Growth & Appearance: You resemble me most in the morning, when your eyes are still sleepy. The rest of the time, I think, you look more like your Papa. Others who hold you say you are strong and sturdy. You’ve been called a bruiser. People are now referring to your hair as strawberry blond.

You have three teeth on top and toe on the bottom. 

Eating: You eat anything and everything. You cry when it’s all gone. You’ll refuse, at times, what we give you to eat if you see that we’re eating something else. Other times you could care less so long as you have food in front of you. Baby led weaning has been miraculous for us and I’m so thankful that we went this route.

You eat a lot. The other evening you ate an entire sweet potato and a whole kiwi. I’d list the things you like versus dislike but it’s as simple as this: you like everything, you dislike nothing.

We’ve handled your obsession with your brother’s bottle by giving you a sippy cup with water and this will keep you busy for a while. You’re able to use the cup on your own, but water goes everywhere.

You’re still breastfeeding a lot, as in 9 times per day. You eat nearly every hour that you are awake. I’m not sure if this is normal or not, but it’s normal for us and it works, so I go with it. Your schedule is similar to last months and looks like this: breastfeed first thing in the morning, before breakfast, before your morning nap, after your morning nap, before lunch, before your afternoon nap, after your afternoon nap, before dinner, and before bed. More simply, twice before each meal and once after each meal.  

Sleeping: You and I, we’re so in sync. I can sense just moments before you’re about to wake and despite my desire to stay in bed, I’m always awake just before your first peep. You’re welcome.

We added a blanket to your crib. Not because it’s cold; it’s been in the triple digits, actually. But we spied on you sleeping at your Nina’s house and were won over when we came in on you holding your blanket against your sleeping face like a mother holds her baby to her chest. It makes me smile every morning when I lift you out of your crib and discover that your blanket is warm, meaning it’s been against your little body. In general, you’ve become quite the little nuzzler. You were fixing to fall asleep on top of a warm pile of laundry I had just taken out of the dryer before I put you down in your crib for a proper nap.

You sleep through the night with ease. Your schedule looks like this: Wake up between 7 and 8, nap around 10:30 for two hours, nap again around 4:30 for an hour or two, then bed around 9ish. 

Development: You’re able to crawl with a toy in your hand. You appear to be right handed, as you use your right to carry a toy and feed yourself.

You’re a standing machine. You’re able to pull to stand on just about anything, including the oven, my pant leg, and the dog. You’re able to transfer to something close by and although you aren’t incredibly sturdy, you’re more than willing to throw yourself in whatever direction and hope for the best results.

In general, you have a gotta go gotta go aura about you. You’re in constant motion. As soon as I lay you on the changing table, you’re turning to your stomach to see what you can grab. As soon as I put you on the ground, you’re bolting off after a toy. You’re busy and eager to do more than you can.

Your mind seems to go a million miles an hour and if I had to guess what your thought process was like, it’d go something like this: gotta get to that water bottle – gotta put that water bottle in my mouth – oh look, there’s Sarah – God dammit, Hooper just took my water bottle – wah wah – oh sheet, there’s some fuzz on the ground – gotta get to the fuzz on the ground – yum, this fuzz is tasty… and on and on it goes. You’re constantly looking toward the next thing, moving toward the next thing. You’re rarely still and you’re quite back breaking these days.

You love to laugh and look for reasons to laugh. Most anytime your brother pays you any sort of attention, even if it’s him batting his hand in your face, you laugh.

You love to shake your head back and forth and mimic us whenever we do this in front of you. You also rock back and forth anytime music is on.

You’ve taught me that it must be in the name of survival that babies aren’t born mobile. If you had the ability to get to half of the things I see you eyeing, you’d probably no longer be with us. You’re always wanting to get to something you shouldn’t have, stand on something that isn’t sturdy, or eat something that’s not edible.

You don’t like dragging your knee when you crawl on grass or concrete so you opt to push all the way on your feet and do a bear crawl instead. It’s pretty cute watching you mcguiever around with your little bum sticking straight up in the air.

You understand the meaning of “no”. You love to crawl over to the TV equipment and pull everything off the shelf. You know you aren’t supposed to do this, so every time you make your way over there you scan the room until you meet my eyes and wait for me to say “no”.

You get shy when others come up to say hello when I’m holding you and you like to rest your head on my chest as a coy way of saying, “please don’t take me away from this lady”. You’re still my little parasite.

You can furniture walk, making your way from one end of the sofa to the other. You’ve transferred to another piece of furniture once or twice and, so long as your belly is resting against the surface, you’re able to free your hands to hold a toy. I’ve put you down in the standing position and let go for a few seconds and, so long as you’re not on your way somewhere, you can balance. Each time this happens, however, it feels like a fluke as you have yet to commit to balancing like this on your own. Regardless, you’re capable and walking seems to be right around the corner.

Favorites: You’ll do anything for one of the remote controls. You’ll even stop breastfeeding if there is one in site. We’ve resorted to pulling out some of the older ones we don’t use anymore but you definitely know the ones we use and the ones we don’t. I even pretend to use the old ones so they become more appealing. It’s not that I’m crazy, it’s that your obsession runs that deep. You also love standing up against the sofa alongside your brother and playing with his toys with him. Sometimes this gets you purposely knocked over.