03.14.07
Nine months old today
Leila is nine months old today. Full of smiles and teeth and laughter, standing on her own when we help her get up to tables or low windowsills, soaring along in the seventy-fifth percentile, babbling so much, eating anything we put in front of her (only to hold almost half of it on her tongue with a disgusted look on her face while we fish it out for her � otherwise she gags and gags until she throws up). She rolls to her toys, grabs one and lugs it along with her as she rolls somewhere else, she yells Dat! Da! Dad! Be-Buh! Aaa! and when she looks in the mirror, at a picture of herself, or at her dollie, quietly says Eh-beh. Beh-beh. She looks at Steve and yells Da da! as he bursts with pride and then she looks at me and laughs while she says Da da!. We laugh and say Noooo, that is Mama.She weighs 19.8lbs and is 46 inches long. We bought her some new jammies and a new rain coat with matching pants sized 18 months. One pair of jamms does not even have feet built in.
My heart stops about once a day, and reels in the sheer magic of my child. Her round cheeks and toothy smile burst my heart, they way she gets so excited she yells out Dah! Bah! and kicks her arms and legs when I open the car door to get her out of her carseat. I simply cannot explain the joy in my life that has spawned from this little girl.
Life goes on otherwise, and while I have felt fairly useless this week, weighed down by lingering fatigue, there is still lots of baby wrangling to be done. It has hit me, finally, that we are leaving, and I even felt nostalgic at the doctors office this morning when I told her this would be our last visit. I have one more Mommy playgroup before we leave, and will sorely miss one good mommy friend in particular whose baby is one next month (I just cannot get over that!).
I have started daydreaming a little about our new house, about the decorations and where to hang the clothesline and our walking route. I am getting ready to leave the city and looking forward to being in a small place again, even though I was not really finished here, if that makes sense. We are looking at buying a camper this summer and looking forward to weddings galore (four, including ours!), and splashy pools with Leila, walking trails and getting to bike together again. Spring is tickling the air, which has led us to longer parks, longer walks, and Leila has discovered the delight that is raindrops falling on your face. She reaches up to the sky, feels them drop and then pats her face.
wunderwuman at 7:44 p.m.