Dear Baby, You Are Nine Months Old
I love how she can show us what she wants, says Cara. She takes your hands and she knows exactly where she wants to go! Oh wait, she's walking in a circle, she laughs.
And so you are today, before you stride off towards mummy, maybe, through the open door into the garden, or in pursuit of a ball or crumb you've spotted on the floor, sometimes dragging behind random things with strings that you have gotten entagled in, like Tara's handbag.
When we play with and talk to you, you make your pleasure known with giggles and smiles and you have the funniest little cackle. You call out to us when you've had enough of something - your Papi thinks of it as a complaint: EEEH, EEEH, EEEH, you call. You hardly ever cry - only when your complaints have fallen on deaf ears for too long, or one of us has come to the rescue with a cuddle that is too brief before we try and put you back on the floor.
You still cannot resist a good chew of any paper that comes your way, mein kleines Papierfresserchen, and your repertoire of mischief has come to include biting any finger we might offer your six little sharp teeth, to elicit our giggles and cries of OUCH; pulling on any cable you can get a hold of, mein Kabelzupferchen; and the theft of mummy's glasses to chew on at any and every opportunity, du kleine Brillenpflueckerin. Today you tried to put them back on my nose as well as on your little face, so I can see you understand where they belong. You have grown bored with most of the toys in your various baskets and boxes but you will make a great effort to get a hold of our phones, Theo's PlayStation controls and the other remote controls in the living room. You even switched on the telly twice yesterday by chewing on the remote, and stared at the grey fuzzy snow on the screen in surprise and with delight at your clever handiwork. Another great attraction is the bathroom bin. You'll happily scoot to it from any corner of the bathroom and it will keep you happy until you've managed to take the pedal off, you little weirdo. But hey, I'm not judging, I'm just observing and delighting and keeping you safe and as happy as I can. And this includes taking the bin away when it looks like you might get a little too close to working out what he lid does.
A month ago, you still only had two teeth and you were just working out how to twizzel turn when sitting on the floor. We were still trying to work on tummy time here and there, half heartedly, because yes, I knew how little you liked being put on your tummy. About two weeks ago you worked out how to bring one leg forward and from there, how to push up to sitting. Putting you on your tummy became impossible: Your little leg would shoot out before you'd even hit the floor, hah! written all over your face. By now, you can bum-shuffle small distances. My favourite bum shuffles have been the naked ones over the last few very hot days when I put you on a blanket in the kitchen and your adorable naked little butt got stuck on it, which helped you glide across the floor more easily. The shelf with the magazines is down here what the bin is in the bathroom, and if I'm silly enought to put the magazines back before the day is out, you will gladly shuffle back over and pull them out as often as it takes to make sure I spend my day stepping over them as well as your toys, books and the crumbs you leave in your wake.
Of course you prefer walking and standing to look at and chew on things. You have not yet learnt how to hold on to things reliably. Our hands in yours or our hands around your chest as you explore are the ticket to your freedom - but cruising is just a few days or weeks away. I'm quite willing to bet that you will walk by eleven months, and that you will bypass crawling. Once you're solid on your adorable little legs, we'll make up for it by dancing and we won't worry about the brain cell development that the health professionals insist depends on the cross body motion of crawling. Cara didn't crawl either, and look how bright she is... Talk about bright, I do laugh about you though when I put you on you back, though. You still have not worked out rolling and get stuck like a bug, trying your best to sit up straight like a Pilates pro, albeit a very hard working and disgruntled one. I honestly only put you down like this when I need a minute - to put on the carrier, say - and of course it's all my fault for holding and hugging and carrying you all this time, all those nine months. Right now, putting you down to sit takes a very big amount of persuasion and interesting toys though, as all you want to do is stand and walk. And you're strong; you just go stiff and shout and remain as straight as a plank all the way from vertical to horizontal when I try to put your down. When I let you walk, you go everywhere: Up the stairs, room to room until something takes your fancy; yo've tried to walk up the wall and all the way up people right across our faces and straight onto our heads on more than one occasion. You're really quite giddy with your newfound mobility!
At some point in the last month, you have also become a person in your own right at the dinner table. You sit in your clip-on chair at the head of the table now at every meal rather than on mum or dad. You eat a tiny share of what we have and drink water from a glass that we hold up for you. You smack your lips when you're hungry and spot the food, have it known with loud EEH EEH's when you've had enough and wave your arms when you want to be picked up by mum - more often than not to continue your meal from my plate. When spoons are involved we've had a few small struggles over who got to hold it, resulting in mushy food being flicked around the room. Now I give you bits to hold and make sure your food sticks to the spoon that I also give you to hold.
When food and drink go in the right place, your mouth, we all clap and cheer. For every sip of drink if no longer for every morself of food. Enjoy it while it lasts!
The person who does most of the cleaning up of your dinner messes is daddy, by the way. Theo is your second most helpful retriever of dropped dinner. Once he ate his own dinner on his lap on the floor by your seat, so he could better reach your bits back up to you... and you haven't even discovered dropping things as a game!
I love having you there at the table with us, your own person in your own right.
We have our social routine all worked out now. Your diary is rather busy, really: Mummy and Baby Yoga, Church playgroup, Singing at the Library, Baby Sensory and the occasional swim session. I carefully wrap you sleep around your busy schedule by working the baby carrier's sleep dust magic when I know you should be tired. Sometimes this means that you open your eyes and find yourself at a venue with actvities about to start, but you always throw yourself into them head first. Or, to be precise, mouth first: The next best toy you can get your hands on goes straight to your mouth, whether it's the shakers at the library or Ollie's teether on the yoga mat next to ours. Three cheers for your new mobility that lets your get to them even faster, and then to the toy right behind it!
The first word that you recognise and react to is 'Papa'. You know his routine and that he turns up behind the kitchen window on his bike at the end of the day. I say to you, Alba, where is Papa? And your little head perks up to look for him behind the window that we've spent most of the last nine month sitting under. Sometimes I'm just teasing you and he's not there. Then you will look from me to the window and back, looking for your Papi. But when he is there, you are excited, delighted and happy. Your face beams smiles at him, your arms wave, your legs kick. He stops to look smile back and wave before he brings the bike into the shed, and you will party on until he is in the room and hugging you. Papi, complete with the lovely little cables of his headphones to tug on.
Sometimes we also look for Cara when she comes home from school. I think you also know her name and scan the road for her, looking out the front door, and when she finally comes round the corner, I can physically feel recognition and delight shoot through you.
Cara says though that 'Mama' was your first word. I briefly left you with her in her room a few nights ago: As the door closed, she says, you called out, Mama! Alba, Mama loves you too and I'll always, always come back for you!
You do love being in Tara's room though! I usually just see one tremendous mess but I'm sure you see five million things you need to find out about. And then there's Cara... I think she prefers going to Tara than going to me, said Papi today. He might be on to something there. Cara is you friend and you rock. You are calm when she holds and carries you.
Theo? Well, you do love his room as well. Magnetic attraction. When you find both doors open you barely know where to shuffle first! Theo's gadzillion deadly lego pieces tend to win out but I'm not sure that that's not only because it's usually closer to where I may have left you on the floor. You're not too keen on him holding you, but he's your funny guy. Still nobody has quite mastered the skill of eliciting your giggles quite like him. One jerky dance move on repeat, a surprise pattern of retreating and pouncing, and you're laughing, laughing and laughing some more. With both of them, it's been like this right from the beginning: Cara your rock, Theo your funny. Daddy your safe, mummy your yummy... well, I'm saying this just because it rhymes that way.
But you do love us all, you know we are all pats of you and your life, as you are of ours. There isn't a hand in the home you can't hold on to on your giddy exploits. We'll all gladly follow where you lead. We love you with our hands to hold, arms for cuddles, time to spend, toys to share and papers to shred, sleep to disrupt - you need it, your want it, it's yours.
Talk about wanting and needing, it's late now and I can hear you stir in our bed, you are about to wake up and will want to find me next to you.
Happy nine months, and a happy tenth one coming up.
We love you so much,
Mummy
PS.: Here are a few pictures of your cumple-mes. You've mostly spent it naked - it's said to be the hottest June day since 1976 (when mummy was two!). We went swimming, shopping and spent a lot of time in the garden. Theo gave you his Woody for a present and you are super fascinated with him.
In Other News, Theresa May's Queen's Speech was delivered and opened Parliament on this new government in shambles today. Opposition leader Corbyn has called this Conservative minority government "a government without a mandate, without a serious legislative programme, led by a prime minister who has lost her political authority." It's under this governent that Brexit negotiations will begin now. Good luck, England, and good luck to us and the likes of us.
And so you are today, before you stride off towards mummy, maybe, through the open door into the garden, or in pursuit of a ball or crumb you've spotted on the floor, sometimes dragging behind random things with strings that you have gotten entagled in, like Tara's handbag.
When we play with and talk to you, you make your pleasure known with giggles and smiles and you have the funniest little cackle. You call out to us when you've had enough of something - your Papi thinks of it as a complaint: EEEH, EEEH, EEEH, you call. You hardly ever cry - only when your complaints have fallen on deaf ears for too long, or one of us has come to the rescue with a cuddle that is too brief before we try and put you back on the floor.
You still cannot resist a good chew of any paper that comes your way, mein kleines Papierfresserchen, and your repertoire of mischief has come to include biting any finger we might offer your six little sharp teeth, to elicit our giggles and cries of OUCH; pulling on any cable you can get a hold of, mein Kabelzupferchen; and the theft of mummy's glasses to chew on at any and every opportunity, du kleine Brillenpflueckerin. Today you tried to put them back on my nose as well as on your little face, so I can see you understand where they belong. You have grown bored with most of the toys in your various baskets and boxes but you will make a great effort to get a hold of our phones, Theo's PlayStation controls and the other remote controls in the living room. You even switched on the telly twice yesterday by chewing on the remote, and stared at the grey fuzzy snow on the screen in surprise and with delight at your clever handiwork. Another great attraction is the bathroom bin. You'll happily scoot to it from any corner of the bathroom and it will keep you happy until you've managed to take the pedal off, you little weirdo. But hey, I'm not judging, I'm just observing and delighting and keeping you safe and as happy as I can. And this includes taking the bin away when it looks like you might get a little too close to working out what he lid does.
 |
| You lead, I follow |
A month ago, you still only had two teeth and you were just working out how to twizzel turn when sitting on the floor. We were still trying to work on tummy time here and there, half heartedly, because yes, I knew how little you liked being put on your tummy. About two weeks ago you worked out how to bring one leg forward and from there, how to push up to sitting. Putting you on your tummy became impossible: Your little leg would shoot out before you'd even hit the floor, hah! written all over your face. By now, you can bum-shuffle small distances. My favourite bum shuffles have been the naked ones over the last few very hot days when I put you on a blanket in the kitchen and your adorable naked little butt got stuck on it, which helped you glide across the floor more easily. The shelf with the magazines is down here what the bin is in the bathroom, and if I'm silly enought to put the magazines back before the day is out, you will gladly shuffle back over and pull them out as often as it takes to make sure I spend my day stepping over them as well as your toys, books and the crumbs you leave in your wake.
Of course you prefer walking and standing to look at and chew on things. You have not yet learnt how to hold on to things reliably. Our hands in yours or our hands around your chest as you explore are the ticket to your freedom - but cruising is just a few days or weeks away. I'm quite willing to bet that you will walk by eleven months, and that you will bypass crawling. Once you're solid on your adorable little legs, we'll make up for it by dancing and we won't worry about the brain cell development that the health professionals insist depends on the cross body motion of crawling. Cara didn't crawl either, and look how bright she is... Talk about bright, I do laugh about you though when I put you on you back, though. You still have not worked out rolling and get stuck like a bug, trying your best to sit up straight like a Pilates pro, albeit a very hard working and disgruntled one. I honestly only put you down like this when I need a minute - to put on the carrier, say - and of course it's all my fault for holding and hugging and carrying you all this time, all those nine months. Right now, putting you down to sit takes a very big amount of persuasion and interesting toys though, as all you want to do is stand and walk. And you're strong; you just go stiff and shout and remain as straight as a plank all the way from vertical to horizontal when I try to put your down. When I let you walk, you go everywhere: Up the stairs, room to room until something takes your fancy; yo've tried to walk up the wall and all the way up people right across our faces and straight onto our heads on more than one occasion. You're really quite giddy with your newfound mobility!
At some point in the last month, you have also become a person in your own right at the dinner table. You sit in your clip-on chair at the head of the table now at every meal rather than on mum or dad. You eat a tiny share of what we have and drink water from a glass that we hold up for you. You smack your lips when you're hungry and spot the food, have it known with loud EEH EEH's when you've had enough and wave your arms when you want to be picked up by mum - more often than not to continue your meal from my plate. When spoons are involved we've had a few small struggles over who got to hold it, resulting in mushy food being flicked around the room. Now I give you bits to hold and make sure your food sticks to the spoon that I also give you to hold.
When food and drink go in the right place, your mouth, we all clap and cheer. For every sip of drink if no longer for every morself of food. Enjoy it while it lasts!
The person who does most of the cleaning up of your dinner messes is daddy, by the way. Theo is your second most helpful retriever of dropped dinner. Once he ate his own dinner on his lap on the floor by your seat, so he could better reach your bits back up to you... and you haven't even discovered dropping things as a game!
I love having you there at the table with us, your own person in your own right.
 |
| The star at our dinner table. Three cheers for every sip of water taken! |
We have our social routine all worked out now. Your diary is rather busy, really: Mummy and Baby Yoga, Church playgroup, Singing at the Library, Baby Sensory and the occasional swim session. I carefully wrap you sleep around your busy schedule by working the baby carrier's sleep dust magic when I know you should be tired. Sometimes this means that you open your eyes and find yourself at a venue with actvities about to start, but you always throw yourself into them head first. Or, to be precise, mouth first: The next best toy you can get your hands on goes straight to your mouth, whether it's the shakers at the library or Ollie's teether on the yoga mat next to ours. Three cheers for your new mobility that lets your get to them even faster, and then to the toy right behind it!
 |
| Sing and Bounce at the Library |
The first word that you recognise and react to is 'Papa'. You know his routine and that he turns up behind the kitchen window on his bike at the end of the day. I say to you, Alba, where is Papa? And your little head perks up to look for him behind the window that we've spent most of the last nine month sitting under. Sometimes I'm just teasing you and he's not there. Then you will look from me to the window and back, looking for your Papi. But when he is there, you are excited, delighted and happy. Your face beams smiles at him, your arms wave, your legs kick. He stops to look smile back and wave before he brings the bike into the shed, and you will party on until he is in the room and hugging you. Papi, complete with the lovely little cables of his headphones to tug on.
Sometimes we also look for Cara when she comes home from school. I think you also know her name and scan the road for her, looking out the front door, and when she finally comes round the corner, I can physically feel recognition and delight shoot through you.
Cara says though that 'Mama' was your first word. I briefly left you with her in her room a few nights ago: As the door closed, she says, you called out, Mama! Alba, Mama loves you too and I'll always, always come back for you!
You do love being in Tara's room though! I usually just see one tremendous mess but I'm sure you see five million things you need to find out about. And then there's Cara... I think she prefers going to Tara than going to me, said Papi today. He might be on to something there. Cara is you friend and you rock. You are calm when she holds and carries you.
Theo? Well, you do love his room as well. Magnetic attraction. When you find both doors open you barely know where to shuffle first! Theo's gadzillion deadly lego pieces tend to win out but I'm not sure that that's not only because it's usually closer to where I may have left you on the floor. You're not too keen on him holding you, but he's your funny guy. Still nobody has quite mastered the skill of eliciting your giggles quite like him. One jerky dance move on repeat, a surprise pattern of retreating and pouncing, and you're laughing, laughing and laughing some more. With both of them, it's been like this right from the beginning: Cara your rock, Theo your funny. Daddy your safe, mummy your yummy... well, I'm saying this just because it rhymes that way.
But you do love us all, you know we are all pats of you and your life, as you are of ours. There isn't a hand in the home you can't hold on to on your giddy exploits. We'll all gladly follow where you lead. We love you with our hands to hold, arms for cuddles, time to spend, toys to share and papers to shred, sleep to disrupt - you need it, your want it, it's yours.
Talk about wanting and needing, it's late now and I can hear you stir in our bed, you are about to wake up and will want to find me next to you.
 |
| You say, bedtime, mummy, and I snuggle down next to you. |
Happy nine months, and a happy tenth one coming up.
We love you so much,
Mummy
PS.: Here are a few pictures of your cumple-mes. You've mostly spent it naked - it's said to be the hottest June day since 1976 (when mummy was two!). We went swimming, shopping and spent a lot of time in the garden. Theo gave you his Woody for a present and you are super fascinated with him.
 |
| Hello bum shuffler. You're stuck there, aren't you? |
 |
| We're out of fruit suckies. We LIKE fruit suckies. We must buy new fruit suckies, mum! |
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| We've made a rainbow for you to stand under. Happy cumple-mes, baby! |
In Other News, Theresa May's Queen's Speech was delivered and opened Parliament on this new government in shambles today. Opposition leader Corbyn has called this Conservative minority government "a government without a mandate, without a serious legislative programme, led by a prime minister who has lost her political authority." It's under this governent that Brexit negotiations will begin now. Good luck, England, and good luck to us and the likes of us.
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