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.

8 Months

Josephine,

This month has been packed with firsts that I hope to never forget. I have a perpetual calendar that I write things on, like your first word, mama, and the first time you took a few steps before crashing into my lap. Next year when those dates come back around, I'll see that July 30th 2008 you got up on both knees to crawl for real instead of the army scoot you've been perfecting. I'll document all of your milestones for sure, but this month there was so much more that I want to remember besides.

I don't want to forget how we share a piece of chocolate sometimes in the afternoon. I put a square of whatever chocolate grandma has around the house in my lips and you try to bite the corner that sticks out. My little baby bird has to give her mama a kiss if she wants to have a taste. I have no idea how you still manage to get chocolate all over your face, a candy goatee framing that perfect smile of yours.




I want to always hang on to the nights that you would get a second wind. You would practice your hollering all day and with your pipes all warmed up you'd play a very loud game of come catch me Papa. A game that has you yell and scream and laugh until Papa crawls over and you try to scamper away but you only manage to tumble over onto a pillow. Then you laugh even louder and send Papa hiding behind the pillow and the game turns into the loudest game of peek-a-boo in history.


You are very good at playing with everyone. You know when you are supposed to laugh even though you don't get the joke and you can always get any one's attention back on you if we dare take a minute to talk to someone else in the room. You also know how to tear your diaper off if I don't put it on backwards. You tear one side half way open, look to see if I have seen what you've done, then finish the job as fast as you can.



I know this won't last forever, but I wish it would: I love when you stare at me when you are sitting in the shopping cart and when I look into your eyes you give me the most genuine smile one person has ever given another. You smile like you know how much I love you. You smile like you have to show all the love in the world in one facial expression.

Here's something I don't have a picture of, my most special time with you in the morning: I bring you in the shower with me now. I hold you in my arms for the first minute and let you hold your hand in the stream of water, then set you down with some toys while I wash my hair. You do just fine in there, then I stop the drain and let you splash in the bath while I towel off. If I don't set you down fast enough though, you fall asleep, just conk right out without warning on my shoulder. It's hard to describe the special feeling of having your tiny wet body snuggled up to me, your arms wrapped as far around my neck as they can reach.

Month Five

I organize all the pictures I take of you by month and when I had to create a new folder with the name "month five" I was kind of upset. In many ways it seems like time has gone too fast, and I know I say this every month, but it's true. Sometimes though, I am just so impressed at what an incredibly fun person you have become in just five months.

Josephine, you laugh every day. Every Day! You sometimes get fussy and want to be picked up and then grandma or papa come around the corner and you start giggling like you have just heard the best joke. At this point I am still your favorite person, I'm the only one who can feed you, but you get a little tired of looking at me by the end of the day and I don't blame you at all.

You have officially all-by-yourself rolled over, but more impressive is how fast you can spin in a circle. I can put you down for a nap and one minute later check on you and you are facing the opposite way I layed you down and you've pulled one of your stuffed toys under your head like a pillow.

You have really grown in your noise making this month. There's this thing you do sometimes when you see grandma, you suck air in and make a noise like a zombie and grandma always makes the noise right back at you and you think it's just the best thing in the world. Other days you practice squealing as loud and high pitched as you can. Usually when you are in your highchair the squealing starts, along with furious kicking and throwing of all toys within reach.

You are so full of new tricks! One trick that I'm not sure I understand is the scratching. Always with the scratching. Laying on the couch, scratch scratch scratch. Nursing, scratch scratch scratch. Sitting in your highchair, scratch scratch scratch. Scratch scratch scratch.

You might think that the best thing this month is that you have started sleeping though the night on occasion. It is great, but I'm still sad that you don't like to snuggle as much anymore. Sometimes you still wake up in the middle of the night and if it's early enough and I'm awake enough I put you back in your bed after feeding you, but sometimes I fall asleep with you by my side and instead of your head finding my armpit like it used to, you start flailing your arms and kicking you feet so hard that it's like trying to sleep through an earthquake. (the only time I've been someplace where there was a registered earthquake I actually did sleep through it, so whatever, you know what I mean. You kick a lot.)

No, the best thing is when you see me come into the room and you squeal, and smile, and kick your feet so fast you almost take off in flight. The best thing is when I come into the bedroom as you are waking up from a nap and your little brown fuzzy head is peeking up just enough to see who's coming in and you get a big smile on your face as you quickly duck your head back down, rub your face, and pop back up. The best thing is when you are nursing and you feel so comfortable that you start singing between moments of sucking and you look up at me, waiting for eye contact so you can laugh and go back to nursing and singing. The best thing is that I know you are supposed to be my daughter and I am supposed to be your mother and I have never been more sure of anything in my life.