Nine months and a few days’ change

I don’t keep a baby book. I keep this blog, instead. I plan to print out all the relevant entries, along with all the congratulatory emails I got when Nathan was born, and put them in the little scrapbook I bought for him. If I had to physically get out a book and write things down, I’d never do it. Because I am not Martha Stewart, and crafts make me twitchy.

Without this blog, I might never have time to write down about the other day. How he rode in his carseat and squinted at the shafts of sunlight that swept over him, holding up his little white hands in them to see the light flicker.

How he twisted his head back in the seat to look at me when I sang along to the radio; how he then started a tuneless sort of crooning of his own, that might be singing, or might be editorial commentary on my singing. Though an acapella version of “If I Had a Pony” by Lyle Lovett almost always makes him smile.
How he was delighted to ride in the grocery cart like a big boy, grabbing with his giant baby hands to the sides as I wheeled him through the aisles, giving out his little “heh-heh” laughs as we went past the bright-colored trash cans and anything with Dora on it, because he loves her.

How he crawled and scooted all over the carpet in the kid’s section at Borders, following the pattern of planets and stars, till I had to run after him before he started chewing on the young adult novels.

How he talks in his sleep, a high-pitched “whoooooo, ooo-hoo,” which is the same sound he makes when he’s kneeling in his crib holding the bars and bouncing up and down. It’s like a soft, tiny, coyote wail.

How he also says “Dadadadada” all the time, but also says “Muhmuhmuhmuh” when I’m around or when he’s irritated or sad. I don’t know if that’s a compliment.

How I’m teaching him to chase me by getting down on the floor and crawling in front of him. He loves following me around while we crawl. He also loves pulling on my hair, trying to gouge out my eyes with his fat little baby fingers, and climbing on me like a mountain, all the while frantically panting “Heh heh heh heh!” to tell me his happiness. I don’t mind any of it, or the being drooled on either. It’s all love, isn’t it, the only way babies know how to say it.

I wouldn’t have time to put any of that in a scrapbook, and my handwriting is so bad you couldn’t read it if I did. Hooray for the internet.

I would also like to note that he’s starting to open drawers and pull on trash cans and take an interest in the fascinating world of power strips, so we spend a lot of time down on the floor keeping him safe, which suits him just fine. He thinks his 3 year old cousin M is the shiznit and follows her around even though he can’t keep up and she thinks he’s icky. As soon as he can run, she is going to have a permanent shadow. And just this week, he got her little brother as a new cousin, who we’ll call GC, a very normal-sized 7 something pounds:

Nathan, on the other hand, went to the doctor last week. At nine months, he weighs 27.5 pounds and is 30 inches long.

My arms? So tired.