9 Months

Hey there little one, you turned 9 months yesterday. As of this week, you have spent 39 weeks on the outside of my body, almost as long as you were on the inside. The thought of that makes me a little weepy with sentiment, but watching you tumble around and give us kisses reminds me of how proud I am of you. Of you for obvious reason, and of us for giving you all you've needed to thrive and become the amazing little boy you are today. What a difference 9 months make!


In the last month, you've gone through another growth spurt. No official measurements, but on our bathroom scale you weighed almost 10kg (compared to 8.6 last month) and are almost 80cm long (compared to 75.5 last month). You are growing like a crazy weed, but guess what? Your main source of nutrition is still mommy's breastmilk.


Baby-led weaning is going well, in the sense that you are willing to try almost every food we put in front of you. This past month, you've tried a few new foods - pasta, corn, watermelon, apple, rice cakes, bread, cinammon and raison bagel, and a few more I'm sure I'm missing out. But the key word here is try. You grab the food in your chubby hands and play with it, chew on it, suck on it, nibble on it, or simply smear it across your face and hair. You almost always swallow some food, and I know because I see evidence of it in your diaper the next day. But you don't eat much, usually indicating to me that you are all done very quickly after starting and if I make you sit in your high chair any longer than necessary, you make it VERY clear that you want down by simply climbing out yourself, many times risking falling off and crashing face first into the ground. 

Some times it bothers me that you are not eating much, but other times I know that you are getting everything and more than you need from me, and eating solids is merely an experiment to you right now. My only goal is to get you exposed to the different foods, flavours and textures right now, and it seems you're getting it so far. In any case, all attempts at feeding you "baby food" has failed. You have no interest whatsoever in being fed like a baby with mushy food on a spoon.

Avocado frenzy

Munching on steamed corn - I can't get over that look for admiration you have in your eyes while looking at daddy

Watermelon! And I learned that watermelon seeds come out whole and undigested the next day :p

Speaking of falling and crashing, this past month saw you injuring yourself far more than you have in the rest of your 8 months before combined. You are so mobile now, crawling and pulling up and standing and cruising. But you are still yet to learn your physical limits. You've fallen off the sofa and the arm chair in your room. You've fallen on your face more times than we care to count from you attempting to stand unassisted, the most recent incident leaving your nose scraped up and scarred. This morning you slipped and fell, hitting your chin on the coffee table in the living room and ended up biting your own tongue. Which pissed you off. And you bounced right off the table and landed on the back of your head. Which pissed you off even more. But kudos to you for settling right back down again with just a few cuddles from mommy. It's at times like that I remember that you're still a baby and as much as you would like to grow up faster, you need to be patient with yourself.


Last week we started putting you on the toilet bowl a few times each day, just to get you used to the toilet bowl. You've pooped and peed in there so far, and it makes you happy, for some weird reason. Hey, I'm not complaining ;) Sure beats having to rinse your poopy diapers!

Your second tooth also popped this past month. And I have a feeling there's more on the way very soon. You are dealing with your teething like champ! It messes with your sleep, especially at night, but other than that, you don't seem very bothered by it at other times of the day.


Sleep is still a crap shoot every night. Your day sleeps are so super predictable that we could set a clock by your self-imposed nap schedule. But night sleep? Not so much. 2 nights of 10-11 hour stretches was all you could give us. No more than that, which was really mean. You gave me a glimpse into how wonderful it would be to have a full night's sleep again, and after 2 night took it away from me. Recently it has gotten really hard to get you back to sleep when you wake in the night because you don't necessarily want to nurse, so my only fool-proof way to lull you back to sleepy-land has become a dud on those occasions. Like last night, you were up for 2 long stretches - 1.5 hours and 2 hours each. Boy that was tough. It is so incredibly difficult to be a present, aware and good mommy to you during the day when I've had so little sleep during the night. So please? Pretty please? Try and sleep a little more? To help you with that, we are going to try and re-do your room - new bed, new set-up. Hopefully that's what you need to sleep better.

I found you like this during your nap - check out the spooning action! :p

You've learned how to give us 'high fives' and would do it with so much enthusiasm.


You've also started giving us big wide smiles complete with squinty eyes and a scrunched up nose regularly. It's the most beautiful sight in the world. Watching you smile at us like that, I know I'm doing something right and that you are happy. That's all that matters to me. At the end of the day, I'd willingly give up my sleep for your happiness, if that's what it takes. But of course I hope not ;)


Some of my fave snapshots of you this month:

Getting your mischief hat on - daddy nicknamed you Loki ;)

Taking revenge on the darn snot-sucker - gotta tell ya kid, this was AFTER I cleared your nose with it :p

A really blurry shot to prove how excited you were!

You love your soccer ball plush toy and whenever I ask you where's your ball, you would turn round to find it with your gaze and get really happy when you get your hands on it. And is it any wonder that your first soccer ball was bought by mommy? When you're older, I'll tell you the story about your mom the soccer fanatic.


You are a loving little boy who loves to give us hugs and kisses. Every evening after your bath and before you get handed over to me for your feed, daddy would always ask you to "sayang" him. And you would, by laying your head down on his shoulder, with your arms around his neck. I would sit there, watching you relax on daddy's shoulder, and watching him smooth down your hair and say "I love you kiddo", and my heart would swell to a million times its size. Right at that moment, it doesn't matter to me what the rest of the night will be like. Or that I have a million other things waiting for me to do. There's no where else in the world I would rather be, than in that same room as you and your daddy, sharing in the love that is so evident between the two of you.


This is you trying to kiss the baby in the mirror ;)

You went to Gymbaroo class for babies for the first time today. And daddy was so excited for you. He was all like "it's his first day of school!". You were quite obviously happy to see other babies and other big people, and even the teacher remarked that you seem very sociable! You smiled at her when she said hi to you and you crawled around, trying to make sense of the new environment. Compared to the other babies who were shy and clingy, you were brave and adventurous, gravitating towards the other babies around you. All you wanted was to say hi and touch their faces and stand up next to them. Unfortunately not all the other moms and dads were happy to let you touch their babies. But it's okay... don't let them stop you from being friendly. It is a wonderful thing and makes me so proud to know that you are confident and willing to approach others. Your first day at class went pretty well, all things considered. At times you were a little overwhelmed by the amount of people around and the music that was being played and the maracas shaking in your face. At times you just didn't want to sit with mommy and clap hands to the song we were singing because you just wanted to examine your new little friends closer. But overall, you did so very well :)


Here are some photos from today:

You looked so SUPER DUPER cute in that little bib with your name! Love it :)

What an awesome month it has been my little one... I can't wait to see what the next month has in store for us all :)


With much much love,
Mommy <3