He went for his well baby check up last week, and he's doing great! He weighed 18.5 pounds, and he's 27" long. He is in the 10% percentile for both his weight and height. I swear he is chubby though! :)
Right before we flew to Oklahoma, Noah got the horrible GI bug that my dad and I had. It was awful! Even after Noah felt better, he still wasn't eating. I think his little brain remembered that a few short weeks before that he'd eat and then he'd get sick. Our poor babe went on a 4 week food strike! He wouldn't eat anything that we offered him. The minute we'd put him in his little chair and he'd see the spoon coming at him, he'd freak out and cover his mouth. It was awful! Once we were back in Hawaii I finally got him to eat a little bit. The first two times I fed him though he got sick within about 10-15 minutes. I called the pedi again and we had him looked at just to make sure everything was okay. She said he looked good and to keep trying.
So back to his recent 9 month appointment, Dr. Koss took me into her office so we could write down all his stats. I wanted to make sure I had them all written down correctly for Randy and for his baby book. She brought up his growth curve and there was a HUGE dip (in red!) from our last appointment where he wasn't eating. I can't believe it, but he weighed about 14 pounds! I knew we had a rough time, but I had no idea he lost roughly 4 pounds! Looking at his curve from his 6 month to his 9 month, you'd never know what we went through though. Thankfully his curve is right back on track and he's been an eating machine for the past two weeks!
Noah has been pulling a lot of new tricks out of his sleeve, too! The day he turned 9 months, he began to crawl. For a few days he wouldn't leave the area rug, but that is no longer the case! I've found him standing in his crib. This feat makes him most proud! He makes all sorts of new, funny, boy sounds now. I whistle at him and say, "hubba, hubba!" all the time and he just loves it. Recently, I started to ask, "Where is Mommy's hubba, hubba?" and he just smiles. We were leaving the house the other day and I swear he said- hubba, hubba! :) He now goes forward in his Jeep walker, and his steering/turning skills are improving. He loves to drive up to my Glade nightlight plug-ins and take them out of the sockets for me. He can open the drawers on the entertainment center and loves to rock the foot stool part of our rocker. He sits on his knees and plays with his cars. He looks like such a little boy when he does this! He's starting to dance and I love it! I've been working with him and he's finally getting it. He received a Halloween card from cousin Clay that plays the Charlie Brown theme song. The minute he opened it he started to dance. He really only uses his right arm, but I know what he means :) I can see his top two teeth popping through. He's been eating real bites of bananas and pears. I made homemade pizza the other day and gave him a few bites of the plain dough. He doesn't necessarily love the taste, but he's always eager for another bite.
And the biggest of all~ HE'S SLEEPING ALL NIGHT!!!!! Praise the Lord! We had a really, really, really bad week or so. He was awake from about 1-4 every morning and sometimes even once before midnight. I tried everything to soothe him, but nothing really worked. Looking back, I wonder if his teeth were the problem? Anyway, I talked to the pedi about a stradegy to get this all night sleeping show on the road. I was given two options: let him cry or soothe less every few days until you aren't going in his room during the night anymore. Knowing Noah's personality, I knew soothing less would not work for him. If he woke up crying and I went and stood in his room without saying or doing anything I know he would only get more upset. I knew in my heart that that theory would never work for him. I also knew it'd kill me to have him cry it out especially without Randy for support. I figured since we were already up from 1-4 each morning that we might as well start now. It's not like we were getting any sleep anyway! Plus, I know as he gets older it's only going to get harder and harder.
The day we got home from his well baby appointment I put him down for his nap awake. He played for about 20 minutes, cried/whimpered for a few minutes and then he passed out. I thought for sure it was a fluke, but he's been doing it ever since! For every nap and every night at bedtime he has put himself to sleep. Sometimes it takes him awhile to fall alseep for his nap, but he never cries/whimpers for more than 2-3 minutes. Like today, he played for nearly 40 minutes and then all the sudden there was complete silence. I went and peeked in the crack of his door and there he was- sound asleep with his little hiney high up in the air! :) I'm so proud of him and continue to tell him every time he wakes up! So on average, I'm getting about 5 more hours of sleep than I was last week or two and it's wonderful!!! No more threatening Randy that he and Noah are sleeping in the guest room once he's home :)
Entering Fort Snelling...
Grandma & Grandpa seeing what it was like many years ago when Soldiers slept two per bed.
The Marines are digging a ditch to get the giant pool of water away from the gun, because of the non-stop rain it was a useless effort but they didn't care because it kept them warm.
This was the muddy mess we were working in. 
High explosive rounds, these weigh about 98.5 Lbs each
Myself and SSgt Hakim getting ready to hike
