Nine Months

I met her nine months ago, after she'd spent nine months growing arms and legs and a brain.  She was a little early and a little bit yellow and not a very big bit at all.  

I saw her a month later, and she was pink and puffy, with nary a rib sticking out.  She was smiling then and she's smiling now, celebrating her ninth month of joining the party.  

She's found that toes are for sucking and the feet they're attached to are fun to rock and roll with.  Forefingers are for pointing and exploring and poking at other pointer fingers.  They go through holes and make the flaps move on the cloth books that are also excellent to chew upon.

Broccoli and string beans and bananas and avocados are also excellent choices, but oatmeal, which requires smooshing and not much else, is the clear favorite.  She's always interested and sometimes excited by the food on her plate; oatmeal has her trying to leap onto the table.  

Despite our best efforts, she will not crawl.  There's a creepy crawling doll that makes babylike noises.  She doesn't imitate the doll; she uses her pointer finger to play with its tag.  She doesn't imitate her mother or grandmother or cousins, all of whom have assumed ridiculously contorted positions in futile attempts to get her moving. 

She's got the individual pieces.  We're waiting for her to put them all together. For now,  she's perfectly content to roll side to side and angle herself so she gets where she wants to be.  Her mother's desire for this next milestone is obviously of no importance to her.  

But while we were all watching, today she looked into her mother's eyes and said MAMA.

All is forgiven.