Nine Months: James

James turned nine months old a few weeks ago and he is crazy. Non-stop all the time it seems. He is 18 pounds 15 ounces and 18 1/2″ long. It’s not a lot of growth from his 6-month check up, but still has him in the 50th percentile for height. All the moving has really thinned him out.  He has seven teeth now that he uses to bite everything that comes into his mouth, which sometimes includes my fingers because I am constantly having to pull random objects out – grass, dirt, pieces of food from the meal he ate an hour prior.  He loves food but is still having trouble keeping it in his mouth. It doesn’t matter what you have, he wants to try it, and will quickly make his way to try and steal it. Stella’s learned quickly where she can sit so he can’t reach her food! He hasn’t mastered the pincer grasp yet, just shoveling whatever food he can sweep into his hands into his mouth. Naturally, he’s a mess when he eats (I thought about changing him into a clean white onesie for his photos but this is more true to daily life) and after every berry someone will ask “What happened to his face?” because he looks like he’s got road rash. Tsunami has become accustomed to cleaning up after him and probably at her peak awfulness when mealtimes roll around. It doesn’t help that James, hands covered in food, will lean over the high chair to look for her. Tsunami happily cleans up those messy hands and thinks that she’s being fed.  Not he doesn’t have his share of bumps and bruises. This kid is crazy. While Wes was vacuuming, James was crawling around. Neither of us had eyes on him for a few seconds and suddenly he was crying. He bumped his lip pretty hard and there was a lot of blood. He might have been trying to stand up, or he might have just taken a header to the ground while crawling, as he sometimes does. He stands up in the bathtub and gets so excited that he falls down and I basically have a dozen heart attacks a day with this kids.  He has taken a few unassisted steps here and there, but after two or three he gets so excited that he starts wiggling and giggling and falls on his butt, at which point he gets frustrated and cries because crawling is for babies and he is so clearly not a baby! He crawled up the stairs for the first time when Uncle Porter was here and now every time the gate is opened, he crawls as quickly as possible to try to get upstairs. If he could walk circles downstairs (with the help of mom or dad’s hands, that is), he would do that all day. Sometimes before bath time we chase Stella around and they both lose their minds over it. I’m looking forward to letting them entertain themselves.  He is still a mostly-horrible (for me, that is) sleeper. It seems like we get into a groove and then he gets a tooth or a cold and everything goes back to square one. Naps are going well, but nighttime is always a guessing game on whether or not he’ll sleep all night.  He loves his sister and his dad and the dog and, of course, me. He likes to rest his head on Tsunami’s butt and just lay there and every time he does it I smile because he rarely stops moving. Stella likes to try to make him laugh and some things that I think she maybe shouldn’t do are the things that get him laughing the most, like grabbing him while he’s sitting next to the dog bed and rolling backwards on to it. They both laugh and he struggles to get up so I have to remind Stella to let James go and then we repeat. In the car she echoes what he says and that makes him laugh. While my brother was here I took advantage of being able to run into the post office without kids and while they were waiting in the car James started to cry. My brother said that Stella kept repeating, “It’s okay, buddy. Mama will be right back.” I know that they’ll go through a period of hating each other, but right now they love being around each other and I that makes me happy.  James loves to be outside and is often at either the front or back door, just looking out. We set up some water areas and sun shades in the backyard and have been spending some time out there. Naturally, he plays in Tsunami’s water bowl and tries to pick up the dead leaves from the patio.  He is so incredibly happy and friendly, just like Stella was. Unlike Stella, though, he’s got some separation anxiety. He will smile at pretty much everybody, but when I leave him alone he has a minor meltdown. He will calm down, but when I come back in his field of vision he starts crying because he realizes he could be with me but isn’t. It’s simultaneously awesome and annoying to be loved so much. 
He has his dad’s crazy hair and his blue eyes and my ability to tan easily and I wouldn’t change one thing about him. Well, okay, I’d make him a better sleeper.