9 months!

Time sure flies... I can't believe we'll be singing "happy birthday" to Anderson in 3 months!

We had his 9-month check up this morning, and we were blessed with another healthy report.  Anderson is still teeny tiny (especially compared to his brother), but the doctor again just confirmed that his size proves that he's very active and has a high metabolism.  

• weight: 18lbs 10oz (25%) 
• length: 27.5 in. (25%)

I looked up Camden's stats at 9 months and he was 21 lbs, 28.5 inches.  He's been in the 70th percentile pretty much his whole life.  It's crazy how siblings can be so different!

Here's what Anderson is up to right now:

• Still taking two naps a day, although they always vary in length.  One day, his afternoon nap will be 2.5 hours, the next day it will be 45 minutes.  This can be frustrating, for sure! I think I have discovered the trick though... I can only let him nap 1 hour (max) in the morning, then wait at least three hours to put him down for his afternoon nap.  This seems to be working pretty well so far to get him to sleep longer in the afternoon. 
• Anderson had a pretty bad cold a couple of weeks ago, which really messed up his sleeping and his eating.  He would wake up only an hour or so after he went to bed at night, and would cry for an hour sometimes.  I tried going in his room to rock him, but as soon as I laid him down again he would freak out.  So, I would just suction his nose out (which he hates!!!), give him some tylenol, and leave the room.  I just decided he needed to cry it out so he would learn to soothe himself back to sleep.  He also was refusing to eat baby food (which I mentioned in one of my earlier posts).  Luckily, he's back to eating wonderfully.  
• His favorite foods are squash, cauliflower, sweet potatoes, cantaloupe, pears, applesauce, blueberries, apricots, and pineapple.  He likes green beans, peas, broccoli, carrots, and bananas... but those often need to be mixed with other things for him to really them well. He LOVES cheerios, too.  I make sure to have a bag of them in my diaper bag at all times.  If we are in a restaurant or somewhere out and he starts to get fussy/bored... cheerios are an instant fix.  I am still loving making his food, and I think I'll be a little bummed when I don't have to do it anymore!  
• He's crawling at full speed, and is cruising all along furniture and tables.  He has started using a push toy that encourages walking, and he really enjoys it.  The doctor said he think Anderson will be an early walker, but we'll see! 
• He is definitely becoming much more vocal lately.  He's gotten real good at saying "dada", and will often say it if I ask him to. The other day, I think he might have been trying to say "eat", because we were sitting at the table while I was feeding him, and I kept saying "do you want to eat?", and he kept making a "t" sound while looking at me with a very focused face.  Was he really saying it? Who knows.
• He will clap if I say "yay!!!", and has started patting his mouth to make an indian sound.  He will often imitate what one of us does as long as it's a pretty simple gesture like raising our hands in the air or patting the table.
• The only toys he is interested in right now are either NOT toys at all, or Camden's things.  We have a whole basket in the living room of baby toys, and he just has no interest!  If he could talk, he'd probably tell me he's wayyyy beyond those baby toys. :)  He loves crawling under the table and through the chairs, loves books, and like I said, anything of Camden's. The toy he wants the most is the one Camden is playing with at the time... and he'll go try to snatch it right out of his hands.  Typical brother stuff... I better get used to it! ;)
• Anderson has really shown no stranger anxiety yet.  The doctor said that it was pretty unusual at this age to be completely fine with someone coming up and touching him and getting close to him.  He has started to cry when we leave him in the church nursery, though. :(

We are enjoying this little boy SO much, and Camden adores him to death.   The next Anderson update will be around his 1st birthday! Ahhh!