9 months

Wow, really lagging here – too busy livin’ it to write it, I say.

It’s a week past, but Nugget had his 9 month check up.  I’m so grateful to have found a naturopath pediatrician.  I get 110% support for the raw goat milk, an easier & modified vaccination schedule and just an overall sense that she matches my own beliefs about health & what’s good for us.

felix2She took some blood and tested him for anemia & his vitamin D levels today.  She does this with all babies, since so many people, including babies are vitamin D deficient these days and she likes to catch it early.  I’m pretty sure he’s far from being vitamin D deficient – I make a point to get him outside & into the sunshine almost every day.  On particularly hot & sunny days, if we get out between 10 and 2 and we’ll be out for awhile, I wait about 15-20 minutes to put sunscreen on him, so that he can get the most potent amount of vitamin D & sunshine possible.  (Myself, as well.)  Since we live in the Pacific Northwest now, getting enough sun is definitely something at the forefront of my mind.  I also asked her about giving him some of our fermented cod liver oil in the winter (another thing that’s good for combatting vitamin D deficiency) and she was all for it.  I’ll have to figure out how to get it to him, though, seeing as the capsules are too big and I doubt he’ll want to taste that in his milk.  Blech.

He’s grown another inch and a quarter in the past 3 months – he’s now at 29 and some odd inches.  He’s a little over 20 p0unds.

He wasn’t happy about having blood drawn from his finger, nor happy about his 2nd DTAP vaccination, but he was a champ.  I don’t think he cried once .  I was surprised, as I thought he’d be pretty miserable since his top two teeth are starting to come in now, also, and I suspect that’s the reason he had kind of a crappy night of sleep last night.

felix7His top two teeth!  His bottom ones came in completely last month.  (I think it was last month?  I’m losing time already.)  We took him to the Ricicli photo shoot (you know, cause HE’S A MODEL, NOW!) and it made me nervous, for a moment, to see a 7 month old who was already crawling & could get herself up to a sitting position.  Only for a moment – I remember when I was worried that he didn’t roll over much before and then suddenly one day, BAM! he’s all over the place with the rolling.  He sits, but doesn’t get into a sitting position by himself yet and he scoots around from one end of the room to the other, without crawling.  Within the past couple weeks, he’s started to get up on his hands & knees and rock back and forth – which means in the next couple weeks, I’ll just wake up one morning and BAM! he’ll be crawling all over the place and driving me mad.  I watched him with the other babies at the Ricicli photo shoot and he’s definitely an observer.  While the other ones rolled around, smiling indiscriminately and grabbing at everything, he just sat there, watching watching watching and taking it all in.  He did occasionally reach out and touch others, but only when their backs were turned.  (Typical boy.)  They say that easy going babies tend to take longer to do things like crawl, walk, etc – while he is incredibly easygoing, I think he’s also so busy thinking that he tends to forget to move.  He gets that from me, for sure.

(And pssst… I have it on good authority that he’s showing signs of being a “gifted” child.  Just confirming what I already knew…!)

650He is also quite the little piggy.  I see how much other kids eat, then I see how much we give him.  I asked the pediatrician, and she waved me off.  “He’s growing beautifully.”  In other words, don’t compare.  He loves peaches, apples, pears, cherries, yams, peas, green beans, carrots (orange AND purple), avocado and… I’m sure I’m forgetting something.  He’s very interested in food and seems to get a little angry when we’re eating stuff that he doesn’t get.  This weekend, I think I’m going to add oatmeal (to go with his peaches or blueberries) and maybe a little spice like cinnamon.  I had asked the pediatrician about food and she made a good point – there are so many different things done across so many different cultures.  Who’s to say which is right?  He’s hungry, he loves to eat… so we’ll just keep going.

Whenever I brag about how much he eats & what he loves, people inevitably tell me that “yes, he likes it now, just wait…”  Well, I’ve read many an article that said kids are far less likely to be picky eaters when they see where the food comes from and are connected to it.  Felix has been to farms, farmer’s markets… we’ll get chickens sooner than later… he watches me cook every night (and will help me cook, as well as help us decide what we all eat, as well.)  So, I feel pretty confident about how picky he’ll be -or not be.

Yes, he is in the phase of being suspicious of strangers.  He especially doesn’t like people getting in his face, or several people at once and as far as I’m concerned, that’s normal.  I STILL hate people getting in my face or groups of people.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *