month, which caused him to lose over a pound in just a week. So the fact that he’s at least rebounded this much in terms of weight has me relieved. He’s wearing 12 months size clothing.

Likes & Dislikes

Nathan is very mobile these days, cruising from couch to table to chair and back again–so I’d say that’s a favorite pastime. He also has recently discovered the musically-oriented toys in our house and at school. He loves jamming with big bro on the keyboard in the basement and always seems to find the tambourine at school. As for dislikes, he’s starting to show signs of fear with rough play. He used to love wrestling and being hoisted in the air by his daddy, but lately he cries when he does this! So weird, and kind of sad.

Eating & Sleeping

Nathan continues to eat like a champ. In fact, on several occasions when I’ve dropped him off at daycare he immediately crawled over to a classmate enjoying a snack and stole the food away from her! It’s a little embarrassing for me as a parent. Nathan will still eat pretty much anything I serve him, which I know is something to savor; by the time he turns 3, I bet it will be a different story. His favorites are still winter squash and sweet potatoes. As for sleeping, Nathan is finally–finally–sleeping through the night most nights. It’s magical. I don’t want to say too much more for fear of jinxing this blessed development.

Other Quirks:

-Nathan has a couple teeth now. He’s had his two front teeth on the bottom since late July, but he’s now also getting his two front teeth on the top. I think that will help him chew his food a bit more efficiently, although I’m a little scared about what that could mean for our nursing relationship.

-He’s discovered his voice. Nathan spends a lot of time vocalizing now, mostly just high-pitched squeals. More recently, however, he has started started saying, “ghee, ghee” (as in the clarified butter, with the hard “g” sound).

-He’s getting close to walking. As I mentioned above, Nathan is cruising non-stop these days. There are two other boys in his class who just started walking at 10 months, and his teachers tell me that he is desperately trying to keep pace with them. I think I probably have (at least) a few more weeks before he’d feasibly be steady enough to take his first few steps, but this is still a faster timeline than we had with Caleb, who started walking at about 11 months.