But now I have his official stats, and hopefully, in the next few days (if I ever have a pen around when I think of it), I'll get Michael's height mark up on the basement pole before he grows any taller on me.
He is now a whopping 30.5 inches, which puts him in the 67th percentile for height, and weighs 22 lbs, 13.4 oz (68th percentile for weight). I'm going to sound crazy saying this, but I still can't believe how small he is. I'm fully aware that 68th percentile means above-average, and I've personally met babies, who are in closer to the fifth, who have a much more legitimate claim to that descriptor. It just always amazes me how differently-sized my first two babies were, and still are, to each other, and makes me wonder just what to expect of my third.
Pretty much any baby is going to seem small to me compared to Abby, and there's just no way around that when your first baby starts off and remains in the 99th percentile, I suppose. At the same age Michael is now, she was 32.4 inches tall, and 28 lbs. It doesn't sound like such a big difference, but it really is.
Perhaps that's just how boys grow in my family, though. After all, my brother, who was 16.5 months older than me (whereas Michael is 14.5 months younger than Abby), was consistently smaller than me throughout our childhoods, and didn't outgrow me until he finally hit a growth spurt somewhere between age 14 and 15. As with many things, only time will tell.
One thing I do know: Michael is making definite progress with this walking thing. I think his biggest hurdle has been his instinct and preference towards crawling. Just in the past couple of days, though, I've seen the scales tipping on that, and more and more he seeks to walk before crawling. He just needs to get out of the mindset that it's not worth following through until the end- lately, he appears to be dropping down to a crawl after taking several steps- not because he has fallen- but because he has grown tired of walking upright.
Here's a video that I took of him this evening. Look how he's finally got the proper posture down. It's been an amazing process to observe, and I'm so proud to see how far he's come.
I'm thinking that by thirteen months, he'll be pretty unstoppable, for sure.
***
A few more fun facts about Michael's current status:
- No words yet, but babbles galore. Occasionally, I could swear I hear him try to say "Abby," or "Kitty," but we haven't heard any "Mama" or Dada" for awhile now.
- Just five teeth (two top and three bottom), but working on more. Currently sporting the two front upper and lower teeth, plus the lower left lateral incisor. Both upper lateral incisors and the lower right lateral incisor are visible through his gums (and have been for about two months), but have yet to make move.
- He loves to clap, will sometimes wave when prompted, and is getting pretty good at giving high-fives.
- He's a pro at climbing up steps (and anything else that's not too tall for him to manage, which, thankfully, does not include a whole lot of things just yet).
- I often spot him dancing when there is music playing somewhere around. His version of dancing (for now) consists of bopping up and down on bent knees and flailing his arms about as he stands in place. More and more, he's been doing it without hanging onto anything, which I think has really helped him get a handle on balancing upright.
- In the past couple of days, we've really gotten aggressive about offering and feeding him solids, and he's totally into it. He's gotten really good about being spoon-fed, all of a sudden, and will take a squeezie so long as it has a spoon attached to the end (for some reason, he gets really aggravated if we try to squeeze the puree directly into his mouth from the pouch). He also goes nuts on whatever bite-sized morsels we spread across his tray. Just in the last 72 hours, he's devoured squash, peach, and spinach/peas/pear purees; spaghetti; bits of meatball, corned beef, and chicken; mac n' cheese; oatmeal with banana; sweet potato fries; corn; and grapes (on top of his usual fare of rice, crackers, and bread). Just like his sister, he adores peas, though I'd say his very favorite food is probably rice.
- We had a little trouble with the Nuk soft-spout sippy, as he drank from it but managed to swallow a ton of air in the process, but he's doing well on the Born Free version (which has an air-intake system). I'm thinking I'll need to order a few of those so that we can make a complete switch off of bottles in the next couple of weeks.
- He's sleeping through the night on a regular basis, though he's still prone to brief wakings a couple of times a night that generally do not require any interference. Approximately every other day or so, he'll insist on waking at 5:00 am and will expect a bottle before agreeing to another hour or so of sleep, but we're slowly working our way up to a pretty predictable 7:00 am wake-up time.
- He's becoming a more driven, focused troublemaker every day. I've definitely got my work cut out for me with this little guy around.
