Sunday, February 25, 2007

9 months

Tobin turned 9 months old a week ago today. At his doctor's appointment this past week, his measurements were:
Weight: 23 lbs. 7 oz. (85th percentile)
Length: 28.5 inches (60th percentile)
Head circumference: 18.75 inches (95th percentile)
Physically, Tobin is doing so well. By the way, the percentiles are more of the interesting-but-not-terribly-important variety of information. In the past 2-3 weeks, he's started crawling in a coordinated, increasingly efficient manner. I get a kick out of him crawling from the living room to find me in the kitchen, with his dad proudly following behind him. Crawling was such a gradual sort of thing. I guess if we were to pinpoint when he made his successful, purposeful propulsion forward, it was Super Bowl Sunday & was very ungraceful but adorable--looked a lot like the movement of an inchworm. But before that, he was moving well on the floor, rolling and scooting backwards & sideways. Now, he is crawling in the classical sense. It's truly amazing for us to see. Such are the wonders of parenthood.

Other exciting developments have come in the eating department. Tobin eats fruit (apples, bananas, pears, peaches, raspberries, apricots, plums/prunes) & vegetable (sweet potatoes, carrots, green beans, peas, squash, corn) purees, yogurt (whole milk plain), lentils, rice, oatmeal, Cheerios, & Gerber Puffs. We're working on introducing more proteins & varied textures this month. We try to feed him organic food whenever possible. And we're trying to hold off on added sugars as long as we can--hence the plain yogurt, which we usually mix with his fruits or veggies but he will eat plain as well. I'm still breastfeeding him & plan to do so until he's at least a year. In the last month, it's been a struggle to get him to take his bottles at school during the day, but he still nurses well with me in the evenings & on the weekends, so we're not too concerned. We've introduced a couple of ounces of fruit juice in a sippy cup in an effort to make sure he's getting enough fluids while he's away from me. Most of his solid food feeding is still accomplished with us feeding him with a spoon, but he's able to pick up small pieces of dry cereal & get most of the pieces to his mouth & actually eat them--although he'd just as soon drop them on the floor for Hannah. He giggles when she eats them, of course.

Although he exhibits some stranger & separation anxiety now & then, Tobin remains very laid back and happy. He enjoys crawling & playing on the floor with his friends at school. Most days, he hardly pays attention to me when I leave to go to work because he is already engaged in playing with another child or a toy. This weekend, we took Tobin to his first high school baseball game (a Riverside scrimmage) & he sat in his stroller or in his dad's arms, taking it all in & smiling for strangers. Then tonight, we were at some friends' baby shower & he did wonderfully, even when we kept him out a little past his bedtime. These are just a couple of examples of how incredibly flexible & friendly he is.

So that's the latest on our big boy. We'll try to do a better job of posting more regularly than we did this month. But life is busy busy for us. Busy and wonderful.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Snow Day [the illustrated version]

Allison's post below describes today well. I'll attempt to do it with pictures. It started with pancakes and coffee.Even Hannah got a pancake.Then everybody headed outside to see the snow. All of us were excited.Well, almost all of us.Tobin got to walk around with Mom. . .
happy snow day!
and with Dad. . .
boys braving the elements . . .
then went back inside to get warm again: rosy cheeks, Dad's hat, and all.
wearing dad's hat
Finally, punctuated with a nap.
Although it wasn't the heaviest snow ever, it's officially my favorite snow day ever.

Snow day

We're enjoying a nice morning at home because it's snowing right now. It's the best kind of snow day because Matt & I both found out we didn't have to go into work today yesterday afternoon, even though the snow didn't start until almost 8 this morning. So we slept in (?) until 6:30. I made pancakes & an extra large pot of coffee. Tobin & Matt are watching the Discovery Channel (something about cars), & I think we're about to go take some pictures in the snow. We'll post some of those photos later.