9 months

Dear Adelaide,
You are 9 months old!  That really doesn't seem possible.  Especially when I think about the fact that I have not slept through the night in 9 months.  Actually, I have slept longer than 4 hours in one stretch exactly twice since you were born.  I will try to get over this.  You could avoid making this an issue between us by sleeping more.  Please and thank you.

You are asleep right now like a good little girl...but somebody nearby has decided that 9:40 on a Thursday is fireworks time so that may not last.  They might be a little surprised when I march down and hand them a baby to deal with.

Back to the point.  You are 9 months old!  You started off your 9 month birthday with...a trip to the pediatrician's office!  Only the best for our baby girl.  You didn't have to get any immunizations this trip, but just to keep things lively they poked your toe for an iron test.  You didn't even flinch when they poked your toe.  I guess your brothers' tough love has desensitized you.

Seriously, the fireworks are getting annoying.

This month you decided that life would be more fun if you were mobile.  Up until now you have been our lazy baby.  You never really rolled over.  If I set you on the floor and you got bored you would just scream until someone came and got you.  At the beginning of the month you started getting up on your hands and knees but weren't sure what to do from there so after looking around you would just plop back down on your stomach.  If there was something interesting you wanted to reach you would try desperately to kick your way toward it, but only ended up going backward.  With this maneuver you frequently got yourself wedged under the couch with the object of your desire farther away than when you set out for it in the first place.

Over the past 10 days you have started crawling.  Real live text-book crawling.  You also roll around from front to back and back to front whenever you want.  I suspect you've been capable of doing this for quite some time, but didn't want to let on that you really didn't need me to carry you around every second of every day.  If I sit on the floor you will crawl over and climb your way into my lap and pull yourself up onto your feet.

Your laughs are still few and far between.  The more desperately I try to make you laugh the more likely you are to stare at me apathetically.  And then you will bust out laughing at a strange loud noise - like grandma making crow noises in the bedtime stories she recorded for Will.  I can usually get a little giggle by tickling your armpits and squeezing your chunky baby thighs.

You ALWAYS smile for Daddy.  You have done this since you first learned how to smile.  Mommy...not so much.  You prefer to have me holding you, however.  Clearly I am the transportation and food provider and Daddy is the entertainment.

The physician assistant we saw for your check-up asked if I was brushing your teeth twice a day.  I said you didn't have any.  She said I should brush your gums twice a day.  (That is a little low on the priority list I will admit.)

Now that you can sit up on your own (another skill you picked up this month) you will actually take a bath without screaming the entire time.  You like to keep a death grip on my arm until you re-discover how fun it is to splash and then you spend the rest of the time slapping the water with your hands.

You are still very quiet, but once in a while you get in a squealing mood and sometimes you talk to yourself when you are playing or when you are upset and want attention.  It sounds like you say "momma momma momma" and, while I'd like to think you know what you're talking about, I won't flatter myself.

You were 16 lb. 4 oz. at your checkup, putting you in the 28th percentile, and you were around 47% for height.  You look like a chubbers, but there actually isn't much to you!

You decided that solid foods were acceptable this month.  You went from eating some puffs and taking half an hour to eat 2 ounces of baby food to guzzling down 8-12 ounces of baby food in about 5 minutes!  All of this mobility must have made you hungry.  You will feed yourself Cheerios all day and love any bits of fruit or beans or bread that I give you.

Your sudden abandonment of your lazy ways makes me laugh.  At the beginning of the month you really did not roll over, sit up, or crawl.  You would try to feed yourself food, but it would get stuck in your fist and you couldn't figure out how to release it into your mouth.  You must have been feeling neglected, because it seems that suddenly one day a few weeks ago you decided you were going to have to take care of yourself.

You may not sleep through the night, but you have been helping me out by taking a 2-3 hour nap most afternoons.  This is a first since you were born.  Up until a few weeks ago you took NO naps during the day (zero, zilch, nada) except for occasional 10-30 minute catnaps when you fell asleep on me and only for as long as I did not move and no noises woke you up.  It is kind of strange to actually be able to accomplish a couple things each day - even if it is just taking a shower.

You are a sweet thing and we love you.  Let's work on that whole sleeping at night thing though, okay?  You are still sweet at 3 in the morning...but let's just say it would be even sweeter if Mom got some sleep.  mmmmkay?

And I just heard you start fussing upstairs.  This is the point where I start chanting in my head "please go back to sleep - please go back to sleep."  Aaaaand if that car drives down the street blasting its horn again (at 10:15 pm) I might go let the air out of its tires.

Transcript of a tantrum.

I bought Sawyer an ABC game a while back, but we hadn't opened it yet.  He was pestering me to play a game today so I told him we could do the ABC game in a few minutes.  After much whining I sat down to play with him.  The "game" consists of a board with all the letters of the alphabet printed on it and then a bunch of small cards which have a letter on one side and a drawing of an object whose name begins with that letter on the reverse.  I would show Sawyer a picture and ask him what letter it started with.  He wasn't getting any of them right (this is why I bought the game in the first place) so then I would tell him which letter and have him look for it on the board (still getting very few right even though I swear he does know quite a few letters).  We went through about 5 letters and then I held up the picture of a quilt and asked him to find Q.  At which point he went into full tantrum mode and was rolling on the floor and throwing pieces around.  After a few minutes I started writing down his rage.  I missed the beginning, but I present for you now an "Almost Complete Transcript of a Complete Tantrum."

"You're just doing the too hard ones!  You just always do the too hard ones!  I want that game out of our house.  Cuz if you do the hard ones ever again I won't want to be in our family (fwamly) any more and I won't want to be on the earth ever again. I would just stay in my room and sleep.  I'm not going to eat anything you make. I would just stay in my room and sleep. That's all I would do.  I would just eat my desserts every day. Stupid letter ABC game. I'm not gonna play your games any more Momma. I'm not. Cuz you did a too hard game.  So I'm not even going to learn my letters!  I'm just gonna stick with the letters I know.  I know P, A, D, L, H, W, A, D, S, P, and....like....H.  like H.  So I don't want to play your games any more.  I'll just stick with my own games.  Cuz if you only do the hard ones first on any game I won't even want to play the game.  I won't even want to play it ever!  If you just do the hard ones first.  So just make that chalk game* and I'll play that every day.  That's all the game I want to play.  I only want to play your easy peesy games.  Except after your ABC game you go into the crazy hard games!  And I don't want to play it!  That's what I don't want to do ever again!  Cuz it's too stupid games you make!  Just stupid games that you make.  Cuz they are always just 'too hard games, too hard games.'  That's all you make.  Only the hard games.  That's all you make.  Every day.  Or else I would never play your games!  If you do that every, every single day!" 

 (Break to throw pieces across the room.) 

"Uh! Boo boo Momma!  That's what you always do.  You only do the hard and hard and hard.  So I'll just stick with my games and never learn your games to play.  I'll just learn how to play them and never play them though.  That's all I would want to do with your games!  your stupid games!  and cuz I don't want to play your stupid letter game for learning.  I just want to play normal games that's in our closet that have destructions** too.  Poo poo Mom."

(bathroom break)  Singing the alphabet song while on the toilet and skipping half the letters ending with  "W, X, Y and S!  S!  That's all I would do now!"  (muttering to self)

Comes out of bathroom inspecting shorts - "Bwackwards?!  Are these on bwackwards Mom?" Then walks back over to game.

"Cuz I don't want to play your games any more.  Cuz you are making them way, waaayyy, waaaaayyyy too hard games!  Cuz I'll only stick with...cuz I know all the letters to your game!  And I'll just always get them right!  Xray!  X starts with... watermelon!  That's what I'll do.  I won't play your games!  Cuz I'll just know.  I know all the letters to your game now.  Now I don't have to play it ANY MORE.  Cuz I don't like your games any more.  You make it way, way, way too hard.  So I'm not playing your games of stupidness any more.  Bo bo."

"So I'm not playing your games any more.  In fact, I'm for sure not doing it.  That's what I'm not doing any more.  I'll stick with my own letters now.  Oh yeaaaahhh.  Uh huh."

(Fly goes by) "Flies!"

"Cuz I'm NOT PLAYING YOUR STUPID games any more.  That's all they are.  They're just stupid! That's what won't ever happen ever again - which is me playing your games."

"Alligator.  Lyle. Alligator.  Oooowwwww."

"So I'm not playing your stupid bo bo games.  That's what I'm not gonna do again." (takes off shoe and throws it)

"Ouch. Bouch.  Ouch.  Bouch.  Ouch.  Alligator.  Ice.  Bryce.  Bow wow wice.  Ooouuuuucchh."  

(wanders off into the kitchen and gets into the band-aids...after a few minutes wanders back into the family room and says "Mom, can you please open the garage?" and kisses my leg.)

The End.

* About a month ago I drew all the letters of the alphabet in chalk on the driveway and tried to play letter recognition games with him.  This lasted about 30 seconds before he freaked out that it was too hard and took off.  The next day they got washed away by a rainstorm and he flipped out that his game was gone.

** He says "destructions" instead of "instructions" and I don't plan to correct him any time soon.

PS- New blogger can't handle my colored background and I don't know how to fix it.  Sigh.

Pop Quiz

It's quiz time!

1. Last night Addie...
A. Slept through the night!
B. Required minimal attention.
C. Woke up the second I went to bed, finally fell back asleep for about 1.5 hours and then woke up again and decided it was play/whine/cry/practice crawling and try to throw yourself off the side of my bed time until 6 am (which I thought was 7 am - see question 2).

2. Today our alarm went off at
A. 7:05 just like normal
B. 6:05
C. 6:05 which I thought was 7:05 like normal

3. Today I got up at
A. 7:30 just like normal
B. 6:30
C. 6:30 which I thought was 7:30 like normal

4. Today I woke Will up at
A. 7:35 just like normal
B. 6:35
C. 6:35 which I thought was 7:35 like normal

5. When I finally realized it was an hour earlier than I thought I headed back to bed and found
A. everyone sleeping peacefully
B. gold under my pillow
C. that Addie was awake and ready for more play time

6. Amount of sleep I got in the hour until I had to get up for real
A. 1 hour of bliss
B. a good power nap
C. zero.

If you answered all C's you are correct!  If you chose all A's you are a very optimistic person and probably don't know me in real life.

Bryce set the alarm and has no explanation for why he set it for an hour earlier.  Also, at some point around 4 a.m. when I was dozing in and out while trying to stop Addie from throwing herself off the side of the bed I opened my eyes and found Bryce's face about 6 inches in front of me with his eyes open wide staring at me with a huge grin.  I said "What are you doing?!"  He looked around confused, closed his eyes, and continued sleeping.  He does not remember this.