Having A Ball

In our neverending quest to get a few minutes of freedom, we have discovered a great distraction for Joshua: balls. A couple of his toys have come with bright plastic balls, and he will spend up to 30 minutes at a time picking them up, aimlessly tossing them 5-10 feet away, crawling after them, and repeating the process. He has even started throwing them underneath the end table and then crawling through it to get to them. Whatever makes him happy... we're just glad to have a few moments of peace!

For the most part, Joshua has been such an amazing joy in our lives lately. Sure there are the back-of-the-mind worries about his weight/anemia, and the afternoon feedings and naps will have Brenda's hair turning gray soon. But he is just developing the sweetest, most playful personality, and he just lights up the room with his smile. He keeps amazing us with his growth and development. One of his toy balls went behind and between the trash can & recycle bin. Instead of giving up and finding a new toy, he tried to get it from a few different angles, crawling on all sides of it. He still couldn't reach it, but you could see him using a little bit of logic to figure things out, and that is just so cool to see him figuring stuff out like that.

Update

Nothing super exciting to post, but I had the time so figured I'd throw something on here. Joshua has been babbling up a storm lately, and is especially amusing when he is practicing his "P" sound. He will sit there making a soft, breathy "puh" sound over and over, like a little puff of air. Tooth #7 is still trying to work its way out. It doesn't seem to bother him too much, although he did have a little trouble getting to sleep last night. He has really picked up the speed crawling, and can turn on the jets if he wants to. We should enter him in some baby races! He can take the entire flight of stairs in about a minute now, which is pretty good considering there are about 15-20 steps (I'm too lazy to walk down the hall and count them). He has been much better eating in the evenings; we moved his 3 PM breastfeeding to 6 PM, and his 6 PM solid foods to 4 PM, and that seems to have done the trick. And we've also discovered that the boy has a hankerin' for the Nilla Wafers. If you ever want 5 minutes of silence, hand him a cookie (that works with daddy too!)

Happy Birthday!

No Joshua isn't 1 year old yet, we've still got 3 months to go before that milestone. But he does want to wish a happy birthday to his newest cousin, Chevlynn Ann-Renee Smith, who was just born on March 18th at 7:44 PM! Congratulations to proud mommy and daddy, April and Dan!

9 Month Checkup

Joshua had his 9 month checkup yesterday and it went fairly well. They apparently screwed up measuring his length last time, because they said this time that he was 29.5", which is just about what it was last time. He has definitely grown since December (the crib rail hides less of his face), so they goofed somewhere. In any case, that is in the 75th percentile, so he has slowed down a bit in his quest to be the world's tallest baby. The doctor was a tiny bit concerned because his weight was only 17.5 pounds, which is in the 5-10% range. A quick blood test showed that he is slightly anemic, not enough to be worried about, but enough that the doctor prescribed him some iron drops and scheduled a checkup in a month. She said that having anemia may cause him to be a little skinnier, so hopefully these iron drops will fix the anemia and fatten him up a little bit too =) We're not really worried, as he is hitting all of his developmental milestones. We just don't like hearing that something is wrong with our little man, and you can't help but feel that it is something that we are or aren't doing properly. But more likely is that no baby is 100% perfect and this is just one of those little things that we'll barely remember a year from now.

On the brighter side, the doctor said that the reason that he has been fighting his dinner is that he may be bored with baby food and may want to try to feed himself a little more. She suggested that we cut up food into smaller pieces and let him try to self feed at that meal (which provides a nice quiet distraction during our dinner as well). We tried eggs, strawberries and toast last night... he wasn't quite sure what to make of it but got a few bites in his mouth, and more than a few in his lap. I'm sure he'll be an expert in no time!

Catchin' Up

So by now, anyone still reading this has lost all hope of getting a weekly update. Time and brain power definitely seem to be at a premium these days. The little man is ALL over the place. I love the kid to death, but dude, sit still for like 5 minutes! No wonder he's so skinny, he never stops moving =) But it is so cool to see him crawl all over the place, cruise on the furniture, pull himself up on absolutely everything, and to think that at one point all of us were doing the exact same things.

Joshua seems to have finally kicked cold #2 or 3 (can't remember how many he has had). Still has the remnants of a cough, but the rest of it seems much better. We also think that he may have had a mild case of roseola, which is very common and harmless. Basically they have a fever for a couple days, then a flat rash for a couple days, then it's done. The rash seems to have gone away, so we're not even going to bother with the doctor, especially since his 9 month appointment is on Monday anyways.

As you have probably figured out by the last post, we now have the ability to post videos online. I didn't say we had the time to download them from the camera and edit them, but we can certainly post them!

As far as development goes, he is moving right along. He is eating like a little piggy, mostly in the morning. He is eating about 18-20 ounces of baby food, 16-20 ounces of milk, and 2-3 ounces of water a day. He is still babbling, hasn't quite put words to objects yet. He is also finally holding bottles by himself. Apparently he has actually been doing this for a while, but he rarely gets a bottle at home, so we never really see it! On the downside, Joshua has discovered that he can hit things. It's cute when he hits his toys, his high chair tray... not so cute when it is our faces, the dog, a food-filled spoon, other kid's faces at daycare. Okay, so the last one is kind of funny, at least in the mental image sort of way. Oh, and we also think that he is working on teeth #'s 7 and 8.

Joshua still loves the light on the stairway landing. He has also discovered the joy of bubble baths, although I think Mommy enjoys them a little more than he does =) One of his new things is to carry a random toy around with him when he is crawling around.

I'm sure I am completely forgetting some things, but that is about all I can remember. New pictures are up, be sure to check 'em out!