Shion- 9 months…

Dear Shion,

Almost a week ago you turned 9 months old- I waited to write your letter because we had your check-up at the university hospital today and I wanted to hear the results of that before blogging. All good news- you are 7 months corrected in age but doing almost everything a 9 month old would be doing which is fantastic and the doctor said all is good. You weighed in at just under 7.8kg and were 66cm tall- almost 2kg up since you weighed in at the university hospital 3.5 months ago.

In the last month you have taken off! You now crawl at warp speed, try to stand up on everything and will even let go of things you are holding on to which of course gives me a heart attack. You get into everything and I had forgotten what a facination babies your age had with cords and electrical plugs. Noah lost his interest with these long ago and when we moved here I didn`t set things up very baby friendly so we have had to do some more child proofing. A month ago you were still working on the sitting but now you go from sitting to pulling yourself up to sitting back down to crawling and back- it is amazing!

You are much more into food now and we moved up to three meals a day just less than 2 weeks ago. You have had a tiny bit of chicken but from now I will be introducing more lumps, some other meat/fish and maybe cheese as well as more bread and pasta. I have to get cracking on the baby food making. For breakfast you usually have banana multigrain oatmeal stuff from Australia with some fruit puree mixed in. Pear or blueberries or more banana. Sometimes you will also have an edge off my vegemite toast – I usually leave one edge butter free in case you want some! For lunch you have finger foods and some days a yogurt too- you tried grapes recently as well as some tortilla and pieces of avocado by themself of a bit of banana. For dinner it has been packet food lately since I ran out of the frozen stuff I made and need to stock up our freezer with some more homemade goodies- You have tried some of the Japanese stuff like chicken rice, chicken and veg and also some from Australia. Other nights you might have what we are having minus the salt/flavours- like last night you had mashed potato and I boiled some carrot and diced it up and chucked it in with some nutmeg and pepper. You seemed to like this!

Here you are trying vegemite toast for the first time

and here you are again feeding yourself blueberries and cereal

You have two teeth now- on the bottom- both which are helping you chew a bit better and you are now actually SWALLOWING food instead of just poking it back out with your tongue. We have started to brush your teeth which Noah finds the most hilarious thing on earth- He was the same when you started eating food he was like “Wait a minute…why are you eating?” and he has been the same with brushing your teeth. You like brushing your teeth so far!

You don`t seem to have any stranger anxiety yet- sometimes you prefer me to hold you over others but mostly you are happy to just be around people. You will put your arms up or out if you want me to pick you up.

Now that you are on the move it has made things more interesting when watching you and your brother together. You follow him around and he likes to run away really fast and hide of play peek a boo with you from behind the curtains. Sometimes he is a bit rough and/or mean but we are working on that. In the meantime I am sorry about all the bumps on the back of the head you are getting from when he pushes you over while you are sitting up before I can get there in time. Some days when you are playing together and I am watching on I see what it will be like in the future- and it makes me proud and my heart swell! You guys are so cute together!

We went to Shizuoka this past weekend- you were already 9 months old but I figure now is the time to mention it. We went to the bird sanctuary down there but you were not so sure of the birds- I think you had fun though and you loved playing outside in Nay & Leilah`s garden. Leilah LOVES you and I think the feeling is mutual- perhaps you will marry an older woman???

You definitely have a cheeky grin and we are seeing your personality come out more and more as you grow. You see what you want and go after it although sometimes your big brother stands in your way. You have started to fight back a little if Noah tries to take something from you and we are working on sharing with you both but so far the concept seems a bit lost on both of you {which is to be expected} and unfortunately since Noah is the bigger one he wins in a lot of the toy tug-a-wars.

You are still breastfeeding but will take a bottle of formula okay most days. I think I will probably have weaned you by the time you are one- now that you are on three meals a day I want to cut back on the breastfeeding a bit but you are not interested in cutting back and still feed every 3 hours or so but go a bit longer overnight. I recently wrote about what a nightmare your sleep had become but since then things seemed to have calm down a little luckily- last night you went to bed just after 7pm woke up once at 9pm and I resettled you and at 1:30pm you woke up to feed, 3am because you had pain but went back to sleep pretty quickly and again at 5am before going back to sleep til 6:30pm.

I think the past six weeks-2 months have seen the most changes in you- you have gone from been a baby to an almost toddler. Less than 3 months until you are one and just over 2 months until your first Christmas. The next couple of months will no doubt see many more changes in you. I can`t wait {although please don`t start walking yet- not sure I could handle it!}

Love ya little man,
Mama

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