9 Months Old

Baby Noah is 9 months old! It has been another very exciting month. He is now fully mobile, crawling and climbing everywhere. He's still working on pulling himself up, but he's getting there. I usually sit him on our bed to take photos at the end of every month, but he wasn't really interested in sitting still this time, and in the end crawled right off of the bed. He slid off the covers and landed on me, and I guess he thought that was fun because he kept trying to do it every time I put him back on the bed. It's also increasingly difficult to change his diaper and change his clothing. If he isn't distracted by someone or something, he wants to roll over and crawl off the changing table. I was so excited when he made that first move forward, but now I wish he would just stay still. We have to keep a much closer eye on him now because he always goes for the most dangerous thing he sees: plastic bags, cords, electric sockets, etc. Whatever is dangerous, he finds it, and heads in that direction. It's so fun.

Noah has his two front bottom teeth now, and I think one of the top ones is emerging soon. He doesn't seem too bothered by the teething, which I'm thankful for. He started eating more "solid" things that he needed to "chew" a month or so ago, but he's getting better at putting food in his mouth, chewing it, then swallowing. He's still loving the Cheerios, and I recently started giving him some watermelon, cantaloupe, pear, and waffles. I try to let him to feed himself, but for a Cheerio, he typically will pick it up, look at it for a little bit, lick it, bite it in half, wave the other half around for a bit, lick the other half again, before finally eating the whole thing. There is just no way I'm sitting around waiting for him to eat one Cheerio a minute. So I let him have his fun, but I also just put the majority of it into his mouth for him. He also had some soup with rice for the first time this past weekend and he seemed to really enjoy that. It's kind of exciting having him eat more "real" food!

Although Noah seems to enjoy eating a variety of foods, his weight percentile dropped to the 45th percentile this month. :( We went for his 9 month check-up today and he's still in the 80th percentile for height and 60th percentile for head circumference, but it seems that he's getting kind of skinny. The doctor didn't seem too concerned about it, and I guess at some point it isn't such a great thing to be in the upper percentiles for weight, but 9 months seems a bit early to me?

Noah's sleeping continues to be pretty good, but he's had a lot of disruptions this past month with our trips to New York, Annapolis, and Boston. He's been a real trooper though, so we're pretty fortunate. This weekend we're heading to NY again, so I'm going to try to stick to a fairly strict nap schedule for the next few days to get him well-rested. So far, day 1 of strict napping has gone fairly well. Crossing my fingers for a good week!

The last piece of news is that I decided to go back to work, so I'll be rejoining the workforce at the end of August and Noah will be going to daycare, right after he turns one (what a terrible birthday present, huh?). It will be sad to not get to spend the entire day with my baby, but I'll be working part-time so I'll still be able to spend time with him during the week, beyond just putting him to bed. Besides, he won't really be much of a baby anymore, and I think it'll be good for him to hang out with other kids and not be in our apt most of the day. I was also getting a little crazy, staying home all the time, so I think this arrangement will be best for everyone involved. :)

Road Trip: NYC

This past week, Noah and I took our first extended road trip and headed up to NY to visit my family. Peter was working in Atlanta for the week so we took the opportunity to travel a bit ourselves. :) We've been up there before, but only by plane because I was worried about having Noah in the car for 4.5+ hrs and no way to entertain him or distract him since I was in the driver's seat. While I could always stop the car in the event of a Noah meltdown, I worried about taking too much time on the road and getting to NY (or DC, on the way back) during rush hour traffic, which would add even more time to the trip. Since Noah had become better at napping, I decided I could finally brave the trip. In the end though, my sister volunteered to take the bus down here and drive up with me (best sister ever). :)

The plan was to leave at around 9, Noah's usual morning nap time, drive until around 11 or 11:30 and then take about an hour break for lunch and playtime, then hopefully get to NY before Noah's next feeding at 2:30/3:00. We had a slow start because I hadn't quite finished packing and had some errands to run so we ended up making our lunch stop in Maryland - but at least we weren't in Bethesda! We were about 10 miles or so from Delaware, so not so bad. It was a beautiful day, so my sister and I got some food, then had a little picnic outside. Noah had his lunch, and got to crawl around a little before hitting the road again. Here he is exploring grass for the first time. He crawled to the edge of the mat and didn't go any further.


We hit a little bit of traffic before one of the tolls in Delaware, but otherwise it was a pretty smooth trip. Noah napped for most of the second leg of the trip so we made it to NY at around 3pm without another stop.

Usually when we go to NY, we mostly just stay around home, maybe venture to the mall a couple of times, but this time we hung out a bit in Brooklyn and got to meet up with Amy. Here are some photos from our trip to Brooklyn Heights.

He's knocked out in the stroller in the pic below. It wasn't a very good sleeping week for Noah (or for me). In addition to having a hard time sleeping in a new place and new bed, he went to sleep kind of late, woke up a bit early, and many of his naps were taken in the car or stroller. :( I felt a little guilty not "protecting his naps", as the Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child author recommends, but it was just for one week. Since we've returned Noah's had some serious naps. Out cold for 2+ hrs.

This was just a random picture I took while we were in the car. Noah was such a good sport for all of the car rides! I felt bad keeping him cooped up in the car seat for so long, but he didn't seem to mind too much. Here he is just hanging out and looking funny.


Last day, enjoying the break from the car ride at a rest stop in NJ - still not into the grass, apparently. The ride back was similar to the ride there; we stopped at around 11 for lunch for about an hour, then made it back home non-stop, with Noah napping for most of the way. However, I was on my own and pretty tired from lack of sleep during the week so it was kind of rough. Also, after crossing the Verrazano Bridge (which costs $13?!!), I found out that my credit card for my EZ-Pass was expired, which resulted in a negative balance on my account, which resulted in my tag being taken away, which resulted in me being very mad. Not so good results. I usually don't carry much cash on me, but luckily I happened to have about $30 on me that day. Whew! I'm not sure how I would've been able to get cash in the middle of the toll plaza.

Anyway, we made it back okay, with no traumatic experiences, so I would count it as a good trip!