Matthew: Ten Months!

I spy a little something white in his mouth! 

Height/Weight: Thanks to an unplanned doctor's visit a few days after he was 10 months old (thankyouverymuch teething and/thrush for the intense nursing problems), I can pretty accurately say that his weight is up to 19lbs 7oz, which is almost a full pound heavier than he was at nine months. Some people might think the numbers are inaccurate, especially considering they used a different scale than they normally do, but I say that if you watch this kid eat for even just one meal you wouldn't doubt that weight gain in the least. They didn't check his height, though, but if I had to guess I would say it hasn't increased at quite the same rate because I haven't really noticed issues with his pants being too short all of the sudden.

Wearing: Still going strong in the size three diapers. I could probably move him up to size four diapers without any issues, but I just bought another large box of size three (because they were more economical than the size four!), so at the very least he'll be wearing those until they are gone. He's still hanging out in between 6-9 and 9-12 month clothing, although there has been more than one occasion as of late where I've put him in a 6-9 month outfit and deemed it his "last go" in that outfit, so I think the days of 6-9 month clothing are slowly becoming numbered. 

Eating: Well. If there was ever any doubt that I was going to need to go back to work at some point to pay for the grocery bill for this house, this kid has pretty much sealed that deal. He has started to exclusively eat what we are eating for dinner, and for the most part eats whatever leftovers are in the fridge for lunch, and he LOVES it. All of it. On more than one occasion Darrell has diced up his food for dinner thinking that he's also diced up enough for there to be a lunch portion for Matthew for the next day only to have Matthew eat it ALL for dinner. He gets legit hangry (seriously--soooo hangry) if he doesn't eat every two hours (sometimes he'll stretch it to three hours with a nap, but more often than not he just ends up taking a short nap so he can get food sooner), but we've finally got him in to a meal/snacks/nursing routine that seems to work pretty well and helps to avoid most of the hanger: morning nursing, breakfast, nursing after nap, lunch, nursing after nap, snack, dinner, nursing before bed. Mentally, I do so much better with this kind of schedule and predictability, so even though there's added work in prepping food for him (plus the added cost of feeding the little pig--which we've apparently said enough that Connor has now started to say it whenever we comment on how much Matthew is eating #whoops), I'm not complaining in the least.

Sleeping: Unfortunately, there was no magically switch that flipped between nine and ten months that drastically improved his sleep. BUT--once we got his feeding schedule figured out about halfway through the month (including adding an afternoon snack in lieu of a late-afternoon nap), his sleep hardcore improved. He will still sometimes take his longer nap in the morning, which complicates pickup after school (plus a short afternoon nap almost always means an over-tired and fussy boy by bedtime), but despite all my concerns and reservations we're managing to make a two-nap routine work (it also helps that Darrell is still working from home because there have definitely been days where I have left him sleeping to go pick up his brothers--might as well use the opportunities I've been given, right?)

New Stuff: Not a lot? We celebrated his first Halloween, but thanks to #covid that didn't really amount to anything except an impromptu family rainbow costume to go over to my parent's house so the older boys could get some candy (well, to clarify, it didn't amount to much for Matthew. We had fun activities planned for the older boys including an at-home scavenger hunt and pumpkin carving, but those didn't really amount to much for Matthew). Otherwise he's been gaining a lot more confidence in cruising around furniture and has even stood unassisted for short bursts of time, although he still seems perfectly content to crawl 90% of the time. And I alluded to it in the picture caption, but he cut his first tooth in early November, and although I swore the other bottom one was going to follow close behind it still hasn't quite made an appearance. It's been close though, and has seemed to bother him enough at times that we gave him his first dose of pain medicine in mid-November (truthfully, we haven't been intentionally avoid giving him medicine, but for the most part we've been able to keep him content without medication so we haven't bothered with it. Plus, I kind of think we're both a little bit more tolerant of the cuddles at times because we pretty well know that he'll be our last). I fully expect to be able to add the appearance of another tooth at his next update--and only time will tell what else will happen before then!

Photo Every Hour: November 21st

I'll take it! Sure beats my alarm going off at 615 like it does on weekday mornings

7:00 Awake but not quite ready to wake up

8:00 Getting the weekend started with homemade biscuits for breakfast

9:00 Spending a little time coloring with my favorite five year old

10:00 These boys are never not touching. I've been assured by people who grew up with more than one brother that this is perfectly normal behavior, but seriously. EVERYTHING turns in to a tackle game in this house

11:00 Sneaking away to run a few errands by myself #itsthelittlethings

12:00 Do I reallllly have to go back inside?!?

1:00 Laundry. Again. Always. (I swear this is like the third month in a row I've been doing laundry on the 21st, and no, I'm not planning it that way. There's just always that much laundry to be done)

2:00 Groceries for daaaaayyyys

3:00 Naptime may be over, but someone definitely either got too much or too little sleep

4:00 Snack time for one and the other still having a rough time. It's not easy being three

5:00 Rare footage of all four boys playing together in the same room without someone crying (although I feel compelled to mention that this lasted all of five minutes. Oh well)

6:00 Everyone else is nearly finished eating; I'm just getting ready to start #momlife

7:00 A little belated (as you can see from the clock in the background, ha!) but working on wrapping up our bedtime routine and getting this cutie a full tummy to (hopefully!) last him the whole night

8:00 Dishes and "The Office". Just another night of Darrell living the dream ;-)

9:00 We interrupt this broadcast to bring you a printer that decided to run out of ink in the middle of my attempts to be productive #figures

10:00 Trying to squeeze in a little more productivity while also trying to unwind with a show. And people say moms never take a break

11:00 I should be putting away that last bit of laundry... But instead I'm going to lounge on the bed and scroll through Facebook while Darrell tries to settle Matthew back down #priorities

Still pretty terrible about the whole "going to bed early" thing. It's almost like I don't care enough to actually start doing it 

Matthew: Nine Months!

 I'd been doing so well about getting his posts up at least during the same month as his month-birthday, but that was bound to fail. He's technically still closer to nine months than ten months, so that counts for something, right?

But I don't want to sit still...

Height/Weight: Ah yes. The lovely nine-month well visit and an opportunity for me to see how grossly off my estimates have been. I had been guessing that he was longer than his brothers because his nine-month pants got too short for him reeeeal quick, but at 27.75 inches he's actually dead in the middle (tied with Connor)--which, considering there is all of a one-inch spread between the four boys, doesn't really count for much. They were essentially all the same length at nine months. I was less confident about his weight, which turned out to be a fair assessment because he is neither the heaviest nor the lightest. The spread on weight is a little bit greater--about two pounds exactly (17 lbs 11 oz for William and 19 lbs 10 oz for Connor)--and Matthew was again right in the middle at 18 lbs 11 oz. People tend to remark that Matthew looks the least like his brothers, but he's not showing any indication that he's going to separate himself from his brothers (in one direction or the other) based on size. 

Wearing: I can say with confidence that he is in size three diapers--and that's about the only thing I can confidently say about what he is wearing. It's a crapshoot the rest of the time; sometimes he's in nine month shirts, sometimes he's in a twelve month pajamas, and just on Sunday he wore a six month romper to church (although that will definitely be the last time he wears that). I'm finding that it's a little harder to pull the "too small" clothes out of his closet because I'm packing them up to be sold, not to be saved for another child, but I'm getting over it. 

Eating: I swear, this kid hasn't met a food he doesn't like. Even some of the weirder ones (like beets and spinach) he's eaten pretty readily. I think he's more than ready to start eating some of the table food we're having (including introducing meats and dairy!), and hopefully I can also start to cut down on his nursing sessions since he still nurses five times a day but only about half of those are quality nursing sessions. He's also still nursing once at night, although I think some nights he would gladly take more (but more on that next).

Sleeping: Ugh. Well. It was bound to happen. Sleep was pretty spectacularly awful this last month. He got his first cold at the end of September (and a pretty decent one--the most tell-tale barking cough that any of the boys have had) and had a few nights of just terrible sleep. He generally managed a few hours in his crib, but then needed to be held the rest of the night (partially to alleviate congestion, partially just for comfort). His nights have settled back down at least a little bit--he's rarely up more than three times and generally does okay not being fed at all those wakeups--but his naps have remained pretty terrible. They're super inconsistent, and even if I keep his first nap short his afternoon nap doesn't necessarily go any better. Plus he pretty much always needs a third cat nap before dinner, but he needs to be held for it or he won't sleep (and will then be insufferable the rest of the evening). Honestly, I think the real issue is that I need to put him down later for his second nap, but then it doesn't overlap with Connor's nap as well, plus then I'm guaranteed to have to cut it short in order to pick up the older two from school. So basically lose-lose. And in the meantime, I'm over here just losing my mind over the fact that he won't sleep when I want him to. 

New Stuff: Well, it might just be the poor sleep habits talking, but I can't really think of any big new things from this past month. We have started to notice that he basically only has two volumes--silent or maxed out. His crying has always been loud, but lately his squealing and occasional babbling noises have been equally loud. He's also starting to work some consonant sounds into his babbling, but for the most part no discernable words. And if he's not screaming at/about something, he's really big in to blowing raspberries. Any surface is fair game for getting a raspberry blown on to it, and he doesn't even need to be blowing on to anything--he'll make the noise with his lips whenever the mood strikes him. We're starting to see more of his silly personality, which is super fun--he loves playing peek-a-boo and has started clapping for just about anything, which is pretty much the cutest thing ever. Of course, when he's not being cute and funny he's working on pushing every boundary he can, including climbing up the stairs and on to anything and everything, but I suppose he wouldn't be ours if he wasn't pushing our buttons!