Letter to Greta: 9 Months

Dear Littlest One,

What a sweet little banana you are. With your whole-face smile, ear-shattering happy-shriek, and adorable crawl, you are just a jolt of snuggly joy. Of course, your sleeping is atrocious; you’ve been biting me while nursing; and you’ve begun a charming lip-buzzing that spews baby food all over me as I feed you. Still, to me you seem pretty perfect.

You are crawling quickly and determinedly. You’re pulling up on every possible piece of furniture, and you seem to be trying to crawl on top of the low ottomans. You have just realized you can stand in your crib, so now when we hear you “calling” for us, we often find you standing there, watching the door. You now sleep with a small lamb stuffed animal. I put him in with you for the first time two nights ago—and your sleeping that night, and the subsequent nights, was much better. Coincidence? Or will you eventually have an animal-overflowing crib just like your big sister, comforted and happy with an entourage of friends?

The day after you turned nine months, you began clapping. You clap for no reason, you clap when I clap, you clap when Lucia does funny things. It is extremely cute.

You are still determined to participate in whatever it is Lucia’s doing, and since you’re mobile now—and strong—you get yourself exactly where you want to be. This is not always pleasing to Lucia. On good days, Lucia will allow you to have an item; on bad days, she’ll push you away or grab things out of your hands. One day, I’m sure you’ll happily coexist. For now, you’re grabby and your sister’s possessive. There are daily bumps in the road.

You love to eat. You eat so much yogurt in the morning that I had to ask your doctor if I should cut you off. You eat some kind of cereal at dinner, mixed with veggies, and sometimes an entire jar of baby food or another couple of cubes of my homemade baby food after that. Then you move on to finger food—cantaloupe, bananas, blueberries, puffs. You eat and eat and eat. When you’re eating something you particularly love, you make a low “mmmmmm mmmmm” sound the entire time you’re eating it. You are getting better at feeding yourself—whereas before you would kind of just poke at the pieces of food, now you’re pretty adept at picking them up with two fingers. Of course, there are exceptions. I gave you some roasted sweet potato this week, and you just picked it up by the fistful and crammed it into your mouth. You had sweet potato in your hair, your ear, all over your face, covering your arms.

Because you were three weeks early, you’ve already been living outside the womb longer than you were in it. And though you are a true snuggler and still love to nurse, you are definitely happy to be out here in the world—curious, nosy, active.

Favorite toys/activities: Little People, pulling bibs out of the bin in the kitchen, pushing around toy cars, chewing on your Lambie, eating, sitting in the grass and pulling up grass/dirt/weeds, playing with sand in the sandbox, reading (you’re rapt! unless you’re trying to eat the books.)