Nine Months - Harrison

Dear Harrison,

My sweet boy, it's hard to believe that you are only three short months away from celebrating your first birthday!  How can you be so close already?  Weren't you just born three days ago??

You have finally decided that I'm not trying to kill you with food.  You absolutely love yogurt.  Annelise is not a fan of sharing her yogurt with you.  I'm going to have to buy a ton more so that you both can each get your own.  You also like the Earth's Best pouches a lot too.  However, anything solid, and you still think I'm trying to kill you.  You make the worst faces and spit it out.  If you do happen to like something, you gag on it pretty badly, and often make yourself throw up from it.  It's hard for me to watch.  I gave you some ice cream at Annelise's birthday party, and of course you loved that.  I'm glad that we're starting to make a little progress here.

You can sit yourself up from a lying position now.  You mainly do it in your crib when you are supposed to be sleeping.  You haven't really figured out how to lay back down yet, so you just slump over and fall asleep.  It's kind of adorable!

You show no interest in crawling.  However, you have started to try and pull up on things.  You don't actually make it up, but you try so hard.   I think it's just a matter of you building your strength up some and you'll pull up.  It's so adorable to watch you try and become mobile.  I just can't wait until you start crawling.  You may not crawl, but I have a feeling that you'll be doing some sort of moving soon.  I think that you'll be much happier when you can get around yourself.  You always want to be in on the action.  Your sister is going to love it too, until you start getting into her stuff!

Sleep is still so-so.  You've started sleeping in a little later in the mornings.  I've also started putting you to bed just a tiny bit earlier.  I start getting you ready sometime between 6:15-6:30 PM.  You still get a bottle at bed, and you're usually in bed by 7 PM.  It helps to have you down by then.

You got some teeth!  Your first tooth poked through a few days ago.  It's the upper middle tooth on the right, and the left one is not too far behind.  I joked that you got some bunny teeth in time for Easter.  You like to bite on the clasp for your pacifier now that your teeth have popped through.  I could definitely tell that you were in some pain with them.  You didn't like me to touch your gums.  Some tylenol helped.

I think that you might be trying to clap.  You bring your hands together and then sort of shake them up and down.  I have started signing to you a little bit.  You just look at me like I'm nuts.  But, if I say "milk", I can see your eyes light up.  You definitely know what that is.

You have started to be more verbal.  You've had "mama" for quite some time, but now you've thrown in some "ba", "da", and "ya" with it too.  And some screeches!  I love to hear you talk and babble.

You weigh 20 pounds 11 ounces (52nd %ile) and are 28 1/4 inches (49th %ile) tall.  You are still in 12 month clothing and are wearing a size 4 diaper.

As you grow older, I grow to love you more and more.  I just can't believe that you've been here for nine months already and that I am going to start planning your first birthday party.  Slow down my boy!

Love forever,
Mommy