Nine Months and Counting...

Hey Sammy -

Happy Nine Months! This month's birthday is a big one for me. It marks a turning point. From here on out, you will have been alive longer on the outside than on the inside. It's funny because it seemed like forever when I was waiting for you to be born, but since you've come home these nine months passed quicker than the blink of your little blue eyes.


There were a lot of changes this month. Your teeth have come in like gang busters. You now sport two bottom and two top teeth, with two more top teeth terrorizing your poor little gums. Not only have you grown some teeth, but you actually understand how to use them! You love food that requires chewing. Bread, cheese, crackers, macaroni and cheese, star snacks. You love it all. Thank god you'll still eat smashed and pureed food, too, or all of my freezer stockpiling efforts would have been for naught, and I would be very bitter. Every night before bed, your dad brushes your tiny teeth, and you laugh uncontrollably. It's one of the best parts of the day for your lame parents.

You can pull yourself up to a kneeling position now. You can sometimes even get up on your feet if the object assisting you is the proper height. Standing is all the rage in our household. Any time you get fussy, we just prop you up on the coffee table and all is right with your world. If we put Sesame Street on, you would probably stand there all freaking day. You stand in the tub, you stand in the pack and play, you stand on the couch. All standing, all the time.

There is a great deal more chatter going on these days. You'll look me right in the eye and say, 'Woo! Blah blee blee, da da da de. Nana say te?' And then you wait for my response. While this delights me to no end, It's becoming a struggle to think of new and clever-ish retorts. And if, for some reason, I have no reply, you get indignant and start pounding your tiny fists like some sort of small dictator.

You have rock star hair. I vow never to cut it.


Your curiosity about your surroundings continues to skyrocket. So much, in fact, that we now live in a apartment with gates in almost every doorway. There is a gate blocking the kitchen, another one blocking the hallway to the bathroom with the cat box in it, one barricading the office, and several keeping you from climbing the steps. Your father and I (and the cat) will be in very good shape from hurdling these baby obstacles once we move out of here. We do let you explore some of these places (not the cat box) when we can sit and make sure you aren't going to put any wires or Drano in your mouth, so it's not like we have you penned up. Well, maybe we do a little bit, but it's for your own good, damn-it!

Mostly, though, it's the changes in your personality that amaze me. You've become such a complex little person that it makes me happy one minute and achingly sad the next. Every day you get farther and farther from being my little baby, and in some ways I'll always miss that. But the anticipation of watching you grow into a boy, and then a man, is thrilling.

Besides, we both know that a teeny part of you will always be my little baby, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it!


I love you, bug!

Mama