Thane at 9 months

I took Thane to his 9 month checkup last week. He doesn’t actually turn 9 months old for another 6 days, so I’m splitting the difference here.

To sum up the stats, Thane is tall, medium weight and right on target.

His weight is 19lbs 12oz (50th percentile). This increases to roughly 90 pounds when he falls asleep.
His height is 29 inches (80th percentile)
His head circumference (which I’ve never figured out why I care about) is 18 inches (70th percentile)

So far so good.

Thane has totally taken off. He’s a very speedy crawler. He easily pulls up to standing on flimsier and flimsier props. He knows how to get back down from standing (this is not always obvious to children). He can climb up stairs and down steps. He is very, very strong. He is morally opposed to lying quietly while having his diaper changed and twists his body with amazing strength.

Thane is also at the “huh, wonder what this tastes like?” stage. The other afternoon, I noticed he was chewing on something in the front yard. The “something” happened to be the treated, dyed mulch I had proudly put out on my flower beds. There go those 1000 brain cells. The next morning, it was a foam dinosaur sticker he found on the floor. While we were camping, in the shallows he’d pick up fistfuls of sandy lake muck and attempt to ingest them. The thing is, we’re not lacking for vigilance! He is just faster than we are, with preternatural spidey senses for finding overlooked objects with which to freak out the grownups in his life.

Foodwise, this is becoming a blessing. A child who happily masticates beauty bark will also make a manful attempt on cucumber. The preternatural skill for gnawing on various of his brothers toys also extends to Cheerios, blueberries and little mini-bagel things. I’m on a push to have him eat up the last of his babyfoods, because unless he’s STARVING TO DEATH (which, well, is not infrequent) he’d much rather feed himself than be fed. But man, that kid is messy. I think he saves food for later by throwing it on the floor. Rubbing your eyes is a BAAAAAD idea when the meal was chili and you insist on crushing it in your tiny fist. The prophylactic 3 oz of prune juice he gets a night darken his cute dinosaur onesies like the blood of his victims. (On the very plus side, the prune juice is working! The, er, issues he was having are much improved.)

So downside: puts everything he can reach in his mouth. Upside: puts everything he is served in his mouth.

The next two milestones on the list are talking and walking — probably the biggest two. For a while I thought he might walk in a week and a half — at grandma’s house. It only seems fair since he first crawled at OTHER grandma’s house. Now I think he’s going to need to work harder on cruising and standing before he’ll get to walking. He’s certainly strong enough, but he hasn’t made enough progress on balance. I’m almost certain he’ll be walking (God help us all) before his 10 month update.

Talking he is working on. “Da da” seems to mean, “Hey, you there. Person who can do stuff for me.” Grey is greatly affronted that Thane thinks he is “Da da”. I’m working on teaching him “Ma ma” but he just replies back, more intentionally and tentatively, “Da da?”

Grey has settled on a nickname for his sibling. I have started a therapy fund for my youngest. I suppose that there are worse nicknames than “Thaney-Waney”. I just hope it doesn’t stick.

Thane is an interesting combination of unutterably patient and demanding. If you keep changing the scene, he’s incredibly patient. He’ll sit in his stroller for a long time while there are people doing interesting things or if the stroller is moving. (He spent a lot of the time we were camping in his stroller. See also: puts everything he finds in his mouth.) He misses naps and is subjected to relatively gruelling days (doing things like swimming and hiking), without a murmur. Long car rides are a cinch, compared to what they were with a similarly young Grey. But once he gets bored. Hoo boy. He lets you know that he isn’t happy and you better change something, stat.

His sleep patterns are relatively regular right now. He goes to bed between 7:30 and 8, after having eaten a dinner of solid foods and consumed his 3 oz of prune juice. He absolutely ADORES books and will sit very quietly and attentively in your lap while you read to him. He generally goes to sleep quickly and quietly on his belly in his crib. Between 10 and 11 pm he’ll wake up or we’ll wake him up for a nursing session before bed. Around 4 he wakes again to be fed. At 6:30 or so he’s up for the morning. Grey gets up at the same time every morning. My poor husband, who gets most of the morning duty, is VERY TIRED. Grey can be placated with Avatar: The Last Airbender. Thane? Not so much.

Thane is still very grabby, although it’s fading. I haven’t worn a necklace in about 3 months, after he broke two of them with his wily ways. He has a tendency to have razor sharp claws that can do serious damage to noses, and he’s not afraid to use them. “Gentle” has not been a concept he’s learned yet.

Thane is boisterously energetic. One of his favorite things to do is play “tag” with Grey, as Grey runs back and forth and Thane lumbers happily after him. Those two boys love each other. In fact, Grey will try to wake Thane up on car rides because he wants to play with Thane. (I frown on this.) Thane takes it with good grace, although he’s a heavier sleeper than Grey was. Sometimes when I go to lunch, Thane will be fast asleep in his crib in a room full of exuberant kids.

I think I have started to see glimpses of Thane’s face — the one he’ll have when the babyfat is gone and his features stand defined. I think he’ll be handsome. I think he’ll look a lot like his father, although he may have my cheeks. I’m not really ready for it. I’ve enjoyed Thane’s babyhood so much, I am not eager to progress towards boyhood at such a quick clip.

Ah well. You cannot hold back time. And it is a joy to watch my son grow in health and strength, even if wisdom seems to be a lagging indicator.