dear jack,
oh my...you are nine months old! and, while that fact is hard for me to believe, it is even harder to wrap my head around the idea that you are becoming more and more fun every day! i absolutely adore spending time with you!
stats from your nine month doctor visit: 18 pounds, 6 ounces- twentieth percentile! (you have moved into the white area for the first time on the growth curve!), 29 inches - seventy-fifth percentile!, and your iron stores are great. plus, we got the green light to proceed with finger foods and to only avoid shellfish and nuts!
here is a glimpse at your current life:
starting to crawl- although it often looks more like a wounded soldier since you tend to keep your left leg straight as you scoot around, you sometimes get up on your hands and knees and rock back and forth...either way, you are fast and usually make it to the object you can't wait to get your hands on!
"talking" all the time- jackie said that you and madeline talk to each other all day, i guess sometimes the conversation gets heated because your face gets red, your voice gets louder, and you shake your arms and kick your feet! "dada" has been part of your vocabulary for weeks, but i swear i heard "mama" over the weekend...and, it's not just wishful thinking!
laughing your sweet little boy laugh at: peek-a-boo, being tickled on your belly, under your arms, or on your neck or thighs, in response to our laughter (you love approval and attention!), when watching sadie play or feeling her fur tickle your feet when she walks under your highchair, or being kissed on the face in a silly way (you especially laught at nonna's kisses)
waving hi and bye! this is new and very exciting thing for us...when you see mama or dad, you wave; when we say hi or bye, you wave; and when we wave to you, you wave. you can imagine how many times per day this new activity happens...we can't get enough! you have also started waving bye-bye to jackie as soon as i walk in to her house in the afternoons to pick you up.
sleeping wonderfully. i am loving our new bedtime routine (in effect for the past two weeks). after dinner and your bath, we read a book in the rocker and then turn out the light as i hold you next to your crib and gently bounce while you drift off to sleep with your head on my shoulder. i rub your back a bit after laying you on your right side in your crib and you sleep the whole night through...!
not so into nursing anymore...currently trying to figure out what we are going to do to get you to drink your milk. it is breaking my heart and making me worried, but you are so interested in the way your body moves and all the objects and sounds surrounding you that you are finding it very difficult to calm yourself for more than two minutes for milk!
picking up food and feeding yourself! in fact, we are eating our dinners together almost every night and you are eating nearly all of the foods that we eat! it is lots of fun to see my little foodie in action and we swear you say "mmmm" and "yummy" when you are eating! (a side note about foods...we visited serenbe last fridayduring our mini-staycation and you tried the gazapacho i ordered for lunch. you made your scrunched up face and turned your head in disapproval. BUT, when i made the two of us gazapacho for dinner last saturday, you gobbled it up! you have a love for mama's cooking that makes me so happy!)
and, you are in constant motion...flipping over on the changing table, moving all over your crib and pulling down the crib bumper to peek out, trying to crawl out of our arms to grab things to explore with your mouth, loving your feet and bouncing, and your wrists act like they are starting up a motorcycle over and over again when you are hungry or tired.
current nicknames: mr. man- mostly used by dada, jack attack- the preferred nickname of kevin and hamilton and, i have to say, quite fitting for your personality, jack-jack- started by your pediatrician at your 4 month visit and the name i prefer to call you, and blais- as in richard_blais, because you are our little foodie! and, i think your hair is really cute when i style it to match his.
i love you, sweet boy. thank you for brightening each of my days!
xoo, mama