Hickster Happenings: Walker-9 months

I got a little ahead of myself on last month's post and said that Walker was three-fourths of a year old. I guess none of my five readers caught that or were too polite to bring it to my attention?! ;) Now that Walker is nine months old I can say it honestly-although, do I really want to? I thought it would be more meaningful and interesting if I did the last few monthly posts in the form of a letter. So...

Dear Walker,

My sweet, baby boy-we have had you in our lives for nine months now! You bring so much joy to our family and we have loved watching you grow. I could stand for things to slow down a little but I don't reckon I can count on that. You had your nine month well visit yesterday and we are so thankful for a good check up. You now weigh 19 pounds, 15 ounces and are 28 and 3/4 inches long. You have made leaps and bounds in the weight department and are now back up to the 53rd percentile! Your height percentile went down a little to the 62nd and your sweet noggin was 45.7 centimeters, which was in the 68th percentile. You are wearing some nine but mostly 12 month clothes and size 3 diapers.

You are nursing about two or three times a day and drinking Mommy's frozen milk and/or formula two to three times a day. You are nursing great most days but still aren't an easy one to get a bottle down. Thankfully you love "real" food though. You are still eating a little baby food but we are giving you more and more big boy table foods too, especially since you are becoming less of a fan of someone else feeding you. You tried a lot of new big boy foods in the last month, including: cheese, pancakes (so syrup yet, sorry buddy!), waffles, cantaloupe, pineapple, wagon wheels, goldfish, shrimp, black olives, rice, chicken, peas, carrots, green beans and pita bread. When we first tried strawberries last month you refused them but I think it was mostly because you were cranky and ready for a nap because you didn't think twice about them after that. And other than being a little weirded out by the texture of cheese at first, you have gobbled up every single thing we've given you without even thinking twice about it. I really wonder if you even have any taste buds. I think God is showing us His grace with you being so good with big boy foods since we had such a difficult time with milk for so long. I don't think we are going to make it to the one year mark with nursing but I consider it a miracle that we made it this far with all the difficulties you had and occasionally still have with reflux and swallowing liquids. Speaking of, you are still taking Prevacid twice a day. We've tried taking you off twice and it didn't go well. Instead of increasing your dose since you are getting bigger, we are going to keep the same dose and try taking you off again soon.

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You are down to two naps a day unless you doze in the car. Usually your second nap in the afternoon is 2-3 hours long. A few weeks ago we had to make you cry out your once or twice a night waking. We really felt like you had enough weight on you and you'd finally caught a break in the teething department. It only took about four nights and you are now sleeping a solid 12 hours. You go to bed around 7:00 or 7:30 every night. Occasionally when you are really, really tired you will fall asleep nursing or on my shoulder while we are singing and praying. I try so hard to just soak it in-staring at you and studying every little thing about you because I know it won't like this for long.

You still suck your thumb when you are really tired and most of the time you are sleeping. You sometimes take a paci but we really only offer it to you in the car.

You are crawling so fast and pulling up on everything. Thankfully you still like your jumper and exersaucer because sometimes buddy, Mommy's got to go to the bathroom! ;) You moved from the baby room up to the crawler class at church a few weeks ago. This is hard on you because since there is so much going on in there, you don't nap on those sweet old ladies anymore. I'd say getting to ride on the bye-bye buggy helps but it takes a lot to impress you, my little stinker. However, you have been quite impressed with yourself lately for pulling up like such a big boy.

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You love Gray and your favorite time of every day is when he comes in your room with me when you wake up from your nap. I put him in your crib with you and you squeal and bounce up and down as hard as you can. Watching you and your brother play and laugh together makes my heart so happy.

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You have three words now-"bye-bye", "mama" and "dada". You sometimes seem to be making connections now to those words instead of just babbling them. I could listen to your sweet voice all day long.

You love the bath and have starting consistently taking one with brother. You get SO mad every night when we get you out and throw a down right temper tantrum. You also throw a fit when we take something away from you or don't let you have something you want (mean Mama won't let you chew on the baby monitor or my phone). We have started teaching you "no touch" on a few things for safety reasons or the fact that we don't want you tearing up our blinds (your favorite thing to grab and pull on). You respond so well to "no touch" and almost always will stop. I usually say "Good job" or "Yay Walker, good listening!" and then you clap for yourself. But the other day when you obeyed "no touch" you just stared at me for the longest time with your eyebrows scrunched and then started clapping for yourself, as if to let me know I had forgotten to give you praise. You make us laugh, my sweet buddy!

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You have a lot more hair than your brother did at this age. It's starting to really lighten up but I'm not sure you are going to be as blonde as Gray. You and brother have many similarities but mostly differences and you both are so special and perfect to Daddy and me.

Gray/Walker

There has never been a doubt that Gray looks just like Daddy but several months ago people starting wondering if you looked like me. After Mugger found some baby pictures of me there was no doubt. Aunt Barbara sent me this picture of me and I do believe you are a mini-me. I even had the same gap in my baby teeth until the rest of them came in.

I almost cried leaving the doctor yesterday when we scheduled your one year and Gray's three year well visit, but I really do look forward to watching you grow and learn.