Janette is 9 months old!

Janette has grown and accomplished a lot these last two months. (I had great intentions of doing an 8-month blog update, but alas time got away from me.) Last Tuesday, the day she actually turned 9 months old, we went to see her pediatrician for her 9-month well-check. She weighed 21 pounds 1 ounce (90%), measured 29 inches tall (95%) and had a head circumference of 45 cm (75%). This is an increase of 2 pounds, 15 ounces and 1.5 inches in the last two months. Jessica only weighed 18 pounds 11 ounces at 9 months, so clearly Janette is the bigger baby as she almost weighed that much at her 6-month well-check.

How Janette is Eating

Janette is a fabulous eater. We’re now at 3 solid food meals (approximately 3 ounces each) per day with 3 nursing sessions per day. The nursing sessions are typically first thing in the morning, after (but occasionally before) her afternoon nap, and just before bedtime. However, the nursing sessions sometimes occur more frequently (I’ll elaborate in the sleeping section of this post). She has tried all kinds of food. She has tried oatmeal, sweet potato, peas, avocado,  banana, sweet potato and other flavor baby puffs, spinach, yogurt (various Stoneyfield flavors), cheese, multi-grain oatmeal, refried beans, Baby Mum Mums (rice husks), pasta, Ritz crackers, apple sauce, a wide variety of the Earth’s Best squeeze pouches (strawberry banana yogurt smoothie, butternut squash pear, orange banana, sweet potato apple, apple peach oatmeal, apple plum kamut, pear apricot barley, and cranberry pumpkin apple), Gerber’s mixed veggies, tortillas, bread, muffins, lil’ crunchies, veggie straws, pancakes, waffles, apple cinnamon straws and possibly some other things I can’t think of right now. Sunday night, I made her carrot, spinach, cheese chunky puree. I also gave her a bit of the curry rice pilaf I made us for dinner, but I’m not completely sure any of that actually made its way into her mouth. Sometimes, she’s not the biggest fan of some of the veggies (i.e. plain spinach or peas), but if I alternate a bit of yogurt or fruit with the veggie, she eats it right up. I’m trying to introduce a wider variety of foods to Janette in the hopes that she is not a picky eater like Jessica. She loves to self-feed, hence a lot of the finger foods we’ve tried.

How Janette is Sleeping

The sleeping is going much better. Janette will now take a ~1.5 hour nap each afternoon, sometimes a little longer. I actually love it when she falls asleep in the car on the way home from picking Jessica up from school, because she will usually transfer to her crib easily. Even when she doesn’t fall asleep in the car, she usually goes down for a nap pretty well. She will cry out at first, but unless she just isn’t tired, she will quiet down and be asleep within 5-10 minutes. Morning naps are also good. They vary from 30 to 60 minutes and are much less predictable, since sometimes they occur when I’m taking a walk or running errands. Bedtime is still a piece of cake. She is usually asleep when she finishes nursing, but even when she is not I put her in her crib and sometimes she will cry out for a few minutes, but is then quickly asleep. Sleeping through the night is a totally different story. I wouldn’t be so sad about this if she hadn’t slept though the night her entire fourth month of life. She will sleep through the night on average 2 nights per week. The rest of the week, she usually wakes up once (the timing of which is really all over the place) and nurse and then go back to sleep.  Occasionally, she wakes more than once. The last week has been horrible, but Niagra Falls has started drooling out her mouth and snot has been flowing from her nose causing her to snore. So she either has a cold or is finally getting a tooth. Although, there is still no sign of a tooth yet. At this rate, she will get them all at once.

A Bunch of Firsts

Janette is now crawling and has been since the weekend of June 15th. Here’s a little video showing her in action. It was taken July 8th.

She has recently started to pull up on stuff. Here, she pulled herself into a kneeling position and I helped her into a standing position. Yesterday, she pulled herself into a standing position all by herself and then fell back down all in a span of about 30 seconds.

Janette visited a cave, Wonder World in San Marcos.

She went on her first vacation where she visited a lake, Lake Whitney.

Janette visited her first zoo, Cameron Park Zoo in Waco.

She had her first 4th of July. She slept through much of our neighborhood’s celebration.

How Janette is Playing

Janette is a super curious baby and loves to go exploring. She loves to grab anything she can reach and check it out, which always includes putting it in her mouth. She has probably gotten extra fiber from this as she always seems to find loose paper and I’m sure there has been some paper swallowed. This is definitely different than having only one child, because when Jessica was Janette’s age, it was way easier to keep inappropriate things away from her. With Jessica around, that isn’t as easy.

Janette loves to wave: at people, at dogs and for no apparent reason.

She has loved swimming the handful of times we have taken her. Bath time is also fun, except for having her hair washed.

Janette enjoys bouncing in the exersaucer, as well as climbing through it like a tunnel.

She enjoys swinging at the park and frequently giggles while swinging. Her laugh is an awesome sound.

Interaction with Jessica is so fun to watch. Jessica loves her baby sister and will kiss and hug on her. She “reads” to Janette. She has started showing some jealousy and will frequently tell me “You’re my Mama.” To which I reply, “I’m Janette’s Mama too.” Sometimes, she’ll say “No.” Jessica has definitely become a 2-year-old and doesn’t like to share. Often she won’t even be thinking about a particular toy, but when Janette crawls over and investigates it, she will take it and say mine. She’s pretty good at replacing it with a different toy, usually with some prompting.

Helmet

Shortly before Janette’s 4-month well-check, I noticed that her head had a flat spot on the angle, not the back. I had intended to ask the pediatrician at that well-check, but when she did a quick feel of Janette’s head, she said all was good and I decided not to ask. It was still bothering me at her 6-month well-check, so I asked and the pediatrician said to give it a month and if it was still a concern they could schedule a consult, because head abnormalities are no longer considered just an aesthetic thing as children with head asymmetry issues may have more ear infections. Needless to say, it still concerned me, so July 3rd we had the consult. Conclusion: moderate left parietal-occipital flattening and right forehead flattening (plagiocephaly).

We went back and had 3D imaging performed so they could make her a DOC Band to promote growth in the flattened areas. She started wearing it July 24th and will wear it for three to four months.

She can now make some comical “evil” eyes when she raises her eyebrows and the helmet keeps her skin raised.

Family

This summer has been all about family time.

Of course, there is always time with Daddy and sister.

James’ parents and our nephew Dawson visited us back in June.

Then in July, we had the Dzubinski family trip.

Then we traveled to Midland for our nephew’s 12th birthday party.

Hopefully, I can post at 10 months and not wait until 11 months, like I did 6 and 8 months.