Butterflies and rainbows: 9 months and 27 months

It is really hard to believe that Matthew is already 9 months old and has been here as long as I was pregnant with him. He is pulling himself into sitting, and up on his knees, and he is all over the place though not quite officially crawling, he still manages to get around. He is obsessed with me and whenever he is doing something and realizes that I'm not in the room (especially if he sees me after I've been away), he flips out. He likes watching other babies and other kids in general. As long as I'm nearby, he is usually pretty content. He still adores his big brother.

He has 3 teeth now (one top, two bottom, with another top one working it's way in)...they hurt! He eats anything we give him (and loves it), mostly jarred baby food, he is just now starting to figure out some very soft finger foods.

I am a slacker and only called to make Matthew's 9 month well baby appointment last week. (Surprise surprise, trying to make a well visit appointment in late July is not great timing, we should call it his 'almost 10 month' appointment.) So no stats on his growth except he is still fitting quite easily in the infant seat (where I will keep him as long as I can) and is WAYYYYYY smaller than Luke was at this point. He still fits in a lot of 6 month sized clothes.I would guess he's about 19 lbs or so.

He has had blocked tear ducts since he was born, and they have been off and on between okay, bad, and really bad. Since mid June, they had been really bad, so bad that I brought him back to the doctor for them. Anyway, the doctor said that they still have time to correct on their own (up till a year), and that most of the time that happens, but if it doesn't, then he will have to have surgery to fix it. So that has had us stressed even if it is a pretty minor surgery, he would still have to be pretty much unconscious for it. A couple weeks ago, one eye was suddenly better. The second eye has been steadily improving and I am hoping by the time we see the doctor in late August for him 9 month appointment, they will both be officially fine. It is REALLY nice not to have to deal with his eyes getting gunky every time he falls asleep and then torturing him to clean them out.
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Luke is very two. He has me laughing at something silly he is saying one minute, pulling my hair out the next minute. He still really likes counting and is very interested in everything we try to teach him even if he doesn't quite get it. (Tonight we were working on colors in the bathtub. "Blue" "Red" "Yellow"...okay...what color is this? "Purple!"[yellow].) He loves counting and randomly points at things as he "counts" them and he keeps counting and pointing even if there are only 2 things. His counting is getting better I think..(1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, teen, teen, teen). He is OBSESSED with trains and especially Thomas and friends. He is starting to repeat the things we say, which really sucks that he started doing this 2 weeks before preschool starts. The other day I was saying something to Joe and used the word "screwed" , I think it was something relatively benign like "That's screwed up" (probably about the freaking Cardinals...WTF man?!) Luke was sitting there and chirped out, "Screwed!", Without thinking I said, "OH CRAP!" And he parroted back, "cwap!" Fantastic! Luckily I haven't heard him say either word since. I guess I'm going to have to go back in teacher-talking mode.

He is talking a lot, all the time. It's crazy. And he loves playing with other kids, even his own brother, which is really nice.

I never in a million years thought I would be like this but I am starting to get a little sad about starting preschool in a couple weeks. It's only 6 hours a week and I will still have Matthew, so it's not like it's going to be this luxury vacation every day, especially since his preschool is about 15 min. from our house. I probably will spend that time out running errands mostly, actually. (Or hey, I could go work out and drop Matthew in the $2/hourly care at our city's rec center...) Anyway, it's only 3 hours a day. But it is going to be really really weird to take him somewhere (that isn't a family or friend's house), and then just leave him. I will probably be torn between skipping away or crying that first day. I know he is going to love it though and hopefully he will do pretty well. (In a perfect world, it will wear him out so that we come home and eat lunch and sleep the rest of the afternoon and I can get Matthew on the same schedule. I'm not holding my breath for any of that.)