nine months

dear claire,

hello and welcome to nine months old. i hope you enjoy your stay. here at nine months you'll find crawling, clapping, standing, speaking and holding your own bottle. allegedly.

you are on the VERGE of doing so many amazing things. this holiday season is going to be so exciting. wait... did i really just say that? "this holiday season is going to be so exciting." look what you're doing to me. i dare you to find a single person who knew me for more than 5 minutes in 2006 that would ever dream those words would come out of my mouth. sersiouly... "this holiday season is going to be so exciting." WOW. you are changing me in ways i didn't believe possible. today i sang a very enthusiastic jingle bells to you at least 4 times and i did some sort of weird cheer for you when you didn't spit out your plums. i'm telling you... we are getting dangerously close to me wearing a tigger sweatshirt, keds, eating fruit loops for dinner and insisting that rhyming is super neato. ugh.

as i was saying... you are a learning machine! here's a list of all the things you can ALMOST do. i mean REALLY crazy close.

drink from your sippy cup. currently you can suck air from it and then get pissed and throw it on the ground. work in progress.

bottle feed yourself. you definitely CAN, you sometimes will, but mostly you choose not to. i mean if we're going to go to all the trouble to buy it and prepare it for you we might as well serve it to you will we're at it. it's only polite.

put a cheerio in your mouth. you can put a cheerio in your hand, smack it somewhere on your face narrowly missing your mouth and fling it onto the floor. exactly where it belongs.

crawl. currently you are majoring in land swimming. with a minor in rolling over and giggling.

stand alone. standing against the ottoman is adequate. that's where we keep all the good stuff anyways.

clap. you think its really funny when i clap. but i can tell you really want to do it yourself. i know things.

pet the cat (nicely). we are working on this. repeat after me. pet, not pull. soft. gentle. love. pet, not pound. no murdering.

run for president (davies 2044). it's not THAT far away.

so anyways... like i said - this holiday season is going to be so exciting!

the months are starting to go by crazy fast. i feel like i'm going to turn around and you will be going away to college. you're starting to get this "kid" look about you, rather than a "baby" and it breaks my heart. i don't know what it is about the tiny baby in you that's so hard to let go. you cried a lot and you didn't do much... i guess it's the fact that every day you need me a little less. every day you get closer and closer to being too big for me to carry. i really feel like this month will be your last month of being a true "baby". next month you'll be crawling around and doing things for yourself. you're beginning to crave a toddler-like Independence - making decisions for yourself.

last night you weren't feeling good and i gave you a bottle and rocked you in your room. when you were done eating, you turned around and decided you wanted to lay on me. you put your head down on my chest and wrapped your little arms around me and fell asleep. it was the first time you'd decided so snuggle me on your own. you're making great decisions so far sweetie. keep it up.

loving you in a very big way.


-mama