9 months

My little man is 9 months old already!  I can't believe my 2 pound 13 ounce preemie has turned into such a big boy! 

We took both of the boys in for a wellness checkup last week.  Hudson weighed 32 pounds and was 37 1/2 inches tall.  That puts him in the 42% and 32% percentile, respectively.  Little shrimp! My main reason for taking him in was because of the "incident" he had last week, in which I accidentally knocked him unconscious.  We were wrestling in the basement and instead of catching him as I intended when he charged at me, I missed and he flew to the floor and hit the back of his head.  He was only out for 20 seconds or so, but it still freaked me out.  Plus that was the 3rd time that has happened to him.  Being only 3 years old, that's not a great track record and doesn't bode well for there being any tackle football in his future!  The doctor said that some people are just like that and there's nothing we could do about it.  He said as long as he doesn't start throwing up later after he hits his head, that nothing needs to be done except treat the headache.  Hudson never complained about his head hurting afterwards, although I asked him a million times.  Needless to say there is no more WWF allowed in our basement - with mommy anyways!

Tate weighed 16 pounds 3 ounces (1%, but 10% adjusted) and was 26 1/2 inches long (4%, but 25% adjusted).  His head was 17 3/4 inches - 43%.  So my boys must be really smart cause their heads are huge to hold their genius brains!  :)

Our biggest concern is the number of colds/sinus infections Tate has had this summer.  He has been sick a lot.  The pediatrician said it could be the fact that he was born early and his immune system and lungs are not mature, combined with the fact we kept him away from people for so long, that he just has to build up some immunity.  Or, he said if he continues to get a lot of sinus infections, it could be allergy related (Jamie's family has a lot of allergies.) He did say we don't have to be as concerned with RSV this winter and don't need to hibernate like we did last year.  I'm sure we'll stay home a lot more than we do now, just because it is cold and flu season, but at least we will be able to get out of the house when we need to.

Tate has finally figured out eating and now we can't feed him fast enough.  After the first few days of eggs, he lost interest in the food so we were just doing some mashed bananas, avacodos or applesauce occasionally to see if he would eat.  He never would.  Then a week ago I made him some peas and he devoured them and there's been no stopping him since!  So not sure if it was that he really likes peas or if he just finally decided he liked to eat.  So far he hasn't turned anything away. I am going to have to start fixing a lot more food to keep up with his appetite!

I also took Tate back to the audiologist last week for another round of tests.  Unfortunately, he still didn't pass the OAE hearing test.  However, he did pass an actual hearing screening.  They put us in the booth and trained him to respond to a noise in his ear.  When he heard the noise he knew that meant the little animal beside us would light up and start dancing.  It took a couple tries to train him and then he started turning his head to look at it before it went off.  So I could tell he must be hearing the sound through his earphones to make him look at it first.  Pretty cool.  The audiologist said he passed that test just fine, especially for only being 7 months adjusted, so she isn't real concerned about his hearing.  Plus he is starting to babble quite a bit and she heard him doing that as well.  So, again, she thinks his right ear canal is just still really, really tiny (He still had to have the newborn ear insert cause the other's were too big.  She just can't get over how small that ear canal is, every time we go in there.) and that's what is causing that one test too fail.  So she wants us to come back in 6 months and try it again.

Tate's first word- verified by 2 witnesses since Jamie still hasn't heard it and doesn't believe it - was "mama".  I have heard him say it several times this past week, unfortunately it's usually when he's worked up and crying.  But it's still mama!   He also started saying his "ba" sounds this weekend and we always call Hudson "Bubba" for "brother" so Hudson is pretty proud that he knows his name now too!  He has gotten pretty vocal in the past few weeks.

He hasn't started crawling yet, but he seems pretty close.  He sits up really well now and will lunge forward to grab a toy onto his hands and knees, but quickly flops back down to his belly.  From there he just gets upset cause he can't get anywhere until we pick him back up and start over.  So he's practicing!  My life will definitely change when he gets mobile!