Monday, August 8, 2011

Anderson update

The last post was supposed to be about both of the boys, but I ran out of time and it just ended up being about Nathan. This time it will be about my baby Anderson :)

Anderson is a really great baby! He doesn't fuss much and puts up with a lot (from his brother). It used to take a lot to get him to laugh, but that has gotten much easier these days. He is pretty calm and has a great temperament. A lot has happened for this little guy since the last time I posted. It amazes me how quick he is growing up and how fast he has changed and learned new things. He is not looking much like a baby anymore and it is a little sad to see that, but I do love this new stage!

First, at his 9 month appointment here were his stats:
weight: 21 lbs 5 oz (50th%)
height: 28 1/2" (50th%)

He is starting to level off with his weight. He always used to be a chunker, but now that he is moving a lot the weight isn't coming on as much. He still weighs more and is taller than what Nathan was at this age. Everything else is looking really great for him. The one thing that we have to work on is his sleep, which I will get to a little later.

I should call Anderson Mr. Teeth, because he now has six teeth! He got his first two teeth at five months and then his top four front teeth all came in at nine months. It was two weeks of those four teeth coming in. It is funny because it took four months for Anderson's second group of teeth to come in, which was the same amount of time it took Nathan's second group of teeth to come in, but Anderson's teeth have come in four months sooner. Nathan didn't get his first teeth until he was nine months. Now that he has some teeth he has some great smiles that we get to see. He also likes to bite my arm when I am holding him, which hurts! He has yet to bite me when I am breastfeeding him (I better go knock on some wood!).

Anderson is just like his brother, mother, and father in the fact that he LOVES to eat! I guess when both sides of the family have the "I love to eat gene" the kids will get it too. Joe's O's (Trader Joe's version of Cheerios) are Anderson's favorite! Well, when he is a little fussy these seem to calm him down. I give him a lot of foods chopped up because it is easy to do. He is pretty good at eating the chunky stuff. I still give him lots of pureed baby food, which I buy because I am too busy and tired to make it for him. I do buy the organic stuff, which makes me feel a little better.

Anderson is now a mover and a shaker! He had started getting up on all fours and would rock back and forth, but it wasn't until he turned nine months where he moved both knees and hands to do the crawling motion. Within a week he was cruising! He is now ten months and he is always on the go. He has an interesting crawl in that he always pushes off with his right foot and uses his left knee (I'll try to post videos later this week). He started pulling up before he was crawling, but that is now his favorite thing to do and he does it so well and so fast. We put him on the ground and he will find any surface to use to pull himself up. He has even been able to stand for about one second without holding onto anything.

Anderson also started clapping! His clap is the cutest thing! Whenever we say "yay!" He will start clapping. Nathan really enjoys making Anderson clap and he will show Anderson how to clap. I love seeing moments like this.

Anderson is starting to look more like Nathan to me. When I look at pictures of Nathan at Anderson's age they look more similar to me than when they were younger. I think that they have the same smile, which is a great one! Anderson's hair is a light brown and there are some blonde streaks in there. I am not sure if it will end up turning blonde like Nathan's or if it will just get a little lighter. It does appear that he will have my big brown eyes!

Anderson's sleeping is getting better. We moved him into his own room and would put him down in his crib for nap time and for bed time. His naps were only about 1/2 our long and he would wake up for the first time at around 10:30pm after we put him to bed. At that time we would bring him into bed with us and I would nurse him back to sleep. I wasn't sleeping good and we decided to do some sleep training. We would let him cry it out and if patting him and rubbing his back didn't work I would go in and breastfeed him because that always calmed him down. At his nine month appointment the Ped told us that he is old enough now to not need any feedings during the middle of the night. With that being told to us I stopped feeding him and bringing him to bed. He has had some bad nights, but he has had more good. There have now been more times where he is sleeping through the night. If he wakes up early (5-6am) I will just get him and bring him into bed. His naps are also getting longer with them averaging about an hour and the other day he took a three hour nap!!!! It is nice having him sleep well, but we still have our toddler who gets into bed with us during the middle of the night.

Here are some pictures of the little man. I have to upload a bunch of the more recent ones, which I will post sometime this week!