9 Months Old Today!

Today Seth is 9 months old.  I can't believe he's 3 months away from his 1st birthday!  It's flown by and really, time since both boys have been born has flown by.  Seth is such a little sweetie pie and we treasure all the little moments we can.  Seth is our last baby....so we need to soak it all up before babyhood is gone.  Some things that Seth is up to these days:

• Weighs 17 lbs 6 ounces 
• Is 26.75 inches in height
• Is scooting around on the floor and rolling anywhere he wants to go.  Is consciously moving around on the floor to get to toys.  Crawling won't be far away.  He can get up on his knees and stick his bottom up in the air too.  Another sign crawling won't be long.
• He's a handsie little thing.  He likes to grab, touch, feel, reach, pull, and lean towards just about anything he can get his little paws on.  He might beat Ryan in that department (which kinda scares me a little).  We have 2 kids that like to touch EVERYTHING.  And I mean EVERYTHING. 
• This week his 2 bottom teeth have just started to poke through.  He's drooling everywhere so I know it's the teeth.  He doesn't seem to feel bad from the teething so that's good.  Ryan was like that too.  The only teeth that seemed to bother Ryan were his molars when all 4 came in at once.  We'll see about Seth. 
• Seth LOVES Ryan (and the feeling is mutual).  Whenever Ryan is around Seth has his eyes on him.  They both love each other so much.   It's precious and I'm so grateful for Ryan not being jealous of Seth. 
• He is napping twice a day: one nap at 9am and the other at 1pm
• His bedtime is usually around 6:45/7
• He's eating solids like a champ.  He is still eating baby food because that's where he gets most of his calories but he like to eat lots of pickup foods too.  Some things we've had success with:  cubes of carrots, apples, bananas, avocado, watermelon, sweet potato and bites of meatloaf and squash & onions. And of course the normal puffs, mum mums, and cheerios, etc.
• He weaned himself about a week ago.  His choice, not mine.  We're not sure what happened but something has changed for him and since then he has decided he doesn't want to drink much.  He's only drinking about 8-12 ounces of milk during the day and has started to digress and wake up between 10:30-12am for a dreamfeed because he's starving.  He sucks down 4-5 ounces of milk and goes back to bed.  We were totally past this stage and he has been sleeping through the night since he was 6 months old, but here we are....back doing a dreamfeed since he won't eat during the day.  We went to his pediatric GI doc today and basically no one has any answers to his crazy eating/drinking habits.  He was born eating crazy and it got better but now we're back to it being crazy.  He fights and fights a bottle at times.  And once he's made up his mind he's not going to drink it....you can FORGET.IT.  He will wear you out and absolutely refuse.  It's so frustrating for an otherwise healthy child to refuse to drink.  We started a new medication regimen yesterday so let's hope it helps.  (prevacid and milk of magnesium)
• Seth is such a chill baby.  People tell me this all the time.  He's so happy and never fussy and is overall a very content baby.  He is very laid back and I love that about his little personality.  (He must get this from Daddy)  :)
• He has a passy but we only use it in the bed.  It's rare if he gets it otherwise.  I really don't want him to "need" it any time other than bed time so we quit offering it to him outside of the bed once he was no longer colicky.  We may give it to him if he's fussy but it is only generally a sleep prop for us.  He can take it in and out of his mouth and has been able to that for some time now so if he wants one, he can just grab one and put it in his mouth.  (We usually leave about 3 in his bed scattered about)
• People tell us that he looks like Lee.  Neither one of us see it--I'm not saying that he doesn't look like Lee but I just can't see either of us distinctly in him.  If anything I see Ryan in him.  What do you think?
• We're not sure what color hair he's going to have.  He's definitely not a blondie like Ryan was but he's not totally brown headed either.  There's some really light brown hair plus some really light blonde hair too.  The curl is starting to form in the back also.  I can't wait to see how it's going to look when it really starts growing!!
• Seth has the best grin but he also has a serious side.  He can give you a very serious look and not crack a smile sometimes.  It's funny. Some of these pictures are him with a semi-serious look.  Mouth open, drool coming down.

Seth is teething and he chews on his fingers so that's what he's doing in the picture below.  He doesn't suck his thumb.  David's kiddos have all sucked their thumbs.  Let's hope Coker Baby #4 doesn't suck her thumb!!  They've had lots of struggles getting rid of the thumb sucking and I know it's so hard for them and the kids. Maybe she'll take a passy instead of her thumb.  Let's hope!