9 Months!

Weight - Our little boy seems to have slowed down! He's at 21 lbs 6 oz, up 10 oz from 6 months. Apparently I should do math when I'm exhausted, as I got super confused and thought he'd lost weight (thinking he was already over 21 lbs at 6 months). He didn't gain much, but that's normal for breastfed babies at this age. 

Height - Unclear. Doctors measured him as the same a last time, but his clothes are definitely shorter and when he sat on a rider toy at my parents, his feet went down further at Christmas than at Thanksgiving. Evan also hates to lay flat right now, so he's super hard to measure. Reminds me of when he was born :).

Head circumference - 18 inches

Still in 12 month clothes! However, we did go ahead and wash 18 month clothes and he's wearing 18 months for most of his pjs. Can't believe that he grew through a size a month when he was little. My how times have changed!

Likes:

There are so many things Evan now loves. Kitchen utensils 

(especially the metal ladle), boxes of all kinds,  blowing raspberries....but his favorite of all time? The door stop. He loves more than anything pulling it so that it makes that "thwang" sound. It is the cutest to hear him laugh as he takes off for it every time he's in his room or the upstairs bathroom. 

Licking his reflection...

He's still pulling up a ton, and is also cruising pretty consistently on the couches. He loves standing at things that are about chest height and banging on them, or grabbing anything he can reach from there (especially remotes, laptops, and cameras). Our coffee table is a favorite, since he can look out the window from there, as is the fireplace hearth, and the sliding glass door. He's also been into licking things - hoping that's normal?

Climbing is another favorite. With supervision, he's made it all the way up our long and steep staircase! He climbs over boxes, other babies, and especially mom and dad. Laundry baskets are also a favorite, both for climbing and for "helping" with the laundry 

and the vacuuming.

Bath time is also a lot more fun. He has new bath toys and has really gotten into splashing!

At the library music class that is given every other week

It's fun how excited gets now at certain things, like getting out of the car in our garage. Every time without fail, as soon as I pick him up, out of the car, he starts making his happy sounds and staring around in wonder. He has also been loving music lately, too. We've been able to attend some free music classes, which have been really fun. Too bad they are usually so expensive!

It's amazing how much of a happy baby he is now. We actually get compliments about how happy he is when we're out in public, which is so nice! 

Out to dinner over the holidays! We haven't let him actually eat at a restaurant yet, but that milestone will be coming soon. 

Foodwise, there aren't really foods that he turns down anymore. He does seem especially excited about quinoa (usually with mushrooms and/or zucchini), banana, grated zucchini and zucchini noodles, sweet potato, and pumpkin/egg "pancakes".  He now even likes straight applesauce, which used to be something he wouldn't tolerate!

Dislikes

Wait....you want me to sleep at night too? 

Anyone else tired of me mentioning sleep? Ugh. We made progress this month - 5 glorious days when he only woke once or twice. And then he was back to every 2 hours. I'm not sure we'll ever sleep again....

He's transformed into a newborn in other ways, too. Mostly, he has continued to feel diaper changes are pure torture and will scream bloody murder while arching his back in an attempt to buck himself off the changing table almost every time. 

Food wise, I don't think there's really anything he doesn't like. He does get a bit frustrated when he is done eating, so we have been working on a bit of sign language that hopefully will help him stop being upset when he finishes eating.

You want me to talk? I'd much rather just make random sounds.

The only other thing, which sort of fits in this category, is that Evan still isn't "talking" yet. No babababa or dadadada. It sounds like we don't really need to worry until we hit a year, so we're hoping he'll start this soon.

Important Events:

Evan's first Christmas! Celebrating the whole holiday season with family was just wonderful. We started in Cambria with Ed's side of the family and then traveled down to Orange County to finish the holiday season with my side.

Also, my newest nephew was born! Oliver arrived in this world on New Year's Eve, and couldn't be more precious :).

Another very fun "first" was when we got snow on New Years Eve in Orange County! It hadn't snowed this much since 1967, and even got down into some of the neighborhoods. We joined much of the rest of the county in a nearby neighborhood that had some accessible snow. It wasn't much, but it was pretty darn fun!

Successes:

I think the biggest thing is that Evan has suddenly "discovered" solid food! While he's been "eating" for months now, up until about a week ago, it was mostly just him playing with it and maybe getting a bite or two (and chewing on the spoon). Now, he is so much more purposeful with it. We're still trying to figure out how to make sure he's getting enough food opportunities, and what to give him. At least for now, I don't feel great about him having processed foods, so we've been avoiding things like waffles, cereals, puffs, etc. 

Mommy Successes:

I have been more active this month than I probably have since I trained for my last marathon! I'm running 3 days a week, hiking 1 day a week, and doing stroller strides twice a week. I'm feeling healthy and happy and am super excited about my 10k in a bit over a week. I'm also toying with the idea of running a half marathon in the late summer to celebrate our move. My new goal is to be down to my wedding weight by our 5th anniversary, which I think is pretty achievable if I keep working hard. I figure that once I start working, it'll be so much harder to be active, so if I can be at my maintainable weight by then, that would be fantastic. For now, I'm enjoying having access to a lot more of my wardrobe again. 

Daddy Successes:

I think I will speak for Ed this month and say that his biggest success this month has been to give me some free time! As I've been getting more serious about my running, he's been fantastic about having some daddy/baby time. Also, he's been doing a great job balancing dad duties with starting back up teaching for the semester. He's got a full plate, but is handling everything wonderfully.

At "Zoolights" - a Christmas light spectacular at our zoo. So fun!

Best Moments:

Christmas and a new baby :). What could be better!

Comparing....9 Months!

Amazing the difference 9 months can make! The full 9 month post will be arriving soon. For now, here's a look at 9(ish) months pregnant, 9 days old, and 9 months old. Can't believe how much my little baby has grown.

Torticollis No More!

I've talked and shared a lot about Evan's helmet journey on here, but not quite as much about his physical therapy journey and our fight against torticollis. It's funny, but Ed and I never noticed anything was wrong with Evan besides his flat spot, until we started PT. I wasn't even positive that the physical therapist would find anything wrong, because Evan just seemed perfect in my eyes. 

Instead, she immediately diagnosed him with torticollis and hypertonia, meaning that he had very tight muscles on his left side, in his neck and back, and overall very high muscle tone, which isn't a good thing like it might sound. Evan looked really strong but actually couldn't relax his body. Our PT actually revealed to me in our last session, after sharing the good news that we were basically done, that there were definite points where she and her colleagues were quite worried about Evan and just how severe his hypertonia was, in particular. 

And, yesterday I started looking back through our early Evan photos and was shocked by what I saw. Somehow, even though I've looked at these pictures countless times, I never saw it until now. 

Besides looking incredibly cute, almost every photo had Evan's head bent to his left. And, full body pictures more often than not showed him bent to his left side, almost like the letter C. It's so easy to look back now and see how incredibly tight those neck, back, and side muscles were - they literally pulled his little body and kept him from straightening. No wonder he ended up with a flat spot!

It's hard to imagine how Ed and I missed this, other than the fact that we were primarily concerned with keeping Evan alive (and were super sleep deprived). We did notice that he always turned the same way when he slept and was in the carseat (because one of his eyes would swell up as he slept since it was on the bottom and getting more blood flow), but we never picked up on the tilt. 

To fight this, we had to do a lot: exercises and stretches multiples times a day that would make our poor little boy cry in pain, keep him off his back as much as possible and do tummy time basically any time that he was awake, deep pressure massage on his back, and lots and lots of activities to get him to look to his right and reach for things with his left - anything to stretch those muscles. 

Now though, it makes me so happy to see him, sitting confidently and straight up, able to move his little body however he wants without being limited by his torticollis. I'm so proud of him and the progress he's made! And, only 2-3 more months and we'll be able to say goodbye to our helmet and hello to life as a normal little boy.

Cambria Pre-Christmas

Since moving to Arizona, visits to our families in California are even more sweet. Returning to the land of rolling green hills and vineyards with the knowledge that in the not too distant future we'll be moving to a place that will look similar in the not too distant future made our hearts so happy. 

My mother in law has spent a lot of time making updates to her home, and it's such a beautiful place to visit. 

Evan got to try some new foods on this trip, including cauliflower and beef goulash. He wasn't in love with this high chair though - it'll be better when he's a bit bigger :).

One of the highlights of our trip was a hike we went on early in the week. We dropped Sabine off at a place called "Treebones" that is a resort and has a restaurant, and then headed further up highway one to a trail that Ed has done a few times and just loves. 

Evan was excited to go for his first California hike in our new carrier. 

Evan is continuing to get used to his new ride - his new thing is grabbing onto Ed's hair and/or visor during the hikes :)

We were so impressed with how green everything was. After the horrible drought over the summer, it was refreshing to see that the recent rains had at least brought some growth to the hillsides. 

Ed was 100% honest when he told me how beautiful and lovely this trail was. It is cut into the steep hills to the side of highway one and gave us constant ocean views.

Evan was pretty happy, too!

As we got higher, the views got even more spectacular!

Definitely one of my favorite stretches of earth in the world

We are so excited to be sharing this with Evan, even if he can quite fully appreciate it yet!

As we rounded one of the inward sections between hilltops, we neared our mile turn around. 

Evan had begun to get a little fussy and we knew we didn't want to push our luck. 

We broke out the pacifier, and luckily Evan was content the rest of the journey. 

The hike back was just as gorgeous, if not even more so. 

It was also nice to just feel like I was in decent shape for once. A definite motivation for getting in shape the rest of my time in Arizona has been the desire to take full advantage of California outdoors once we move. 

We've both started making lists of all the places we want to visit, the trails we want to explore, the races we want to complete. Nothing like leaving California and getting the opportunity to return to make you fully appreciate all it has to offer.

And Ed, being the wonderful husband he is, gave me the gift of a green light to run down the last quarter mile of the trail, getting to enjoy some rare and much needed solitude in nature. 

Celebrating!

Today, I got to hear the words I'd been hoping for since we began this whole physical therapy journey over 4 months ago: "I only want to see Evan once more, when he learns to walk. He has no more asymmetries and is like any other normal boy"

That's right - Evan has graduated!

We are so lucky that Evan made so much progress so quickly. It was a lot of work for a short period, but very worth it.

I still remember that feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach when we were at gymboree and all the babies were doing tummy time around a mirror. All the other babies were relaxed, staring down into their reflections, playing around. And there was Evan. Stiff as a board propped up in a plank on his stiff little arms. It just broke my heart to see how different he was from all the other babies.

And, now Ms. Roxanne, our PT told me that if she hadn't known about his torticollis, she never would have been able to tell that he wasn't just a normal little boy.

So proud of our sweet child!