9 months!

Today Carter is 9 months old. It's so hard to believe! Every now and then I look down at him and think, whoa -- I have a baby! After all those years of trying and failing, it sometimes seems like a dream. Weirdly enough, I am at the same time so used to having him here that it doesn't feel like my life has changed all that much. I know it has, of course, but he's such a part of my life that it's hard to imagine my life without him.



He is truly a "babe in arms". He spends probably 90% of his time being held, worn, or cuddled by either me, Doug, or his nanny Michelle. One of the things I've realized recently is that when he's being fussy, the best thing to do is to put him in a sling and do housework or just walk around. I pretty much ignore him and just get some stuff done. He calms right down and watches what I'm doing. If his fussiness stems from being tired, he will eventually fall asleep. It works SO well. I can't believe I didn't figure this out before!

He loves to stand, and can stand for a long time. I still haven't got a good picture of that, but here's one snapped with my phone:



Carter had an appointment this morning with his new pediatrician, and I really liked him. I had an argument with the old one and we left that practice. This one was great, and didn't ask the prying judgmental sorts of non-medical questions the last one did. (For example, she insisted I start night-weaning him at 4 months. As if that was ANY of her business?)

Carter did pretty well during the appointment, but got a little scared of the doctor toward the end of the exam and started to cry! That was the first time I've ever seen him display any sort of stranger anxiety. Some stats:

Weight: 18 pounds 13 ounces. He had a huge poop right before we weighed him, so it may have been 19 pounds before that, heh. That's in the 25th percentile for a 9 month old, and above the 50% percentile for his adjusted age.

Length: 26.75 inches, which is 10th percentile for 9 months, and just under 50th percentile for 6.5 months. He's short for his weight, which makes him look really stocky.

Head circumference: 45.25 cm, which is 90th percentile for 9 months! So he has a really big head. :-)

In short, he's doing just fine. And 9 months ago tomorrow I started pumping, and against the odds, we've made it to 9 months of breastfeeding. So we've earned this:



Yay!