Levi at 9 months

I always think the newest monthly picture is my favorite, but this one really is my favorite :)

Yesterday at the doctor Levi weighed in at 18 lbs 12 oz (23%) and measured 27.5 inches long (25%). All of his long sleeved clothes are 9 months and I still put him in those because I don't want to buy a whole new cold weather wardrobe, but all of his new spring/summer clothes are 12 month and fit him much better. He wears size 3 diapers and just got his first pair of shoes, size 3.

He is trying to drop his third nap but it has been a slow process. Most of the time he takes 2 naps now, around 9 and 1:30 with a 7:00 bedtime. Every few days he might take 3 naps and go to bed around 7:30 or 7:45. He still sleeps in his sleep suit but that will be changing very soon. He has been trying to roll over in it for the past couple of days and finally did it yesterday before nap.

Levi had another double ear infection this month. He had a runny nose one week with a tiny bit of fussiness (but with Levi it's hard to tell normal fussiness from sick fussiness). I kept checking for fever but he never had one. Then one Monday he woke up with dried blood all inside his ear from scratching at it all night and we went straight to the doctor. Double ear infection. We went back that Thursday since that was a long Easter weekend and one ear had cleared but the bad one did not. Our pediatrician switched his antibiotic and by the following week I was pretty sure it still hadn't cleared up based on his high level of crankiness. I called back and we decided to finish that round of antibiotics and recheck yesterday at his 9 month appointment. Both ears looked "not great" and she said if our ears looked like that we would be cranky too. We are doing another round of antibiotics and we got a referral to an ENT. He still isn't babbling, which doesn't concern me by itself because Isaac was a late babbler and once he started picked up his verbal skills very quickly, but combined with these ear infections, she wanted to get a hearing evaluation. I'm actually thrilled to be seeing an ENT and hope we get all of this cleared up ASAP.

Separation anxiety is high right now. Levi wants to be touching me every minute that he's awake. He has even started crying when I put him down for naps, which never happened before. It only lasts for a minute or less, but it breaks my heart.

I've been anxious for Levi to crawl for a couple of months, and now that he's finally on the move I'm realizing that he's not going to slow down...ever. Now we're back to babyproofing, back to thinking about things from his viewpoint. Ooh, that cord looks like fun to pull on, until the hairdryer falls on your head. No, it hasn't happened, but I think about things like that all the time now. He started moving on Friday the 18th. It started as more of a scoot than a crawl. He put one knee on the ground and pushed off with the other foot straight out behind him (which I will add I always had a feeling this is how he would crawl, I could just tell). He will occasionally crawl on both knees but usually for now it's one knee and one foot. He's still slow but gaining speed every day.

I have seen him cruise along furniture very slowly but he chooses not to most of the time. I'm sure by next month he'll be doing this regularly.

Levi's favorite book is Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? followed closely by Cat, by Matthew Van Fleet. He giggles away while looking at all of the cats. He loves this gumball machine that was Isaac's. He has finally figured out how to push the handle and make the gumballs come out, but he doesn't know how to put them back in, so we spend lots of time with me loading the gumballs in as fast as he drops them out.

The nurse at our pediatrician is also Levi's Sunday school teacher and she commented today that when he laughs, he laughs with his whole body. He can be so happy and shine joy, but we've not seen much of that this month. I hope our little guy feels better soon so we can see more of his real personality shine through.