Newsletter: Month Ten

OK, so there isn't a Newsletter: Month One through Nine. I just got the idea from Dooce, one of my favorite online bloggers, who writes one for her daughter. She's on month 39, and you know, if we were there, it might be really too late. But I figure that we're still in the first year. And, in truth, we're just now at that point that you're totally enthralling on a day-to-day basis. Please don't misunderstand that statement and think that I mean that I wasn't interested in the first nine months of your life. I've been totally captured by you for about nineteen months now, ever since that moment when the line that meant that there was a You appeared on the EPT test strip. But you've grown slowly in that time. One day melded into the next without a lot of differences in behavior or growth. But now! Oh, now, you are a busy, busy baby.



You seem to be changing a little bit everyday, and when that's added up, you're making leaps every few weeks. This month, you've learned to stand and crawl, two huge developments. We thought for a while that you were just going to stick with your "Army crawl", where you'd impersonate a private moving as slowly and stealthily as one would need to sneak behind enemy lines. The only difference is that you used this maneuver to sneak up to a toy. And when you'd reach the toy, any incentive for further movement was completely removed. We just assumed that all of the standing and cruising that you were doing would morph into walking, with crawling being left behind somewhere as an afterthought. But then one day, I was standing in the living room, and you crawled past me on your way into the kitchen. And it's been one constant stream of movement from that moment on. It's not uncommon now for Daddy and I to be standing in one room and hear noise in another, and then we go in search of you and whatever you've gotten into. It's unsettling, to say the least. I'm still not used to the idea of you as a completely independant being. I guess I'd better catch up fast because you seem to be launching yourself quite quickly.



The fact that you're growing into your own little person shouldn't be a shock. You have a strong streak that is, by far, one of your most defining features. You are quite calm and easygoing much of the time. You're often happy to sit and play with your toys, or to crawl around in search of something new, or to be carried in our arms. But if you have an opinion about something, or don't like what we or you are doing, it comes through loud and clear. You're becoming very vocal, and you now have a range of sounds that you emit in a variety of scenarios. It's not uncommon to hear you babbling to your toys or as you wander around, and Daddy and I have both become accustomed to the grunting noise that comes when you're defining your point. And you have facial expressions to accompany all of these noises. One of my favorites is the nose wrinkle/eyebrow furrow combo that you make if we put something into your mouth that you're unsure of. Most of the time, though, you still just roll with the punches. It's like you want to tell us how you feel about it and then you're ready to move on.

One of our current quandries-- as first-time parents, we have a lot of those-- is finding a way to deal with situations when you're doing something that's not ok. You've taken to biting lately; you'll be riding around in our arms, or chilling with us on the couch, and you'll suddenly bend down and chomp on a limb. The first time that you did it to Daddy, he scared you with his reaction. But we haven't found a way to impress upon you that that's not a good thing. Whenever we get serious with you, you look at our faces and start giggling. It's not exactly the response that we're going for.



You have lots and lots of little quirks. You like to take your nails and dig them into any piece of flesh that you can find, especially when you're nursing, and sometimes, you do little dances, contorting your body while staying firmly attached to my breast. You most frequently express happiness by slapping something. You enjoy being outdoors and seem to calm instantly as soon as you smell the fresh air, but then you often fall asleep as soon as we're actually out. You have specific specifications for the size of your bites when you're eating; if they're too big, you will expel the food, wholesale, back out of your mouth. You still want to be swaddled when you sleep and often calm down as soon as you snuggle into the blankets. You often squeeze yourself into a tight space, like under the kitchen table or under a chair. Sometimes, you get stuck and frustrated, but sometimes, you'll just happily coo for a while. You love to sit and play on the floor, knocking down towers of blocks or playing with your puppets. You still love playing with paper and electronics, your first two loves.

Recently, you've begun sitting at the dinner table with us, chewing away on miniature versions of our grown-up dinners. You've developed a very expansive palate, a thing with which we're very pleased. If you can keep that, you'll fit right in. Not that you wouldn't fit into our family if you suddenly decided to eat only Cheerios and bananas (two of your favorite foods). I still amazed, every day, at how much I love you and enjoy being with you. I keep thinking that I can't love you more-- and then I do. You have such a firm hold on us that sometimes, I wonder how we lived before you came. Things were certainly quieter, and we got much better sleep, and sometimes I get wistful about taking off on a moment's notice or going out to places that just aren't an option for you, at this juncture. But the idea of living a life without you is something that I simply cannot conceive of now. And I'll definitely keep it that way.