9.26.2008

9 Months


falling
Originally uploaded by wi77ow
Hello Baby,
You turned 9 months old a few days ago and you probably want to know why I’m so late in writing this letter. Well, we’ve been sick. Snotty, sneezy, fever, achy, crying, sick. A few days would go by and I’d think we were pretty much better, all we’d need is one more night of semi-decent sleep, then the next morning I would wake up dead and it’s really hard to take care of a baby when you are dead, much less write a monthly letter. Yesterday morning we were finally feeling well enough that the thought of going to the grocery didn’t make me cry, but first we had a visit with your doctor so those mean nurses could poke you in the legs again (sorry, I hate it more than you do) and the rest of the day was pretty much shot. The only way I managed to get this typed out today was because I happened to wake up a little early and you, well, didn’t. You were so sleepy this morning that in the shower I noticed you weren’t playing with your toys and your head was bobbing a little and when I looked I saw you had actually fallen asleep sitting up.
Sick or not you have become quite feisty in your old age. You love demonstrating how smart you are by showing you know exactly where you are not allowed to go and then you go there. You aren’t allowed on the dog bed that sits at the end of the couch, and you know this. Several times a day you walk or crawl towards the bed and will stop six inches in front of it and stare at me. You are waiting for me to notice that you will not in fact bend to my oppressive will and follow my “rules”. Ha! Your wild spirit cannot be tamed! Anyway, I’ll tell you to stop and you screech back something, I get up to physically move you and you reach over and defiantly slap one hand on the bed right before I scoop you up and plop you some place else. That’s not the end of it though, oh no, no matter where I put you down you make a bee line straight back towards the bed, laughing the whole time. Rinse and repeat.
Wait, did you notice that new word I used up there? I typed out that you walk to the dog bed. Yep, you are walking. Thankfully, so far you are still content to be carried around places that are less familiar, like church or the grocery, but here at the house you love walking back and forth like no big deal, you’ve been doing this all along.
When you aren’t showing off your fine motor skills you have been working hard on fine tuning your verbal abilities. Specifically, you are working hard at screeching so loudly that the windows actually rattle. Our new neighbors are probably wondering what they’ve gotten themselves into living next door to a family that whips their cats around by their tails for sport. Little do they know that horrible noise is not a flying cat, but it’s my daughter, trying to grab a dirty spoon out of the open dishwasher.
My favorite trick of yours though, and probably the main reason I have decided to keep you, is that you know exactly when to laugh and even though it’s usually a fake forced laugh, it’s the hardiest fake laugh I have ever heard. You watch two people having a conversation and when one person pauses to chuckle or even just smile you bust out laughing like you just heard the best joke ever. Every night your Papa and I watch The Daily Show, Colbert Report and Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Even though you are usually busy trying to empty a tissue box or pull the ears off the cat, you take a few breaks to look up at the TV screen and laugh, then you look over at papa and laugh, showing him you totally got that joke too.
Josephine, you were in my belly for 9 months and now you’ve spent 9 months out in the world. The latter has been way more fun than the former, not because pregnancy sucks, but because you rock.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Josephine, I think that I would REALLY like to borrow you from your mom some time. We will have so much fun and I will tell you secrets about her. You won't understand, but I know you'll laugh!

lolly said...

Josephine, lesson number one: all of your "aunts", especially the ones named Kelly, are liars.