Nine Month Letter

Dear Gabriel,

You are 9. Months. Old. !!!!

I truly thought you were trying to make your mama into a big liar this month. I kept saying you were going to be crawling any day now…any day now…any day now…and you kept getting up on your hands and knees, and rocking back and forth, and reaching for something in front of you, and then sitting back up. Last Friday your dad and I were watching you do this over and over again when I turned to him and said, “I know it will open up a whole new set of problems, but I want him [Gabriel] to crawl SO BAD.” And then within half an hour, you did it.

You finally figured out how to put your little gears into forward…and now you are getting into everything imaginable. Seriously. It’s a whole new world for you now, and you want to put your hands (and your mouth) on all of it.

You’re also working on ‘g’ and ‘k’ sounds when you babble. You’ve had ‘m’ and ‘d’ and ‘n’ and ‘b’ for a little while. You repeat ma-ma-ma, da-da-da, na-na-na, and ba-ba-ba all the time. None of your sounds seem to have meaning yet, but we’re trying to get you to associate mama and dada with your parents.

These developmental milestones are accompanied, unfortunately, by yet another ear infection. You were given your fifth round of antibiotics last week, and when those weren’t cutting it, you got antibiotic shots in your little thighs. We’re calling the ENT on Monday to make an appointment to talk about PE tubes. I hate that you keep getting sick!

I started trying to introduce a few finger foods to you, but you aren’t very keen on the textures right now. I tried some beans, a banana, some peaches, and some pears. You make an ugly face and spit it right back out. I found out today that you like wheat bread a lot, though. So…we’ll start from there.

No new teeth...still just the bottom two. Your hair grows fast, though. You’ve had three haircuts in your short nine months. The most recent one was at a children’s hair cut place. A professional cut! I really should learn to do it myself since after only a week and a half your hair is already starting to grow over your ears. Good grief.

We’ll get official height and weight measurements at your well check this coming week, but I know you’re at least 21 pounds now. You’re wearing 12-month clothes very well and will probably outgrow them sooner than I want you to.

You’re my amazing little boy.

I love you,

mama