Ten! I was on the phone with your aunt Emelie the other day telling her how I write these posts to you every month and trying to think of what you accomplished this month. Accomplished sounds too corporate; as if we had some target for you to hit like the economy slowly coming back to life. This month seemed like a month of fine tuning and getting ready for even bigger things.
We got you a walker, which is counter balanced with my old law school books. Some days you love pushing it around and you look adorable slightly hunched over it like a little tiny peddler selling your wares. Other days you are much more interested in playing with all the post-it notes still sticking out of the sides of the books.
You are getting really good at feeding yourself. You pick up blueberries and cheese and crackers and stuff them in your mouth. You carefully dissect a piece of banana and then also smash it into your mouth often smearing the remains across your cheeks and hair. We still often lock in a battle of wills over who is going to hold the spoon for the yogurt or guacamole. I think it is a draw most days with most of the food going in your mouth but a great deal of it ended up all over your face. You are not a fan of being cleaned up at the end of a meal but you scurry into the bathroom as soon as you hear the water running for a bath just to watch the water coming out of the faucet. You stand there giggling and laughing and grinning but as soon as I put you in the tub, you are standing up all over again to explore the sides of the tub. It is rather frustrating and so baths are usually a quick affair. I cannot relate to the baby books that say baths are relaxing for babies.
I don't know where you are going to start talking but you say dadadadadada all the time and just in the last week you have added mamamamamama to your repertoire. Last night your dad put you to bed, something I know thrilled you to no end, and after he wrestled you into your pajamas, you crawled into the kitchen saying mamamamamam. It was endlessly cute. If prompted enough times, you will say Dah for dog but I don't think this qualifies as a word. You will also kiss us on the cheek, sometimes, when asked, "Can I have a kiss?" You oblige with a big open mouthed slobber that is more of a lick than a kiss.
The summer is starting to draw to a close, which is bittersweet because we've had such a fun summer. We've gone to the pool where you spend most of the time climbing out. We go to playgroup every week in a little park near our house. All the babies crawl around and all the mothers sit and chat, occasionally rescuing one of you from a scuffle over a toy. A few weeks ago we all went to Alabama and Georgia to see your grandfather and to attend a huge family reunion. You spent two days in Birmingham crawling all over your grandfather's kitchen being licked by his adoring dog Gypsy. I think this was a welcome change for you since Buddy usually gives you the cold shoulder. Then we packed up the car and headed for Amicalola State Park in Georgia where we met lots and lots of Reymanns almost all of whom had been getting photo updates of you on a near weekly basis, which was a surprise to me. They were all delighted to meet you and you were for the most part in a good mood for most of the weekend. We then packed up again and headed to Atlanta to stay the night with our friend Andre whose house was full of his daughter Sophie's toys. You were in absolute heaven and for nearly three hours you played to your heart's content with relatively little oversight from us.
You are very into your books these days. You love looking at a little photo album of pictures of you and your dad and sometimes you'll point at Dad when I ask you to. You also love to pick out one book and as soon as I am finished you pick it up and hand it back to me. This morning as we read Freight Train for the 80th time this week, you climbed into my lap and leaned back against me, your hand resting on my arm as I read. It is so rare that you sit still for more that five and 1/2 seconds that I deliberately slowed down my reading because I wanted the moment to last and last and I held you close. I spend a lot of times wishing for you to grow up so you can walk and talk and do so many other fun things but this was a moment when I was perfectly content for you to be just as you are.
