Bringing it Home to Bellevue: Jonah: 9 Month Update

Weight: 21 lbs 4 oz (74%)

Length: 29 inches (72%)

Clothes Size: It's time to call it. He's officially in 12 mo clothes now.

Milestones:

-Crawling (sometimes a real crawl but usually an army crawl)

-Maneuvering from sitting to tummy and back up to sitting

-Putting toys away (dropping items back into their storage container)

-Giving high-fives

Crawling toward the camera.

Food:

Jonah continues to love mealtime each day. His current favorite foods include: blueberries, whole grain waffles, veggie burger patties, white beans, plain full-fat Greek yogurt, baked fish and cheese (Havarti and Colby Jack). Plus frequent gulps of water from his sippy cup. When we’re out and about we rely pretty exclusively on the Plum Organics baby food pouches, which I bought in bulk on Amazon for about $1.25 per pouch. They come in combinations like "Kale, Strawberry, Greek Yogurt and Amaranth". Really? Amaranth? I don't even know what that is. But Jonah loves them. He can seriously down one of these pouches in about 3 minutes. No joke. This kid’s serious about his amaranth.

Blueberries and white beans.

My little kitchen helper.

Health:

Well, we finally encountered our first illness episode. I’m surprised we made it this long, honestly. Jonah had had a mild runny nose for a couple weeks, but nothing that interfered with his mood or sleep. But a couple days ago his temperature spiked to 102.5* and he was really fussy so we took him to the doctor. Turns out, it was nothing more than a random virus. His fever was well-controlled by ibuprofen and we continued to use saline drops and a humidifier to ease any congestion. What a trooper, though. Even at his sickest, this sweet boy babbled and smiled and charmed every nurse and doctor in the place.

The Foot Book, indeed.

Favorite Activities:

(1) Using Mom and Dad as scaffolding for climbing and exploring: Jonah will often crawl towards us with excitement, but as soon as he reaches us, he’ll climb up and look past us, or twist around and look back at where he came from. Always looking for greener pastures, this guy. Or, looking for something better to shove in his mouth, more accurately.

(2) Reading: We’ve finally made it to a point where Jonah will focus on a book without trying to chew on it! His (our) favorites: “Night Night, Little Pookie”, “I Love You as Big as the World”, “Little You”, “The LMNO Peas” and Dr. Seuss.

(3) Tickles from Brown Bear during diaper changes: We now have to strategically position toys for Jonah to play with during diaper changes, lest we wrestle his wriggly little body right off the changing pad. Brown Bear is a current favorite. Jonah squeals with delight when he makes an appearance, and then promptly gnaws on his face straight up bath-salts style.

(4) Hugs from Big Bear: Somehow this enormous fuzzy companion made it home with us from Baltimore last month stuffed into a medium sized duffle bag. And good thing he did, because he is one of Jonah’s absolute favorite toys. Big Bear is great for climbing, hugging, wiping drool and, of course, laying on in the early morning when your son wants to play at 5:30am and you still want to sleep.
(5) Wrestling and Rolling-Around with Dad: All of Jake's daddy-dreams have come true: he has a son that loves to wrestle. Well, "wrestle". Jake will hold him and roll around on the floor blowing raspberries on his neck and Jonah giggles and squeals like it's the best thing ever. Which, of course, it is.

Playing with Big Bear.

Blocks!

Bedtime reading with Daddy.

Things I Want to Remember:

Touring the MRH ECC: This month Jonah and I got to visit his future school, the Maplewood-Richmond Heights Early Childhood Center. We are part of the MRH Parents-As-Teachers program and were invited to come for a screening and a “campus tour”. For the screening, Jonah played on the floor while the PAT teacher and I talked and she observed his development. As we suspected (but of course were reassured to hear from an expert), Jonah is perfectly on track developmentally and even ahead of the game in certain aspects. It’s funny how proud I was of even the smallest “achievements”. Teacher: “I see he’s moving toys from one hand to the other.” Me: “I know. Isn’t it amazing?”

Then she walked us around the campus and explained the school’s teaching philosophy and some of its innovative programs. It was so exciting to experience first hand some of the newest ideas in education. The curriculum is similar to the Reggio Emilia philosophy, where school is seen as a “studio” and instruction is inquiry based and child-directed. Even the physical space of the school was refreshing: light, open, exploratory and largely created by the students themselves. Its no wonder the school has won so many awards. I can’t wait to send Jonah here in a couple years!