This evening I decided that I wanted to get the seeds out of the pumpkins. We never did get them carved in time for Halloween, but I really wanted to at least bake the seeds. I thought it’d be a fun activity for you to help me with. I laid out plastic on the ground, your dad cut off the tops, and I sat you down with the two pumpkins and a couple of spoons. I thought you’d dive right in with your hands, but you were more intrigued by the pumpkin tops, and even tried multiple times to eat the spiky stem! After a little while you reached into the bowl containing the seeds, touched them, immediately pulled your hands away and with wide eyes, just stared at them in surprise at their cold sticky texture. After a few seconds you dove back in with much less trepidation, and continued to play and try to eat them for awhile.

AFter this adventure you were a mess and needed a bath. Bath time has continually become more and more chaotic in proportion with you becoming more and more active and mobile. It’s a stressful, painful time where your dad or I lean precariously over the tub for the entire event, constantly keeping our hands hovering around you and ready to catch you the instant you try to stand. Long gone are the days where you just sit placidly and let us wash you down. By the end of every bath my knees and back ache, I’m all wet, and I’m exhausted; you, however, seem all wound up and more riled up than when we began.

Tonight I decided to try a new approach and I climbed in the tub with you. I was able to sandwich you in my legs, which mostly enabled me to keep you sitting and upright with much less effort than is possible when I’m outside the tub. And this new method has the added benefit of me getting to take a bath, to sit back and enjoy the time with you rather than wrangling you the whole time, and I even got to relax and enjoy a beer while you safely played. I think we’ve definitely found our new bathing style.

You turned nine months old today and you shared the special day with your brother, Guinness’, ten-year birthday. We didn’t do too much to celebrate, though I did have a fun photo shoot with you outside.

This past month you have perfected standing; you’re able to do it for minutes at a time, to get yourself up and then back down to sitting when you’ve had enough, and to walk up and down a piece of furniture while holding on. You still mostly belly crawl, though you have been spotted doing the more traditional crawl every once in awhile. You can make very good time crawling, and before we realized it you’d taught yourself to go both up and down the little step into the breakfast nook. You’ve also discovered the kitchen cabinets, and you love opening them and pulling things out. Your favorite is the Tupperware cabinet, though I let you play in a few others which contain relatively benign objects. You really like to pull out and shake the bag of rice, which generally is a fine activity for you except for the other day when I looked and you’d found a second, non-zippered bag. You were gleefully shaking your arms up and down, creating showers of rice all around you. I think it’s time for baby-proofing.

You are still as curious as always, perhaps even more so now that you can efficiently get yourself to almost anything you’d like to investigate. You’re very perceptive and notice when something is new or different. Your nana tied a string onto one of your toys to make the pull string longer, and every time you use that toy now you study the new string and the knot connecting it to the old one. Last night I pulled down the three supports on the bottom of the Exercauser to make it more stable, and you immediately crawled over to it and started pulling at and studying the supports.

You’re also developing a sweet little personality and we’re beginning to see a bit of a stubborn side. You make it very clear what you want, and very clear when you do not get what you want. We’re finding ourselves having to say ‘no’ to you as you’re getting into things that we don’t want you in or, most recently, as you’re continually undoing your diaper or taking off your socks as we’re trying to change you. Life is so fun and such an adventure with you, and it’s so fun watching your personality develop.

Happy nine months, my sweet, active, inquisitive, strong, strong-willed, and adorable Emma.

Today we had a classic, perfect, fun day with you. We took you to the CU game where you contentedly hung out in the Baby Bjorn carrier for the bulk of the first half, then ate and napped for over a quarter.

Because of the poor performance of CU and in no way because you were tiring of the game, we departed and headed to Southern Sun for a beer. At the bar we held you and fed you, and you played and sat and crawled around. It’s so fun having you along for these family adventures.

We decided to head to a local park and take some pictures before the last of the fall leaves have disappeared and in honor of your upcoming nine month birthday. I had a hard time picking an outfit for you to wear, and I drove your father crazy in the process. I suppose you, too, were sick of the multitude of outfit changes. But in the end I settled for jeans and the little yellow sweater from nana.

At the park there were lots of birds nearby, providing background music for our photo session. You are so aware and observant, and you turned your head in the direction of the sounds and just looked and listened for many minutes. I love your curiousness, your alertness, and your desire to take in the world around you. I hope you keep these traits forever, never becoming immune to the beauty surrounding you.

You’ve already had a fair share of minor spills, dating months back to that first time you surprised us both by rolling over from your belly to your back before either you or I could cushion your head from the floor. As you became more proficient at rolling, and then at sitting and now at standing your falls occur less and less frequently. Now, you almost never fall over from a sitting position. The one exception is when you get really excited you wave your arms and hands about, so vigorously that on numerous times you’ve knocked yourself over.

In the past two months you’ve become very adept at pulling yourself to standing and at getting yourself back down to sitting. I can’t ever recall seeing you fall while learning this, though I’m sure you have. But today, you fell and knocked your head not once or twice, but three times. And all three times resulted in a bump on your head! I cannot believe that to date you’ve made it this far (thank goodness) without any bumps or bruises, and then today you’ve ended up with three. I assume that you’re trying to take steps or to begin your first independent standing, free of support. Regardless, it’s so alarming to see you so distraught and actually injured, that I hope you quickly get through whatever phase you’ve just entered.

I suppose it’s silly, because I know you’re too young to relish in the excitement of this holiday, but I’ve been looking forward to Halloween for weeks. I couldn’t wait to put you in your elephant costume and take you out. What exactly we would do with you once you were in your costume was a point of contention for your dad and I. He thought it’d be best to stay home and have you help pass out candy; this would enable you to stay warm and be able to play or crawl around at your leisure. But we hardly ever get trick-or-treaters, and so his plan would result in nothing more than a dressed-up normal evening at home. I wanted to go out, either trick-or treating around the neighborhood or to one of the planned community events. In the end we did the latter, attending the Munchkin Masquerade on Pearl Street Mall with Greg, Kristen, and Isla-as-a-cat.

It was so fun. You love people watching and you just seemed so interested by all of the people – adults and kids alike – in so many different costumes. We loved seeing the originality of the costumes, and were especially impressed by the families with themed costumes. I noted to Kristen that I was proud of us for having gotten you and Isla dressed up and to the event; I couldn’t even imagine having the energy to imagine and create costumes for the family. Maybe next year; if I start brainstorming now I think I can pull it off.

We’ve been dutifully introducing new foods every four days or so. Today we introduced you to eggplant and you ate it all. However, you seem to slowly be becoming less of a hearty eater. You have never shut your mouth and turned your head in refusal of food. But you are becoming increasingly distracted and bored with the whole eating process. You focus for a little while, but then you start looking around, reaching for things, standing up, pounding your hands, spitting your food out, or any number of other distractions. Your nana mentioned today that you like to have something in your hands when you eat, and so I’ve started giving you a spoon or cup to hold while I feed you. I’ve discovered that this works great. You open your mouth to insert whatever object it is you’re holding, and I quickly swoop in with my spoon and get some food in there before you’re able to close your mouth. It’s a little tricky, but it seems to be working.

Your sleep schedule has been a bit off over the last couple of weeks. You’re so focused on standing that often times you’ll be asleep in my arms but the minute I lay you down you roll over, pull yourself up and start crying. It’s as if your body is just automatically going through the motions of standing, even when you’re half asleep. It’s crazy because I’ll go pick you up and it’s like you’re instantly back asleep the instant I hold you in my arms. A few times you’ve gotten to standing but not been crying; you just sit there and babble to yourself happily. Last Thursday morning you did this, and I decided to just let you be and keep an eye on you on the monitor. You stood for a while, maybe 20 minutes, then finally sat down. As I was watching and listening to you, I could tell that you were getting more and more tired. Your sounds were become less excited and less frequent, and your motions were slowing. Then, I saw your head bob forward and you fell asleep, sitting up, but then suddenly jerked back awake. You did this a few times and then finally lied down and fell asleep. And this morning a similar thing happened. You were on the floor, standing and holding on to your nana. Your dad was outside raking leaves and you were entranced watching him. And the next thing we knew, you were asleep, with your little head resting on nana’s knee. You’re so active and alert; you just don’t want to miss anything.

This morning we were lucky enough to run into the Stephans (and the Patchetts– the newlyweds) at breakfast. I was thankful that we got a few more minutes to chat with everyone, and they were happy to get to see you again. Matt and Gretchen and your cousins joined us all for a bit and then we said goodbye to everyone to get ready to head to the airport.

Ann Marie drove us there and she was so sad to see you go; she loves you so much. Although you didn’t sleep much on this flight, you were in a much better mood than the flight on the way out, ending our trip on a great note.

Your sleep schedule is a bit off here, and you’re not sleeping very well either, probably on account of being in a strange place and also as a result of your stuffy nose. You’re waking frequently in the night, and also waking around 6 am. We’ve been snuggling with you and playing with you in bed, and you fall back asleep around 7 and sleep until 9. This is nice for us, but sure has caused us to sleep away the mornings of this vacation. That’s ok though, I suppose that is what vacations are for – relaxing and catching up on sleep. Anyway, we all went out for breakfast then came home and took another nap. Neither you nor I are feeling very well, and so we thought we’d get in a quick rest before the wedding. Unfortunately we awoke with about 30 minutes until we needed to go, so we had a mad dash of getting ourselves ready and then you ready really quickly.

But we made it to the church on time and had such a fun time watching Kim and Brandon get married. Emmett was the ring bearer and was so serious and focused. Then came Alex and, after a morning of primping with the big girls, she looked like a little princess. She dropped all of the flower petals in about the first third of the walk down the aisle, then stopped, and looked around at a loss of what to do since she was out of flowers. She paused for what seemed like ten seconds, than her focus returned back to the front of the church. I’m not sure if someone there prompted her to continue walking, but all of a sudden she sprinted the rest of the way down the aisle. It was adorable.

Before the ceremony started you were a bit fussy and you were very vocal, so both your grandma and your Aunt Gretchen nicely pointed out that there was a mother’s room in the back of the church where we could take you. Your dad took you there and Uncle Matt and Jackson were already there. It was perfect for you two; you were able to play and make all the noise you wanted. I didn’t get to see your interactions, but your dad said you two did great together. He was worried that Jackson would be too big to play well with you, or that the age difference would be too much and he’d be bored quickly. But he had what seemed like a virtually endless supply of patience with you, putting up with you pounding on him and poking at him, and at one point even tackling him. He just watched you and observed, never once getting upset. I guess one learns a lot of patience from having to constantly deal with two older siblings.


Next was the cocktail hour, and you continued to amaze me with your lack of trepidation in noisy, chaotic social settings. Numerous people stopped me because they wanted to meet you and visit with you, and you just took it all in. The party soon moved into the ballroom for the reception, and it was set up beautifully. I was so happy that they’d decided to do the cake cutting and speeches first; I knew I’d have to leave shortly to put you to bed and I was glad we didn’t miss these moments. My favorite speeches were Cousin Ali’s and Uncle Denny’s. They were funny and personal, and of course they both made me cry. Denny talked about when Kim was a little girl, and she liked to pretend that she was a princess. She’d pretend that her dad was her prince, and they lived in this blissful fairytale land. He talked about how now Brandon is Kim’s prince, and his words made me think forward to a day when someday your daddy will be giving a similar speech after giving your hand away in marriage. And of course this thought brought tears to my eyes.