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!