We had Griffin’s nine month appointment this morning with Dr. Kreckman. Overall he’s doing well, but he’s only gained about a pound in the last three months. He’s still tall, 29 1/4 inches (80th percentile), but he’s dropped from the 70th percentile in weight at his six month appointment to the 35th percentile. Of course this is stressing me out, we’re going to bump him up to three solid food feedings a day and I’m going to start pushing high calorie foods like egg yolks and avocados even though he doesn’t like them. We would be pushing high-fat dairy foods but he seems allergic to them, he gets red spots on his face whenever he eats yogurt. I’m thinking I might try goat’s milk yogurt and cheeses since they’re supposed to be easier to digest. Dr. Kreckman says the dairy allergy will most likely go away and we should try again in a few months. She also said it’s hard to tell at this age if a baby is dropping off in the weight percentile because they’re just going to be genetically thin, because they aren’t getting enough calories, or if something else might be a problem. We have an appointment to bring him back in in a month and see if he’s gained more weight by then.

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but we love Dr. Kreckman. She’s so friendly and smart. She’s happy to work with us and our crazy delayed vaccination schedule, she doesn’t bat an eye that we’re all vegetarian. She even gave us a booklet for vegetarian infants. We’d heard that many doctors check for anemia at the nine month appointment even though it isn’t really necessary, Dr. Kreckman doesn’t unless there’s reason to think the baby might be anemic. We’d heard that many doctors push vitamin drops or at least vitamin D on breastfeeding babies, Dr. Kreckman doesn’t. Her nurse explained that vitamin D is for rickets, which is only a problem if the mother is undernourished. This mainly happens in inner cities and is almost never an issue in Madison. We’re so lucky to have a pediatrician that we like and trust so much.

In other news both of Griffin’s right top teeth both broke through last night, yippee!! It’s been a long month, but hopefully we’ll get a break from teething for a little while. And he has quite a toothy smile, six of them now!

On Saturday we went to a baby shower for Rob and Jill, so many little ones one the way!

About the fall – yesterday Griffin was sitting next to me on the couch and fell off and hit his head. It was horrible and terrifying. It’s part of our normal morning routine these days that I come downstairs and sit on the couch with Griffin while Julian goes into the kitchen to feed the cats and fix himself some coffee. I used to do that stuff but Griffin has strong separation anxiety right now and doesn’t want to be away from me until he’s fully awake. He was sitting next to me on the couch and reaching for the remote control and the laptop. He does this all the time so I wasn’t particularly concerned. And then before I even knew what was happening he slid over the arm of the couch and landed with his head on the power strip for the laptop. I’m pretty sure I’m going to have the image of Griffin on his back crying between the couch and the end table burned into my brain forever. He has a scratch on his scalp, a big goose-egg, and a bruise on his chin, but he’s ok. The deal is, I’m his mom and I’m supposed to keep him safe. He was sitting right next to me, I should have been more careful. I know I can’t protect him from everything. I couldn’t protect him from that first night in the hospital, from the jaundice, from the heart condition. But damn it, I should be able to protect him from falling off the couch when he’s sitting right there next to me.

It seems like the months are just flying by now. Griffin is a little more grown up and learns something new every day. Lately he’s got a new laugh, a full on belly laugh in addition to the chuckles and giggles he’s been doing for a while. Yesterday we went out to eat after the mothers’ group and I fed him little bites of bread and cantaloupe off my plate. I bought a copy of “Buddhism for Mothers” (thanks Renee!) and have been reading it in the driveway when we get home from a trip and Griffin is sleeping in the car seat. There are so many good insights in that book that I think I could benefit from reading it every year. I gave up karate, there was no way I could commit to three classes a week and it was getting expensive to pay for classes I couldn’t take. Now that the weather is warming up I’ve been putting Griffin in the backpack and going for a walk every afternoon, it’s a good way for me to get exercise and it’s fun for both of us. I can’t wait until the days get longer and Julian came come with us.

You know that superstition where when it’s 11:11 on the clock you get to make a wish? Julian and I have seen many different combinations of digits over the past nine months. One time he figured out that 10:08 is the brightest a digital clock ever gets. Another time I told myself that once I’d seen every single combination of digits then, finally, he’d start to sleep through the night. I started making wishes at all sorts of combinations, 10:10, 1:23, 2:22. And at the risk of jinxing it, I always wish for the same thing. “Happy, healthy baby”. All day, all night, all the time, I wish “happy, healthy baby”. And he is, and I feel so lucky.

Griffin this week:

• Has started to dance with his whole body when music plays instead of only shaking his head from side to side.
• Will often let go of whatever he’s pulled up on and stand on his own for several seconds.
• Still loves playing peek-a-boo, hiding behind the tapestry in the playroom.
• Has started eating really solid solids, little bits of graham crackers and cheerios.
• Has been making lots of “B” and “Phhft” noises. Still no words, I’m so excited for him to start talking.
• Has started sleeping deeper. He’s not really sleeping for longer stretches, but a few times now I’ve been able to carry him from his car seat to the crib still sleeping, and after he wakes up from naps he nuzzles in for a few minutes until he’s fully awake.
• We’ve started listening to Mrs. Moon every night instead of Sleep, Baby, Sleep.

On Saturday we took Griffin to the Henry Vilas Zoo. I can’t usually go to zoos, I get upset seeing wild animals in cages. But, I read an article that interviewed the zookeepers who care for the primates at the Henry Vilas Zoo and it was very evident that the primates were being cared for by people who loved them. So Saturday when we were trying to think of a good outing for Griffin we decided to take him to the zoo.

At the zoo we saw an orangutan family. The parents were both crashed out on the floor while the baby swung around above them with boundless energy. It looked strangely familiar =) At one point the mother orangutan tried to pull a blanket over herself for a nap and the baby swung overhead and snatched the blanket away. A little bit later the baby swung over to the father and tried to get his attention. The father looked at the baby, reached up, and cupped the baby’s face in one enormous hand. It was such a gentle, loving gesture that I started to cry.

Griffin seemed content to hang out and just look at the orangutans and chimpanzees. Next we went into the rainforest exhibit. He was amazed at the waterfall and all the plants, but then a parrot squawked and it was all over. No sudden noises for this baby, this is actually a real problem for us when we’re around other kids. We calmed him back down enough to nurse in the car and nap on the ride home.

Today Kathy organized a party at the Memorial Union for the birth center parents group. At least a dozen families were there, it was wonderful to meet the fathers of all these wonderful babies. We had been worried about how we were going to meet other parents, now we’re trying to figure out how to find time to get to know these amazing people better.

That’s a great mantra for when you have a baby. It’s a double edged sword, though. No matter what’s going wrong, it will get better – probably with no help from you. But also, just when you think you have something figured out – it changes.

Last night it took us an hour to get Griffin to fall asleep. There’s this really narrow window where he’s tired enough to fall asleep but not so overtired that he’s manic. We missed it last night and we got to deal with manic baby scratching and kicking us for an hour until he finally gave in and fell asleep. We’ve tried giving up and taking him back downstairs when this happens but this sets a bad precedent since then he thinks if he fights us for long enough he can come back downstairs and play. It also just postpones the problem because then he gets even more overtired and fussy and manic and he has to go to bed sometime.

However, last night he slept straight through from 2:30 until 7:30. Woohoo, he’s never slept straight through the early morning hours before! Progress!

However again, he then completely refused to take his morning nap. After half an hour of trying I decided I was sick of fighting with him about sleep and brought him back downstairs. He got progressively more fussy all morning until I finally got him to sleep around noon.

On Tuesday Griffin learned to climb the stairs. I’d been trying to get him to take an afternoon nap and finally gave up. When we came downstairs I left the gate at the bottom of the stairs open while I went into the kitchen to heat up water for tea. I turned around and saw Griffin heading for the staircase, so I followed him to see what he would do. He climbed right up without any hesitation and played around upstairs for a while. When Julian got home we opened the gate to show Julian and take pictures. One thing to notice about this picture is that we didn’t give him that pacifier, he’d been crawling around and found it himself. He paused just long enough to grab it, plunk it in his mouth, and keep crawling:

Last night my mom came over and my aunt Heidi and cousins Amy and Thad stopped by for a visit too. I took this picture of Amy, Thad, and Griffin together:

Some other fun things have happened this week, Griffin is having a blast playing with the “fishing pole” type cat toys. He actually uses them to play with the cats, you’d think he’d just try to eat the toy but he waves the wand around and gets all excited if a cat chases the toy.

And last night he laughed in his sleep, twice. I really wish I knew what he was dreaming about.

Today at work I got a voicemail: “Your son just climbed the stairs, and I think the bathroom may be on fire.”

Upon arriving home, I hung out with the kiddo and recounted my exciting day to all those who would listen (i.e. could not crawl away fast enough), “…and then I ran a few more SQL queries and updated the spreadsheet to reflect the ENTIRE month of December sales…”.

Looking back down, it seems that Griffin had happened upon a kitschy designer pacifier and helped himself to it… “Ah, well, good job he didn’t slip a choking hazard into his mouth under my nose.” Aren’t kids sneaky that way?

Hey, let’s test out the new family stairclimber! In no time at all, Griffin was scaling the stairs. Wait! Gotta get pics! Blasted past him, loaded up the memory stick, powered on the camera… and… Accessing memory… and… Accessing memory… come on, he’s halfway up already… Memory read error. CRAP! Dig out another memory stick, load it up, fire away, and… a nice shot of kiddo crawling around at the top of the stairs. $#%@!

Ok, well, let’s plop him back down at the bottom again. From under the pacifier, I could just barely make out the mumbling of his first muttered words, “Who am I, Sisyphus?!?”. Staged, but no farce – here’s the man, the myth, in action:

All that experience playing goalie felt like it finally paid off as I guarded against any small objects rolling past me down the stairs.

Though a peculiar smokey odor persists, the bathroom appears thus far not to be ablaze.

Teething is still the theme this week. Ever the optimist I spent two weeks saying “That next tooth is going to come in tomorrow!”. Another one finally did, last Thursday at the mothers’ group. Griffin was chewing on a copper table at the birth center and I saw blood in his mouth. At first I was worried he’d hurt himself, but then I felt the scratchiness. So, now he has the left two of the front four. I’m not as optimistic now, I hope the other two come in within the next month.

Last Thursday was kind of stressful, Griffin was going along all happy baby most of the time and then occasionally out of nowhere he’d scream and start to cry. When Julian got home he figured out that what was happening is Griffin’s bottom two teeth sometimes dig into the very sore top gum. I gave him a pacifier to use as a mouth guard all day Friday and then Saturday he learned to go around with his jaw stuck out and to the side. It’s very cute, he looks like a 1930’s gangster:

The separation anxiety is in full swing. I’d read that evolution causes this to kick in at around the same time babies learn to crawl. It makes sense that they need something to keep them from wandering too far from their parents once they get more mobile. He panics if he sees me turn around to leave the room, so I’ve been taking him with me even to the bathroom. This should get better with time, and for now I actually enjoy the cuddliness.

Oh sure, he looked cute as a button earlier today:

…but this evening he was a big bobo-head about going to sleep, flailing about, trying to scratch our faces off for an hour. It’s been a good weekend in general sleepwise though.

Scale read 195.0 today. A good start. No treadmill time, though. That’s gonna be the tough(er) part.

Baby Cat (bCat) is a few days into a 2 week treatment for a urinary tract infection. Twice a day I have to pill her and dose her. The blood in her urine’s already cleared up, and she’s no longer peeing in the kitchen sink. w00t! It used to be after cramming a pill down her throat that she’d take off around the house, foaming and drooling like a felis rabidus insaneous. For whatever reason, she’s being a lot better about it this time around. I’ll do a proper introduction to bCat and Insane Cat (iCat) in the near future.