Nine months

From Hollands at Home

I took the above picture on Tuesday, when Max turned nine months old. Today, we celebrated by going to the doctor's office for a checkup. The doctor celebrated by helping with an emergency C-Section at 7:30 a.m., which made him a tad late for our 8:30 appointment and in a hurry to move on to the rest of his day. So here's the quick rundown:

Max is 2 foot 4 (OK, 28 inches, but it sounds funnier if you give it as a real height) and about 16 1/2 pounds. His melon is 18 inches around. The doctor seemed to think Max is a little on the skinny side, which he wouldn't if he had to carry him around all damn day like Kristie and I do. He also suggested Max should be up to 8-ounce bottles by now (as opposed to 5-ounce drinks), which he wouldn't if he had to follow him around after every feeding to wipe up baby spew.

Since Max drops anchor about thrice daily and has cut drastically back on the chunk blowing, I'm pretty satisfied with the intake-output ratio. Still, we gave him some larger bottles today without any adverse side effects. Yet. He still gets fruit and cereal twice daily (and this week, out of necessity born of poor parental planning, happily tried oatmeal cereal and Dutch apple dessert instead of the usual rice cereal and apples or pears) and, if we're bold enough, may begin vegetables. All previous attempts at green food have been met with unhappy Moose faces.

The doctor also suggested a vitamin, though I'm not super sure why. Jack was never on any vitamins, and I'm pretty satisfied with him thus far. Whereas Jack had a tooth by this point in his life, Max is still working on that development. I don't see it as imminent, but it certainly should happen by Jan. 2.

So there you have it. We have kept our children alive a total of 64 months and change, which I think is commendable, not to mention the fact we're still happily married despite living with two boys who (warning: massive understatement approaching) can try our patience every now and then.

Thanks to everyone who keeps checking up on us via the blog. We appreciate your interest, comments and caring.