Nine Months
The boss has all kinds of new tricks this month. Every day I tell him, "Do NOT get big, just be a baby a little longer." I fear he is not listening.
He is, however, the cutest human in the history of humans.
Fritz started crawling a week ago. He spent a couple of weeks flopping around, certain that something was supposed to happen with his knees, but now he's figured it out and I have four mobile children. No more pictures on the couch or leaving him in one room and assuming he'll stay there. A few days ago I plunked him in his room with some toys while I put Heidi to bed. His accusatory squalling got louder and louder until we saw his little face pop around into her doorway. Karl installed the upstairs baby gate yesterday.
He usually crawls tripod-style with his left foot up. He can get from laying down to hands and knees to sitting up and back again. He can also stand while holding on to something if we put him up, but can't quite pull up all on his own yet.
Fritz waves and claps a little bit but mostly communicates by shimmying his head and shoulders. He makes ruthless eye contact with everyone we meet, and if he judges you worthy, he gives you the shimmy-shimmy. I love seeing who will shimmy back at him. Old ladies in restaurants, teenage girls, 6'4" hockey dads, none of them can resist the Fritz wiggle.
(Also: I spend a lot of time picking the playground rocks out of his mouth)
His nap schedule is still very reliable. If we're at home, he naps from 9:30-11 and 2:00-3:30. Sometimes we can blow the first nap to run car errands, especially if he sleeps late in the morning, and he'll get by on half an hour in the car before taking a longer afternoon nap. He's a very light sleeper and will NOT transfer from car seat to bed (like Heidi did), so if he falls asleep in the car, that's the end of it.
Nights are pretty good but still unpredictable. He goes down at 7:45 or 8:00 and usually goes through until 5:30ish, but sometimes he'll randomly squawk at 10:30 or 2:30, and usually he works it out, but sometimes Karl has to go in and rock him for half an hour. When he wakes at 5:30, sometimes I can nurse him and put him back down until 7:15, sometimes not. We're clearly treating him like a baby of the family.
We took him to San Francisco for Lisa's wedding, which was fun and exhausting. We rode roughshod over his schedule and he took it like a champ. Except that incident where Karl had to "rock" him in the hotel room desk chair for two hours in the middle of the night, which we'll never speak of again. Otherwise he hiked hills and missed naps and ate in restaurants and was a perfect gentleman at the wedding. We were planning to send Karl and Fritz back to the hotel immediately after the ceremony and pray that he would go to sleep for Karl without screaming for more than an hour. But he was still cheery through cocktail hour, so they stayed; then he was still cheery when the reception started, so they ate dinner; then Fritz passed out on my chest at the dinner table, so he even got to rock a couple of our favorite college songs. Karl and Fritz rode back on the first hotel shuttle, and though he woke up when Karl moved him out of the car seat, he went back down without too much fuss.
He loves all the foods and I feed him whatever I'm eating. Milk is wildly inadequate now. He needs three huge meals a day in addition to nursing four or five times. He's going to have to get his own bowl of tonkatsu ramen pretty soon.
He loves his big siblings, including Izzy, and getting into all their stuff, including Izzy's food. Every morning we go into Heidi's room together to wake her up and he flaps his limbs wildly when we see her. Heidi adores him and says sweet things like, "It's okay, baby, I'm right here!" and smooshes his cheeks while shouting, "Chubby wubby little cutie baby!" Ingrid likes to move him around, which he does not love. Henry works really hard to entertain him. It's good to be loved.
I'm soaking up as much golden baby fuzz and milky sweetness as I can before he turns into a toddler.
He is, however, the cutest human in the history of humans.
Fritz started crawling a week ago. He spent a couple of weeks flopping around, certain that something was supposed to happen with his knees, but now he's figured it out and I have four mobile children. No more pictures on the couch or leaving him in one room and assuming he'll stay there. A few days ago I plunked him in his room with some toys while I put Heidi to bed. His accusatory squalling got louder and louder until we saw his little face pop around into her doorway. Karl installed the upstairs baby gate yesterday.
He usually crawls tripod-style with his left foot up. He can get from laying down to hands and knees to sitting up and back again. He can also stand while holding on to something if we put him up, but can't quite pull up all on his own yet.
Fritz waves and claps a little bit but mostly communicates by shimmying his head and shoulders. He makes ruthless eye contact with everyone we meet, and if he judges you worthy, he gives you the shimmy-shimmy. I love seeing who will shimmy back at him. Old ladies in restaurants, teenage girls, 6'4" hockey dads, none of them can resist the Fritz wiggle.
(Also: I spend a lot of time picking the playground rocks out of his mouth)
His nap schedule is still very reliable. If we're at home, he naps from 9:30-11 and 2:00-3:30. Sometimes we can blow the first nap to run car errands, especially if he sleeps late in the morning, and he'll get by on half an hour in the car before taking a longer afternoon nap. He's a very light sleeper and will NOT transfer from car seat to bed (like Heidi did), so if he falls asleep in the car, that's the end of it.
Nights are pretty good but still unpredictable. He goes down at 7:45 or 8:00 and usually goes through until 5:30ish, but sometimes he'll randomly squawk at 10:30 or 2:30, and usually he works it out, but sometimes Karl has to go in and rock him for half an hour. When he wakes at 5:30, sometimes I can nurse him and put him back down until 7:15, sometimes not. We're clearly treating him like a baby of the family.
We took him to San Francisco for Lisa's wedding, which was fun and exhausting. We rode roughshod over his schedule and he took it like a champ. Except that incident where Karl had to "rock" him in the hotel room desk chair for two hours in the middle of the night, which we'll never speak of again. Otherwise he hiked hills and missed naps and ate in restaurants and was a perfect gentleman at the wedding. We were planning to send Karl and Fritz back to the hotel immediately after the ceremony and pray that he would go to sleep for Karl without screaming for more than an hour. But he was still cheery through cocktail hour, so they stayed; then he was still cheery when the reception started, so they ate dinner; then Fritz passed out on my chest at the dinner table, so he even got to rock a couple of our favorite college songs. Karl and Fritz rode back on the first hotel shuttle, and though he woke up when Karl moved him out of the car seat, he went back down without too much fuss.
He loves all the foods and I feed him whatever I'm eating. Milk is wildly inadequate now. He needs three huge meals a day in addition to nursing four or five times. He's going to have to get his own bowl of tonkatsu ramen pretty soon.
He loves his big siblings, including Izzy, and getting into all their stuff, including Izzy's food. Every morning we go into Heidi's room together to wake her up and he flaps his limbs wildly when we see her. Heidi adores him and says sweet things like, "It's okay, baby, I'm right here!" and smooshes his cheeks while shouting, "Chubby wubby little cutie baby!" Ingrid likes to move him around, which he does not love. Henry works really hard to entertain him. It's good to be loved.
I'm soaking up as much golden baby fuzz and milky sweetness as I can before he turns into a toddler.
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