To Calvin, who is nine months old today!

Nine months old, what a milestone for you!  You are three quarters of the way through your first year, and your parents are feeling like the time is just slipping away.  You successfully tried a couple of new things this past month, including swimming lessons (our favorite day of the week!) and eating more finger foods.  But the past month seems to have been more about mental advancements than physical ones.  You started mimicking our motions about two weeks ago, something that you had not previously tried.  This new interest has led to a whole host of separate advancements, the wave being our favorite:  you have two different kinds of waves, the first being where you look carefully at our waving hand and then turn your palm towards yourself and open and close the fingers very slowly, and the second being where you flap your whole arm up and down quite rapidly and watch us get excited and giggle.  A few times this past month you have also tried mimicking the sign language motion for dog that we have been using, but you still refuse to use sign language to communicate "more" while eating (we figure that you just take your eating too seriously).  Our favorite new skill, however, is your babbling.  You now love to string non--coherent speech sounds together, making delightful soliloquies for us to enjoy, and you have your own brand of singing, as well. 

This really has been our favorite age so far.  You have become so much more interactive, both with us and with your environment.  You no longer need help to get the things you want, but you have been very good about listening to us when we tell you there are things you can't have.  Soon after you turned eight months old we got you your first car in the form of a walking/riding car toy and you love to walk around the house pushing it in front of you.  You pull yourself up and cruise around the house with very little assistance now, even walking while just touching the wall to steady yourself, and you are now able to stand for nearly a minute at a time without any assistance at all.  You laugh a lot more frequently, enjoying most of all when your dad drops things while you watch (as in when he pretends to juggle).  And our favorite new physical development by far has been your new love of cuddling.  Although this age has brought with it some true signs of separation and stranger anxieties, it has also brought signs of attachment to your parents and we love it when you pull on our pant legs or reach out towards us, looking to be picked up and cuddled, and we love it when, after we lift you up for a hug, you reciprocate by placing a big, wet kiss on our cheeks, and laying your head on our shoulders while wrapping your arms around us.  Yes, this is by far our favorite age yet.

Be careful what you ask for...

you just might get it.  It was just last week that we were beginning to worry a bit about Calvin's speech development, or actually the lack thereof.  Our concern stemmed from the fact that most other babies his age, even other baby boys, had begun to mimic speech sounds, saying things like dada and mama, even if they were not attached to any specific meaning, and Calvin had not yet decided to enter this stage of "babbling."  Of course, only one day after we expressed this concern to others Calvin decided to start babbling, and babble he did!  He didn't just step into this new phase, he bolted into it!  He now cruises around the house saying "dadadada" and "yayayaya," and other such thought provoking things.  An increasing number of times he has said "da da" when Jon has picked him up, or when he is crawling towards Jon.  His favorite time to talk, however, is while music is playing, either in the car or on the stereo, and we think at these times he considers himself to be singing.  We love it.

To Calvin, who is eight months old today!

Holy moly! the past month just flew by!  Every time we think that you have learned all you can for the time being and must be ready to take some time off, you surprise us.   You finally learned to truly crawl, in a forward manner while up on all fours, when you were about seven and a half months old.  That same day you started sitting yourself up from a laying down position.  The following weeks were just full of progress for you.  Your crawling has become very smooth and purposeful and your favorite things to crawl after are, of course, the pets.  You have also gotten much better at cruising and can walk the entire distance of the house while pushing your red toy wagon in front of you.  You never miss a chance to pull yourself up and cruise along and you have gotten very good at getting both up and down.  We are so very proud of you!  With your newfound mobility some other changes have taken place in our household.  We finally had to move you out of your bassinet in our room and into your crib in your own room.  You were a very good sport about that change and you now sleep completely through the night. 

There have been some other changes as well.  We decided to start putting you to bed awake, both at night and for naps, and letting you put yourself to sleep, at which you have really proven to be a champion at bed time, but are more stubborn about during naps now that you prefer to cruise around your crib and play with your toys instead. And you now eat three meals a day, eating when we eat. We have added barley cereal, butternut squash, apple, and banana to your menu, and you are working on being able to pick up pieces of those foods and put them in your mouth.  Unfortunately, most of them are slippery and are very hard to get a-hold of!  And the last big change that we have made is the introduction of discipline to your day.  Now that you are so busy and so mobile we have had to start telling you "no" when you become interested in something you shouldn't have.  You don't like being told that you can't do something, but so far you have been very compliant.  You no longer even try to touch the stereo or the dogs' dishes, and we are very proud of you for being so smart and so easy to get along with!  This new stage in your life is a very fun one, for us and for you!

There's no getting away from him now!

Wow it's amazing what a difference just a few days can make.  Last week you could set Calvin in his carefully baby-proofed room with some toys and head into the bedroom to get yourself dressed for the day, or head to the kitchen to wash a few dishes, or start the laundry.  Whatever the task, we never left him long, but we always knew where he'd be when we went back.  In fact, the farthest he might move was from sitting to laying, or maybe a couple of rolls away, but not so much now.  Now if you leave him in his room and go to get dressed you're likely to be snuck up on long before you are done.  Thankfully the house is mostly baby-proofed now, though there are a handful of things that are still out, like the dogs' dishes and Jon's music.  The new word of the week has been "no," and we've been pleasantly surprised by Calvin's reaction, which is this:  First he looks at you, pauses, then sits back away from the [fill in the blank], screws up his face, turns beet red, then starts screaming and crying with frustration.  Okay, we're not really pleased with the actual reaction so much as the fact that he does respond that way 95% of the time.

To Calvin, who is seven months old today!

Seven months!  Wow!  It seems like that is how we always start these letters to you, and that is because with each passing month we find it harder to believe that time is slipping through our hands at such an alarming rate.  It seems like just yesterday that you would lay sleeping in our arms, light as a feather, but today you are too busy to fall asleep that easily, and too heavy and long for us to cradle that way.  This month you celebrated your first Christmas and, while it may have meant little to you, it will always be etched in our memories as a season to remember:  you visited Santa and did well on his lap, and then Santa visited you while you slept; you had your own stocking; you had your own presents; you ate your own Christmas dinner.  The day came and went too fast, but the memories will last us a lifetime. 

You didn't take any time off for the holiday, though!  In the past month you actually quit crawling, exchanging that mode of transport for the slightly easier log roll, but you continue to pull yourself up so that you can play while standing.  In fact, that trick is old hat to you, and your new favorite game is walking!  You love to pull yourself up and go for a walk while holding on to our hands.  Though you're no where near going solo, you are capable of cruising for a short distance, just a few tottering steps, while holding on to a table or a toy.  But perhaps our favorite milestone from the past month was your introduction to solid foods.  We started with rice cereal on your six month birthday, and every few days since we have introduced a new food.  Right now your menu includes rice and oatmeal cereals, peas, green beans, sweet potato, acorn squash, and avocado.  We are making all of your food for you, and we taste all of it first to make sure it's something that we would like to eat.  So far you have been a wonderful at and we really enjoy sharing meals with you, and watching your face whenever you taste something new.  There are so many other things that we can't wait to introduce you to over the next month, our little adventurer!