9 Months Old and a Beach Trip

Corban is 9 months old.  He had a wellness visit this past week and weighted 19.5 pounds (32nd percentile), had a head circumference of 18 inches (62nd percentile), and was 30.5 inches tall (97th percentile).  He is such a tall kid.  His pants tend to run on the short side as a result but that's ok.  He loves to army crawl all over the house (he's pretty fast), stand with help, drool, play with his brother's toys, have books read to him, be really loud when he's happy, wave, and EAT.  I don't understand how he eats so much (he has six teeth now.  Two on the bottom and four on the top).  For breakfast the other day he ate a large bowl of oatmeal with peaches, a container of yogurt, and half of a banana rolled in cheerios.  For lunch today he ate a large bowl of vegetables and pears, 6 crackers, and 2 pieces of cheese.  We're not overfeeding him since he's very clear when he's full and he stops being interested.  He's just a bottomless pit apparently.  He does not really like meat (chicken, turkey, beef), potatoes, or eggs.  He started having peanut butter this week though and his favorite food is still yogurt so that's a good thing.  When we were at the pediatrician on Monday he asked me if Corban recognizes any words and I said "I know he knows the word YOGURT."  Corban immediately got a big smile on his face and started bouncing up and down.  Silly kid.

He is still sleeping through the night just fine (from about 7pm-6:45am) and taking 2 naps a day.  His sleep sack has become his security blanket.  If I don't put him in it he tends to not sleep well.  I had to wake up him the other day from a nap and realized why.  While sleeping he sucks his left thumb and uses his right hand to grab the top of his sleep sack and cuddle with it against his cheek.  So cute. 

You will notice that is every picture of Gabriel he's wearing one of three shirts.  Lightening McQueen, Batman, or Darth Vader.  I grabbed the Lightening McQueen shirt at Once Upon a Child simply for the fact that he needed a few more shirts and it was $2.  He likes the movie Cars but it is by no means his favorite.  He wants that shirt all the time.  He wants to wear it to bed and is sad when we won't let him wear it.  He's quite attached to it.  Otherwise, Gabriel is still the same silly kid.  Pretending (Peter Pan, Inside Out, Wall-E, fighting with swords, putting us to bed), hyper, covered with bruises and scrapes, and talking non stop.  The last few days he has been very aggressive with Corban and getting into trouble for that.  He just has no much energy and has so much to say.  Tantrums are frequent.  On the other hand though, there are times when he really listens, is compassionate, and really cares about the people around him.  It's nice to have glimpses of this in between meltdowns.  He frequently tells us that he loves us and he told me the other day that he loves Corban and is glad that he has a brother.

First bath together.  It was a hit.  I thought that Gabriel would feel that
Corban was an intrusion but he asks to take a bath with him now.

We went to Summer Conference with RUF again this year down in Panama City Beach.  I was the nurse and Taylor taught a seminar.  The week was exhausting to be sure, but Gabriel had such a good time.  He was not nearly as afraid of the ocean and he loved the pool.  He wore water wings for the first time and got very confident swimming in the pool with them and even occasionally jumping in by himself.  He told me that he wants to take swim lessons again too.  

Corban thought that the beach was fun in small doses and was not a fan of the pool (what's up with the bath water being cold people?).  Overall we had a great week though.  Of course I can't narrow down what pictures to use so here they are.  I wish I had more of Gabriel but he's just all over the place and most of the pictures of him are either blurry or it's the back of his head.

The long car ride down.  Taking a nap with his best girl.

He was a fan of his sunglasses