Addie - 9 months

Well, she's actually a smidge closer to 10 months at this point but whatever. She weighs 21.8 lbs and is in the 90th percentile for weight, the 80th for height. Those are the numbers, but here's what Addie's really like.

I think her favorite part of the day is when Allen comes home. As soon as she hears the door handle click, she starts screaming and squealing and hustling to the door to greet him. From what Allen says, it's his favorite part of the day, too.



This is my least favorite age (of all the ages we've experienced). Kids this age want to be in everything, do everything, touch everything, eat EVERYthing, get up on everything but don't have the motor skills to do anything. Addie is no exception. She is always pulling herself up on me, clawing at me, pulling up on furniture, and then falling down. Thankfully, though, she doesn't get flustered. She seems to take it in stride. She is extremely interested in whatever Lexi is doing so we've come up with some creative ways to prevent frustration and maximize sharing. Most of the time, the kids do really well together. Lexi takes the grabbing and pulling like a champ. Addie is quickly learning how to walk, too. She makes it a few steps, falls down and tries, tries, tries again. If she's in a hurry, she prefers to crawl, but she usually makes a go at walking first.



Addie is still on elemental formula and will be until she is at least 18 months old. That means she will also be on a bottle until then, too. I was hoping to get her off of the bottle earlier, but her GI doctor doesn't think she'll resolve her current allergies until 18 months or so. She still aspirates thin liquids so feeding her formula out of sippy cup isn't an option for us. I guess if that's the worst thing we're looking at dealing with, we're doing pretty well. Because we still thicken her formula, she gets Mylanta twice daily to help with gas and constipation. Addie has finally learned to poop on her own too! I know that may seem weird to say, but if you remember, we were giving her up to 12 suppositories a day (not all at once, gosh people) when she was younger because of delayed gastric emptying from the Prevacid and her formula. It's been a very slow process, but now she can take care of business on her own. We have weaned her off of one dose of Prevacid, as well, and she has done great.

One of the most difficult things when it comes to feeding Addie is finding solid foods she can enjoy. Most commercial baby foods add Absorbic Acid (vitamin C) to all of their fruits - to help prevent browning - and some of their other meals. Well, for a reflux baby, that's no good. The acid exacerbates the reflux. When we first started Addie on solids, we had to special order (no, I did not make her baby food from scratch) single ingredient foods online. Now that she's outgrowing her reflux, the standard Gerber and Beechnut foods work. Of course, I have to read all of the ingredients to make sure there is no milk or soy added. That means no cheese, either. Lots and lots of the later stage foods have milk and soy as binders so Addie's menu is still pretty limited. But, she has a great appetite and is obviously thriving.

Right now, Addie is a terrific sleeper. She takes a relatively short morning nap (about an hour) and then a longer nap in the afternoon. She sleeps 12 hours a night. I can count on one hand the number of times she has been up in the middle of the night since she started sleeping through the night. Very rarely, do changes in our activities disrupt her schedule. If she takes a cat nap in the car, she almost always goes down at her regular time and takes a full nap anyways. The only frustration I have about Addie's sleep is that she still cries when I put her down. Every. single. time. After a couple of minutes, she starts playing and then puts herself to sleep, but she has to cry. Kind of drives me nuts.

Everyone who meets Addie says this, "She's the easiest baby ever!" Aside from her tummy issues, that statement is totally true. There are only two reasons Addie gets fussy: she's hungry or tired. In between those times, she entertains herself, amuses herself, doesn't cause problems (the exception was the vaseline incident), plays well with her sister, laughs easily, babbles constantly, and loves to play. She understands "no" (and cries every time you tell her that) but usually listens.

All in all, Addie is just a really fun kid to be around. She is usually smiling which makes us smile. She has an exuberance for life that will not be easily matched. As usual, we can't wait to see how she grows and watch her personality unfold.