nine months

Dear Theo,

You are 9 months old today.  And do you know what you did last night, on the eve of your 9 month birthday?  You crawled!  It's funny, before I had you I always thought there were definite moments when babies did things.  Like I thought you would start smiling one day and then smile every day.  I thought the same thing would happen with your laugh, saying "da da," rolling over, clapping on command, sitting up, et cetera.  But you have this way of teasing us and making us wait.  When you first smiled (not a gassy smile, but an I'm-laughing-because-my-mommy-is-working-her-butt-off-to-make-me-smile smile), it was the most exciting milestone we'd met up to that point.  I was SO excited!  Then you didn't do it again for about 2 weeks.  Then not again for another week.  Now we just make eye contact and you smile.  I love it.  The same things happened with all of your other milestones.

You've been up on your knees for a month or so now, rocking forward or moving your knees (but not your hands), then falling on your belly.  It works, because you make forward progress that way and when you get close enough to something, you just start rolling to it until it is in your grip.  Well, last night, Peezy Brown, you moved the knees AND hands at the same time about 3 or 4 times and you really made some progress!  We are so proud of you!  Now, to say that you're crawling isn't to say that we're chasing you down the hallway just yet, but you are definitely making progess and getting there.

Your cats...you love, love, love those crazy animals.  If only they would love you back.  They will one day, but right now they don't like how you grab and pull their fur.  Ouch!  I wish I could lock up the look on your face when they walk by and put it in my pocket to pull out for a rainy day, because it never fails to make ME smile.  When will you stop finding the greatest joy in the smallest things?  I love how you love our pets.

Peezus, you love your food.  You are starting to think baby food is for babies, and that's probably our fault.  Last night you ate turkey meatloaf and mashed potatoes for dinner.  Not pureed and out of a jar, either.  You love to eat whatever you see us eating and you sure know the difference if we try to slip in some baby food.  You love macaroni and cheese, green beans, applesauce, shredded cheese, tomatoes, any kind of meat, beans, and oatmeal.  That's not all though, you love anything we give you off of our plate, but especially if we let you feed yourself.  You're getting pretty good at using your pincer grasp to pick up small items.  Sometimes, when you're getting full, you just take the food and get it deep in  your fist and smoosh it up because you like the way it feels.  That works out wonderfully when you're sleepy, because that food all over your palm inevitably ends up on your ears, eyes, and in your hair. 

You are kind of funny about sleep.  You go through a lot of stages.  Sometimes you are easy to put down for a nap.  Sometimes you like to sleep in my arms and other times you are too restless until I lay you in your crib.  A lot of times we can kiss you good night and lay you down and you never make a peep.  Other times you cry and cry for me and it breaks my heart but I know you're okay when I go pick you up and you start lauging right away, as if to say "Gotcha!"  Sometimes we get you up and bring you back out into the living room again so we can steal some more kisses and time with you, but we usually try to stick to your bedtime routine so you don't get too confused.  Lately you've been crying for a few minutes when we lay you down and it  makes us both really sad.  We sit in the living room with the monitor, making sad faces and asking each other "don't you think I should go talk to him/check on him/see if he's okay?"  One thing I can say for sure is that you have slept through the nights far more nights than you haven't and for that, we are soooo grateful.  I hope your little brother or sister takes after you!

Every day with you is so much fun and I don't know if anything or anyone has made me feel as happy as you do at least a hundred times a day.  I love you more than anything, sweet baby, and I always will.  Promise.

Love,
Mommy