Timmy at 9 months

Timmy has, for the most part, adopted his sisters' routine.  He wakes up in the morning at around 7 or 7:30.  He usually has a morning nap between 9 and 10, and then he has story time and nap time along with Annie at around 1.  He may or may not have a late afternoon nap for about an hour.  He joins his sisters for bath and story, and goes to bed around 7 or 7:30.  He nurses every two to three hours throughout the day, not at any set times.

Getting sleepy

Getting him to go to sleep has never been a problem.  From the time he was weeks old, I just lay him down in his bed and leave.  But for most of this month -- and most of his life -- he's been waking up at around 10 to eat (so I feed him and go to bed), and then again at around 2 and 5.  Or 1 and 4.  When I posted my Day in the Life, I mentioned how well he slept that night.  For the next two nights he's done the same thing, nursing right around when I go to bed at 10, and then sleeping until around 7:30.  I have no idea if he'll stick with this schedule, but I'm enjoying it while it lasts!  I know that even if he goes back to his old ways, this is all a temporary stage.  The girls went through something similar at around his age, and they were solid sleepers within a few months.

What makes the sleep deprivation bearable is having Tim be here to get up with the girls in the morning and make their oatmeal, oversee them brushing their teeth and getting their beds made, etc.  I know he also enjoys the time with them since he has to work long days, and is lucky if he's home on time to eat dinner with us.  So he does all that and leaves, and then I wake up when Timmy wakes up for the day,  usually around 7:30.  Tim also helps out a ton on the weekends.  He gets up with all the kids and lets me sleep in until 9, or even 9:30 on Saturday and Sunday.  I feel like a million bucks when I get some rest.  When Mama's happy, everyone's happy.

He also takes the kids out sometimes, leaving me to to enjoy the peace and quiet.  He recently took all three of them to the commissary, and while I know this is getting away from the subject of just Timmy, I have to share what he told me when he got home.  He told me that as he was pushing the girls in the cart and carrying Timmy in the Ergo, he saw a woman who was there with a friend.  He overheard her talking about her kids, and how hard it is to schedule things when you have kids, something to that effect.  They kept passing each other in the aisles until finally the woman walked up to Tim and said, "Are you alone here?"  Oh my goodness, it's an unsupervised man with three little kids!  He replied, "If you mean, is my wife here, then no."  She then said something like, "Wow, I'm impressed you'd come here by yourself with all these kids."  That made me laugh.  What's the matter, is your big tough Marine scared of a commissary trip with three small children?  And yet, it is true that a man alone with his kids is a rare sight.  I always assume he's divorced and has them for the weekend.  Sad.  But I did get a kick out of that story.

Isn't your wife around here somewhere?

Timmy has always been a cheerful baby, but Tim and I have both noticed that he's happier than ever before.  The fussy period of late afternoon that I mentioned last month has disappeared.  I rarely put Timmy in the carrier around the house anymore.  He is happy to roam.  He likes to peek around the furniture, and laugh when he finds me.  He'll sit with one of the girls' hair things, wave it around and talk noisy gibberish, full of high-pitched shrieks and babbling.  I think it's because he's gotten really good at crawling and is enjoying his independence.  Now he might come over to me, and I'll pick him up for a kiss and hug, put him back down, and he's off again.  And of course, he has me at his beck and call all night long, so what is there not to be happy about in Timmy's world?

Silly Mama, I'm not keeping this hat on!

He is already learning how to stir up trouble.  Riding in the car, he yells again and again just to hear the sound.  Annie cries and says, "I don't like that sound!  It's too loud!"  I turn up the radio and it doesn't help.  Timmy yells.  Annie yells, which only encourages him to yell more.  Delaney joins in because she thinks it's funny.  I turn the radio up again, and it's a cacophony.  Then one day, as we rolled along at 60+ miles an hour and the noise inside the car reached a fever pitch, I put the two front windows down, and everyone was so surprised they all shut up.  Ahh..

I took him to the pediatrician today for his checkup.  He weighed in at 19 pounds 11 ounces, and he's 28 1/4 inches long.  He is still right in the middle of the pack size-wise.  She asked me a bunch of questions about him, such as, does he pull up on furniture?  Yes.  Does he cruise?  No.  Does he use his thumb and index finger to grab things?  Yes.  Does he say, "Mamama" or "Dadadada"?  He says a lot of consonant sounds, but his favorite lately is "Mama.":)  She noticed that he didn't freak out when she began to examine him on the table.  "Any stranger anxiety yet?"  I told her I haven't noticed any -- he still seems to like people.  She didn't say anything.  I'm sure stranger anxiety is an early marker of developing intelligence or something, according to experts.  Don't worry, Timmy, I still think you're smart.

He sucks his thumb a lot, especially when he's tired.  He's my only thumbsucker.  None of the three have ever taken pacifiers either, even though I tried to give them to the girls.  The good thing about thumb-sucking vs. a pacifier is, you can't lose your thumb, it's always attached.  The bad thing about it is, it's always attached, and it will probably be a harder habit to break than a pacifier would be.  But it is so cute!

We love our little guy!