Merrick at 9 Months

Merrick is nine months old today! He had made a lot of changes over the last month, most notably that he is now totally mobile. At his checkup today, he weighed 19 pounds, 7 ounces and was almost 29 inches long.

Personality: Merrick is such a happy baby and has a cute sense of humor already. When I am changing him on our bed, he likes to pull my pillow over his face and then push it off and play peek-a-boo. He thinks he is so funny when he does that. He also loves to laugh and be tickled.

He can also be really mellow and is quite content playing on his own or observing the world around him. Just look at him kicking back as we strolled through the aisles of Target...

While the girls played at the park after one of our afternoon walks, Merrick just sat there contentedly, hands folded like a little old man! We've been really pleased that he has no problem being apart from us when he is in the church nursery on Sundays.

Moving: Merrick started getting up on all fours at the end of October, and in the first week of November, he started coordinating his movement and crawling a little bit. This was actually more like up on all fours, flopping forward, then scooting. The last few days, he has perfected his army crawl and is really fast! He can get pretty much anywhere he wants to go. These pictures of him crawling behind the loveseat reminded me of when Karamea was exploring our new house three years ago....

He is also getting quite good at baby yoga (just like his sister Kaylee was), and can now get into a sitting position on his own.

Sleeping: He goes to sleep between 7:30 and 9 p.m., depending on the day's activities and our schedule, and normally wakes up between 1:30 and 3:30 a.m., but instead of automatically feeding him, we just check on him, change his diaper if necessary, give him the pacifier and let him cry for a little bit (5-15 minutes) and get back to sleep on his own. Sometimes he doesn't wake at all, but he has been teething, and hasn't been sleeping as well recently. I usually feed him in the morning before I leave at 6:45, and he goes back to sleep until 7:30 or 8. He gets short cat naps in his car seat as Mark and the kids are out on their errands in the morning, and then naps for a few hours in the afternoon from about 2 - 4:30 p.m.

Eating: He loves finger foods! (gerber puffs, small chunks of cooked sweet potato, banana, peas, chunks of frozen blueberries) His appetite has grown a lot lately (perhaps for an oncoming growth spurt?) and he gets a lot more variety in his pureed foods: mango, apricot, strawberry, quinoa, cauliflower, peas, carrots, broccoli, chicken, yogurt, in addition to all that he had been eating already.

Teeth: He got his fifth tooth and number six is almost there. He only has two on the bottom and all of the others are on top, which is a different order than the girls.

Sounds: He still rolls his r's, whether he is happy or upset. He also babbles mama, dada, and baba.

Favorites: He loves Kaylee's hyper-activty and gets excited when he sees her. He is really happy to see any family member, actually. He loves crawling under the coffee table, playing with balls, cars, and likes to pull over the basket we keep the Little People toys in.

Merrick is such a natural fit for our family and it is hard to believe that he's only been with us for nine months! We're excited to celebrate his first Thanksgiving in a couple of days and to spend time together with the extended family. We hope you have a very happy Thanksgiving too and that you have much to be thankful for.