Tucker's Ninth Month

Tucker went for his 9 month check up yesterday. Tomorrow he will be 10 months old. He is 30" long which put him in the 87th percentile. His head is 18 and 3/4" which puts his giant noggin in the 93rd percentile and he weighs 21 pounds and one ounce which puts him in the 47th percentile for weight.

We are working on signs. I sign to him mostly when he is eating and in the highchair contained. I sign for milk, more, eat, and thank you. This morning I loaded him back in his car seat after we dropped off Madeline and I said- do you want to go home and get some milk? And he signed for milk! It looks more like "roll it" from patty cake then it does milk but every time I say milk he makes the same motion so I think he really is signing.

He loves to give kisses. In the mornings after we have dropped off Madeline and had breakfast we play for an hour or so and I always get out this little Dora puppet of Madeline's and ask Tucker to give it hugs and kisses. He slobbers all over Dora hugging and kissing her. We usually have The View on and whenever the audience claps he claps too.

I don't know if I have mentioned it but he barks with the dog. He loves Sasha. Whenever he hears her barking he crawls as fast as he can to the back door to stand and look out barking at whatever she is barking at. Tyler and I always thought it would be a good social experiment to turn our kids out to be raised by the dog so they could be "free range children." Looks like it won't be necessary for Tucker. He already thinks he's a dog.

He has started letting go of whatever he is holding on to when he is standing and standing on his own for a couple of seconds. He stands and then will lower himself down to crawl so easy and carefully.

He tears through Madeline's room at any given opportunity with wild abandon. He loves to grab her things and throw them or crumple them or rub them on his face and toss them aside. He is possessed when he is in there- like he knows it is so forbidden and he just can't get to everything fast enough before he gets caught or kicked out by his sister.

He thinks "no" is hilarious. He grabs at wires and plugs and when I say "no" he turns around to look at me and laughs so hard before turning around again to do exactly what I just told him not to. Madeline was so easy. I could say no in a loud tone one time and then she wouldn't do whatever it was that she had been doing. She would crawl to outlets and point to them saying "na na, na na," and never touch them.

We have moved over almost exclusively to formula. When I was pregnant my milk supply dropped dramatically and I was asked to wean Tucker. After I lost the baby my milk came back but still not enough to satisfy him. He was crying at night and having a hard time going to sleep so I started giving him a bottle in addition to nursing him. We went from 4 ounces to 8 ounces and I bet now he is taking around 16 ounces of formula or more daily. Once your brain starts to think in ounces it is hard to go back to breast feeding uncertainty. You never know how much milk they are getting when nursing and I have never felt secure in my supply so I am content to give him formula and feed him whatever milk I have until his first birthday. Which is two months away. Crazy.

He is so healthy and strong and we are so fortunate and blessed.