Fat and Fit

Alex's 9-month checkup was yesterday, as I mentioned.

He's fine and fit and fat (though no fatter than he should be) -- at a smidge over 28" tall and a smidge under 21 pounds, he places at precisely 50% for both height and weight. (Give or take a few percentage points due to squirming during measurement and the proximity of his last meal.)

He now outweighs the cat.

Though the infosheet that came home suggested that he should be getting enough solid food to be down to 3-4 bottles a day, and he's getting more like 5-6 (though that's down from 6-7 just a month ago). Might be time to cut back on the number of bottles we're sending to daycare, have them replace it with juice or water. (I tried him on some diluted juice the other day when he was still hungry after his bottle, and that was a Big Two Thumbs Up!)

I think we're doing okay at home -- he only gets one bottle in the morning, and that'll probably be the last one to disappear from his menu. But I might try stepping up the finger-food program a bit and making sure he gets little pieces of whatever we're having for dinner to gum on, instead of trying to feed him before we eat and then just giving him a few pieces of banana to play with. (Also, to get some more finger-food snacks for the weekends, like cheerios.)

And it's time to start pushing the sippy cups, too, especially if I want him using them instead of bottles for the Christmas trip to Chicago. I'm trying to remember to put the "wings" on his morning bottles, and today I gave him a sippy cup with some juice in it. He managed to get it to his mouth, but then chewed on it instead of sucking. He'll figure it out soon enough.

I'm not obsessing about this, though. I know it looks like it, but that's just because the checkup spiked my awareness and pondering. Alex is obviously doing just fine - he's growing (I realized this morning that I need to purge and reevaluate his stock of clothing again), he's exploring his world, he's learning to navigate and communicate, he loves to play, he recognizes his family and friends (and warms up to new friends fairly easily), he's healthy as the proverbial horse, and he sleeps well (if not on precisely the schedule I'd prefer).

I don't really worry about Alex. (Well, not in the long run. There's obviously still the immediate worries, like keeping him out of the cat's food or the fact that he's really determined to follow Penny up the stairs.) Alex, I get the distinct impression, will get wherever it is that Alex wants to go.