first comes love: September 2017

Happy 9 months to Wesley Woo! This beautiful boy is growing by leaps and bounds. He continues to be a super happy baby, a strong lover of our family, and a hilarious munchkin with a developing personality. During his ninth month, Mommy and Daddy spent our first night away from Wesley to attend and participate in Uncle Brett's wedding. I didn't leave Simon overnight until he was much older, but Eric and I felt confident that Wesley and Simon would be in capable hands with Cho-Cho. Wesley ate and slept well while we were gone just over 24 hours, and he was quite thrilled when we returned home. Aside from some brief malfunctions with my pump and one too many glasses of champagne, I really enjoyed our short night away and felt good about getting to spend some much-deserved quality time alone with Eric. Now to share more about our ninth month with Wesley!

Size: Our love is again still wearing onesies sized between 3 and 6 months. His adorably chunky thunder thighs no longer fit into 6 month sized shorts, so those items have been retired to the "Too Small" box. I pulled out shorts in the next size up (12 months!), and those fit great over our cloth diapers. I also pulled out 6 month winter clothing for our camping trip to the ocean, and the long sleeve onesies, pants, and footie pajamas were a perfect fit.

Health: At his 9 month well baby appointment Wesley weighed 19 pounds, 2.5 ounces (38th percentile) and measured 29.5 inches tall (87th percentile). He's lost about an ounce in weight in the last month, which our pediatrician said is normal since many 9 month old babies are constantly on the move and weight gain begins to taper off at this age. Eric and I have been suspicious of more teething, even though a new pearly white has yet to make its appearance. We suspect this due to Wesley recently being plagued with LOTS of drool, much of which he ingested. Swallowing so much drool created some interesting looking diapers with green, mucous-like qualities. This initially freaked us out, but a quick trip back to the doctor ruled that it wasn't a cause for concern. On a more attractive note, I'm pretty confident that our baby's beautiful baby blues are unarguably here to stay, and our goldie locks is sporting some cute, wispy hair as it grows longer on the sides and more full in the back.

Feeding: Wesley's been fussy with latching lately, due to either being overtired or distracted. At times his repeated latching and unlatching has been painful, so I've needed to briefly end the nursing session in order for us to both relax to start over. I found a new-to-us high chair on Facebook Marketplace in amazing condition for a great price, and the 5-point harness and cushioned insert provide the right support Wesley needs to successfully sit up straight to eat. He's working on developing his pincer grasp with all the practice he's gotten with self feeding and picking up small pieces of food. Just like his brother, Wesley is a shover and loves to grab handfuls of food to cram into his mouth all at once. We watch closely, and Wesley is good at managing his gag reflex to force excess food out of his mouth before swallowing. It isn't much of a surprise that he's super motivated by food; this quality seems to run in the family!

Sleep: Daytime sleep has settled into a pretty general routine of about two naps a day on average. Wesley is still taking a late morning nap, which is most often the longer one, and another nap in the mid to late afternoon. He continues to wake two to three times during the night with more restless sleep here and there. The use of our teething oil is very helpful some nights, and other nights he completely refuses to let us apply it. The best sleep Wesley experienced this month was, surprisingly, during his first camping trip to Bodega Bay. He slept most of the car ride there and back, passed out in the Tula during a walk on the beach, dozed cozily and soundly during the night between Eric and me in our double sleeping bag, and even napped in the arms of a couple of our friends. If only we could travel more often to get him to sleep so well!

Milestones: This boy is still crawling like crazy and using anything and everything to pull himself up into a standing position. He has his daredevil moments when he'll stand using only one hand to support his balance, frequently scaring the bejesus out of Mommy. Wesley is understanding the meaning of some cause and effect relationships. He's learned that if he lets go of an object, it will fall to the floor. Sometimes if he lets go with force, the object will travel further away. Mommy and Daddy have a limit of how many times we're willing to pick up said dropped or thrown object, and thankfully Wesley has yet to figure this out. He's also mastered a new level of peek-a-boo and loves to pull the blanket off of our heads to reveal a silly-faced Mommy or Daddy, which incites lots of giggles.

Likes: Simon helped me transition toys between the playroom and his bedroom so that his big boy toys (AKA choking hazards) are safely housed in the privacy of his own room, and the playroom is composed of only baby-friendly toys with which they can play separately or together. I moved in the activity table from Wesley's bedroom, and he's finally gotten really interested in it and enjoys playing alongside his brother. Everything still finds its way into Wesley's mouth - Lego Duplos, play dishes/utensils/tools, etc., and paper when Mommy isn't fast enough! Let's just say that Baby successfully bit off and swallowed a piece of a candy wrapper, but I was able to get him to cough it back up and spit it out.

Dislikes: I've noticed that Wesley has become very sensitive to my mood. If I have to yell at the dog (or Simon, unfortunately - I'm human and there isn't such a thing as perfect parenting), Wesley's immediate response is to burst into tears. His crying is very brief and he stops the moment I use a calming voice to soothe him, and I of course feel awful for making him upset. I'm not sure if this response is triggered by fear (of me raising my voice), or if Wesley thinks he's the one being scolded. He's also back to hating being buckled into his car seat. He is close to reaching the maximum height limit for his infant car seat, so he will be transitioning to a brand new convertible car seat soon.

Social: Summer Break ended during Wesley's ninth month, signifying my time to go back to work. He began going to daycare at Kara's house five days a week, three of those days with Simon (whom started preschool two days a week). Prior to my first day back I feared that Wesley would suffer from some separation anxiety since I'd been home with him every day for two months, and I ended up being right. It took some time for him to re-familiarize with Kara again, his shyness and sensitive temperament occurring mostly in the morning. Soon thereafter he'd feel comfortable exploring the toys and watching the older kids with amusement. At home, Wesley's social behavior with communication and body language continues to blossom. He sometimes looks like he's trying to sign MILK, and he seems to be beginning to understand my new signs (accompanied with my voice) EAT and MORE. He's also finally in the early stages of real babble with a consonant sound, which is coming out as a "babababa." Wesley's getting quite the reputation for now being a snuggler, as he was very open and comfortable cuddling with several of our friends during our aforementioned camping trip. Our favorite forms of affection that he's now showing Eric and me are head butting with love (he does it very gently) and open-mouth, sloppy kisses on the cheek.

Other Updates: As mentioned multiple times, we went camping for the first time as a family of four! We once again joined the celebration for Levi and Jeff's birthdays, this year spending three days and two nights at Lawson's Landing at Dillon Beach. Courage came with us this year, just as he did for Simon's first camping trip. The five of us fit comfortably in our new 8-person tent, which will still provide plenty of space in the years to come when Wesley may want to share an air mattress with Simon instead of with Mommy and Daddy. Both boys got playtime in with the other kids on the trip: Lilly; Allison; Kinlee and her brother, Anthony; and Owen, Eric and Meko's baby. Wesley had the cutest avocado dinner date with Miss Allie, socialized with practically every single one of our friends (we were a group of over thirty), and shared toys and showed off his crawling and standing skills in the 'baby tent' enclosed for the littles. He seriously was in the best mood the entire trip, and was the best traveler I could have imagined. I'm now looking forward to our next getaway together as a family--Lake Tahoe for the wedding of my friend, Kylee!