Opening one of your first-ever Christmas presents at Oma and Opa’s house.
OK buddy, here is yet another way-late monthly letter from Mommy. You have had a big month this time around, and there was NO time to write your letter on time! Mommy has been catching up with things from Christmas and working steady on photography, building prints and albums for the bridal show in February. But we’ve kept some notes, so here goes – your ninth month!
In the second week of December, you hit a huge milestone… at least, WE thought it was a milestone because everything you do impresses us. You started (reliably) standing up when we set you up on your feet! You have to be holding on to something of course, and you don’t stand up on your own yet, but you are learning through us setting you up, that your legs can do more than get in the way! Right now, you fall down very easily with even the slightest wobble, but we know you’re working on that balance. When you start walking I have a feeling we’ll be left wondering how it happened so fast!
A super-cute close up shot by Auntie Melina.
On December 17, you had your first-ever Christmas dinner. This was one of the many times you’ve made liars out of us at Oma’s house. We’d continued pureeing your food even though you could eat cut up chunks, because you didn’t like the chunks. And when I say didn’t like, I mean you would FLY into a white-hot RAGE when Mommy tried to give you chunks of food. Even hidden inside a puree, you would find them and spit them out, and then LOUDLY refuse to eat any more! So at Christmas dinner, as usual, we pureed your food, and you didn’t eat ANY of it! You ate cut up pieces from your high chair tray for an hour before you were finally filled up. Mommy had to put them in your mouth for you, but you ate so much we had to get your seconds and thirds. You seem to be developing even more food appreciation than you already had!
Peeking over the coffee table at Mommy, which you learned to do soon after learning to crawl.
On December 19, I guess you decided that one milestone for the month wasn’t enough… you learned to crawl forward! You just crawled on your belly using your arms, but you were moving FORWARD instead of backward, and you were steering yourself properly and getting to where you wanted to go. This was huge for you, because now you no longer had to end up in random places and scream to be rescued. (This was a pretty nice change for Mommy and Daddy, too!)
Of course, the very next day you proved that the milestones are happening just too fast. Mommy wasn’t ready for your new crawling skill, and you crawled into a corner in the office where you shouldn’t be and had another First. You stuck your hand into an open computer case and got your first cut! This was also your first “case cut”, which is an important milestone for any geek, but let’s stick to the first cut ever because every Mommy out there can identify with this one! Mommy knew you’d done something you didn’t like, because you cried suddenly, but when I turned around to check on you, you were sitting up with a couple of toys and seemed fine. A minute or two later, Mommy checked again and almost fainted – you were playing thoughtfully with your red, sticky hands which you’d soaked in the pool of blood between your feet! At least, it looked like a pool at that moment – later, when Mommy cleaned it up, it didn’t look nearly as bad. But you did have blood everywhere – your hands and up your arms, all over your clothes, in your hair and over your face. And you were MAD that Mommy didn’t let you play in it, and MAD that Mommy bandaged up the tip of your finger and cut off the fun at its source. It was a deep cut though, and took a long time to stop oozing, so Mommy had to ruin your fun and get it covered up!
Another Christmas present at Grandma and Grandpa’s house.
That same day – maybe because you were bored after Mommy took away your fun new blood toy – you decided to upgrade the crawling skill you’d just learned the day before. On December 20, you crawled up on your hands and knees for the first time. Your legs went out from under you a couple times and you were pretty slow, and you regressed to crawling on your belly a couple of times. But by Christmas five days later, you were crawling like a seasoned pro. And of course, that meant that you were going all kinds of places you shouldn’t be. Mommy’s spent the last little while going through storage boxes, getting rid of extra things, Zane-proofing the lower areas, and finding homes for everything!
December 25 brought another exciting first – your first Christmas! Mommy bought you a Christmas tree ornament at the craft show in Red Deer, so you have your baby ornament on the tree now. On Christmas morning we got you up and helped you open some presents – Santa brought you a little activity cart that you can play with now and push around when you start walking, and some little toys in your stocking too. Mommy and Daddy got you a pail with plastic shapes that you’re supposed to put through the matching holes in the lid. You actually opened some of the presents on your own… although you would stop about halfway through and just eat the paper. You are too smart for your pail though – you just pull the lid off and put your shapes in and take them out. Why do things the hard way, right? You also got some clothes from other family members, and two pairs of Cars pajamas, and a couple of toys from Grandma and Oma. And even though we went to TWO Christmas dinners and you hardly had any sleep, you were really good!
Modeling one of your many pairs of Christmas pajamas.
Right around the end of December (right before you turned nine months) you made one more little step that forced Mommy and Daddy to start cleaning off even more surfaces. You started pulling yourself upward on things. The couches, Mommy and Daddy’s legs, the coffee table… anything you could get hold of. You aren’t standing on your own yet, we still have to stand you up… but you can pull yourself up onto one knee or into a squatting position on both feet. One day after your nap, Mommy went in to get you and you were squatting in your crib, up on both feet, hanging on to the railing. Just a pull and you would have been standing all the way up! Mommy lowered your crib mattress that day, because we knew that it was only a matter of time till you stood up, and if it’s anything like when you sat for the first time, you will probably do it when we’re not looking and least expecting it!
You and Mommy at the crazy Christmas light house in Eckville.
You seem to do everything like that… right when we think it’ll be awhile yet, you show us some new skill that we had no idea you had. You are growing by leaps and bounds and learning new things every day, and Mommy and Daddy are so proud of you. Sometimes we talk about how we can barely remember what you were like as a tiny baby, and how we wish you wouldn’t grow up quite so fast. But the reality is, we are proud of every new thing you do and every milestone you reach and fly past, and we think you are perfect just as you are. Even if you do grow up blindingly fast, we love you, our amazing little boy!
