9 Months Old on June 9th

Dear Griffin, tomorrow you will be 9 months old!!!!!!! You are becoming SUCH a big boy now. In fact, as I look at you and watch your movements, you are starting to resemble more of a toddler, and less of a baby.

Oh, how my heart bursts with pride when I look at you. You are so fascinating to be around. Not that you weren't before, but it is so much fun to watch you explore things. Of course, your curiousity and desire to explore leads you to trouble sometimes. And it also leads you to places we don't think you should explore because it is unsafe. But we love that you are naturally curious and want to see everything in the world.

Indeed you are becoming more of a toddler. Although you are still quite dependant on us (because you are not 100% mobile yet), you also love your independance and want to move around on your own as much as possible. We love seeing you crawl effortlessly on your little knees and hands. And now, you have become quite comfortable in our new place to want to explore every room in our apartment. You like to venture into the kitchen (either when we are in there, or just on your own)and watch me putter away while you sit on the floor, and you like to crawl down the hallway into our bedroom, and check out the bathroom. You also love to try to go outside onto our patio, but we have to constantly pull you back.

Your newfound independance means you also want to feed yourself during meal times, and you are learning how to drink from your bottle yourself. This takes a bit of maneuvering, but you are slowly getting the concept. At meal times, we have to use two spoons. One to feed you with, and the other for you to try to feed yourself with a bit of food on the end of the spoon. You always seem quite smug when we applaud you for your efforts.

You are starting to get quite communicative, and verbal. You constantly babble away in your little baby language, and you are quite expressive. We can see the frustration in you sometimes, when we cannot exactly figure out what you want. We are hoping this frustration means you will want to learn to speak with words soon. For now, you have mastered 'dada' and now you are starting to say 'mama', although we are not sure if you know what either of those words mean.

If I had one word to describe your personality, it would be mischievous. Even though we tell you not to do something, you will continue testing us and you will keep doing it. And you always do it with a glance back at us and your impish little smile.

Your smile melts my heart into a million pieces. I think you know that you can manipulate us with your smile, and admittedly, you succeed. It is very hard to ever stay angry with you.

You are still quite a tentative little baby, especially in new situations. You are slow to warm up to people and places, but eventually you relent. You are becoming comfortable in your play groups, and you are starting to enjoy socializing with other babies. However, you are not fond of loud babies as you almost seem a bit scared by them when they scream into your face. But you love to play in the play groups, and your new favorite thing is being pulled around the gym in a wagon.

We are so impressed everyday by what a STRONG boy you are. Indeed, from the first day you were born, doctors and other people have always marvelled at what a strong little baby you are. You definitely have a determination to learn physical things quickly, and you like to practice what you learn over and over and over. We will not be the least bit surprised if you will be an early walker. I look forward to this day, but I also think this means I will be chasing you around A LOT.

One of your favorite hobbies is to pinch people and pull their lips. I'm not sure why you like to pinch- perhaps a sign of affection? And with the lip pulling, I think you just like interesting faces and therefore try to pull everybody's lips off.

You wrap your little arms around our necks sometimes and nestle your face into our shoulders. You love us so much- we can see it every day. We see it in the way you look at us, the way you touch us (you like to pat us A LOT when you are feeling particularly loving)and the way you smile at us. Our favorite time of the day is right before your bed time. We still carry on a nightly ritual of dinner, followed by bath time, followed by changing into pj's, reading a book in our bed and then we play with you in our bed for about half an hour. The three of us look forward to this time of day so much. It is the one and only time of the day where the three of us are completely together without the other distrations like doing dishes, cooking etc, and just completely bonding and focusing on each other.

You really enjoy music, and now when you hear it, you start to flap your arms up and down and bounce on your behind. Even when we sing to you, you do this.

I have so much pride and love for you, it is so indescribable. I can now see why people go on to have other babies- you are just too cute and delicious that how can I not want to have another? But that is a big question mark, and right now we are enjoying you to bits. You fill my heart with so much joy. I truly feel like the luckiest person in the world.