9 Months Old

 We've been having so much fun lately! Will and Erin make us smile and laugh all of the time. I've been making mental notes for my monthly update of each baby. 

Erin is VERY active! Her legs/feet are always moving.  It's like she is running in place.  Just tonight she was running so much that  could hear her little feet hitting the floor when I was downstairs doing laundry.  She flips from her front to back and back to front in no time.  She is moving all over the floor.  She will use her legs to push herself forward. She isn't crawling yet, but it is only a matter of time.  We are working on sitting up.  Erin likes to push herself backwards instead of sitting up. She arches her back and throws her weight around.  We have specific exercises to practice to help her build up her strength and coordination. 

This morning I had Erin leaning against my legs.  She was all smiles and we were having fun playing together. I looked into her mouth and noticed something was different. I put my finger in there and felt two little pricks poking though the bottom gum! That's right folks, she is sprouting two teeth! She has been fussy every night this week for an hour before she falls asleep. I don't know if the teeth had anything to do with the fussing. It could just be her 'witching hour' as I affectionately call it. 

Will and Erin are sleeping for 10-12 hours straight. They go to bed around 7:00-7:30. The hardest thing about being back to work full time is that I want to rush home from work (by 4:00) so that I can spend a few hours with them before they are asleep for the night.  Just last week we stopped feeding them around 11:00 pm, before we went to bed.  They weren't waking up, but we would feed them anyways.  Both babies are getting 170-175 ml of breast milk/formula.

Erin has started at Mary Free Bed Intensive Feeding Clinic two days a week for an hour each session.  Mark is taking her to most of the appointments because his work schedule is more flexible than mine.  On the first appointment, her OT, Linda, had set goals for Erin and Erin had already accomplished all of them! (ex. putting cereal in her mouth).  So Linda had to write some new goals for Erin.  She is working on learning the motor skill of swallowing.  We have specific exercises to do with her 3-5 times per day.  We have to rub and move her upper and bottom lip.  She doesn't mind it at all.

We started back on Previcad two weeks ago because she was refluxing pretty bad with the Zantac.  She immediately became very vocal (in a good way).  She 'talks' to us all of the time. Sometimes it sounds more like she is yelling, but there is nothing wrong with her.

She continues to be a happy baby. Erin smiles all of the time! There have been a few times over the past few days that she has let me rock her to sleep.  This has NEVER happened before. I tried sitting her on my lap instead of cuddling her on my shoulder (which she doesn't like to do).  She settled right in, sucked her pinkie finger and fell asleep. I treasure these moments because I know that they won't last forever.

Will is getting to be such a big boy! He weighs 16 lbs. 3 oz and Erin is 15 lbs. 9 oz. Will is becoming much more active. He is close to rolling over.  There were a few times this weekend that I thought he was going over, but he didn't.  He rolls onto his sides when he is playing and sleeping.  He has found his thumb and will take breaks while he is playing on the floor to suck his thumb.  Sometimes we catch him watching TV too.

He is still the boy of many faces.  I wonder if he will make some many different faces when he is older.  He has a serious face, a HUGE, toothless, gummy smile, concern face, a 'leave me a lone' face... you get the idea. Lately, we have seen a lot of the HUGE, toothless, gummy smile faces.  He is so happy and smiles all of the time (except when I am taking his monthly picture).

Will is getting very good at sitting up by himself.  He is up to almost a minute now.  Sometimes we put the Boppy around him which definitely helps.  Will loves to play with all of the toys and the all end up in his mouth.

Will.i.am is still a good bottle drinker.  He does not like breast milk that has been frozen and then thawed. I know because I accidentally mixed up his days bottles with frozen milk and he would spit, sputter and eventually refuse to drink the bottle. I made it with formula and fresh milk and he drank it without trouble.  I am still pumping 5-6 times per day.  I do miss eating lunch with my friends at work, but know that I won't be pumping forever (even though I am scared to stop and gain a ton of weight!).  There is plenty of extra milk (even though I am noticing that my supply is starting to dwindle) that I scald and then freeze. Will will drink this frozen milk.

He has discovered his sister.  We have caught them kicking each other in the head, chewing on each others toes and fingers and they stare at the other one a lot.  It is VERY cute to watch. 

In this picture, Will was so sick.  He has his ostomy bag (which was a pain to keep on) on from his bowel surgery. They had routed his intestines outside of his belly so that his body could heal and repair itself. The yellow stuff in the bag was poop.  It was still six weeks before Will would be extibated for the last time.  This was one of those times that I had a difficult time imagining him home with us for Halloween or at all.

What a difference a year makes!  Little did I know that when this picture was taken, I was half way through my pregnancy.  I remember being so sick all of the time. I couldn't eat breakfast, meat, or brush my teeth without throwing up. I was on powerful anti-nausa medicine that really helped! I was miserable and didn't start to feel better until 18 weeks along. I only had a few weeks that I felt good being pregnant.