Skip to main content

Willow is 9 months (and A-C-T-I-V-E)

Willow is 9 months old now, and she's keeping me busy. I'm not sure "busy" even cuts it; she's keeping me in hyperdrive. I think I need vitamin B shots just to get through the day, and she's not even walking yet. I'm shaking here, folks. Shaking. I've already lost 19 pounds since becoming a stay-at-home dad (much more and I might be almost healthy).
She's napping now, so I get a chance for some updates.
  • We visited the doctor on Monday, and Willow checked out perfectly. She's officially 20 pounds now, but I can tell you she weighs more than that. I'm sure of it. Willow cried when the nurse weighed her (just like Mommy does, Cherish noted). But there were no shots. YAY!
  • Up to now, Willow hasn't been afraid of anything, but she's starting to develop her shyness of strangers. Of the doctor her eyes spoke, "Who is this strange woman, and why is she touching me? Oh, why is she touching me THERE?"
  • Willow is eating all sorts of stuff nowadays. She loves Cheerios and grain puffs. She also likes fresh bananas and cooked carrots and peas. She loves to suck on pickles and cucumber slices too. She likes yogurt and Jell-O as well. She eats all the jarred baby food we give her (graduating to Level 3) but prefers eating what Mommy and Daddy are eating. We share when appropriate. She doesn't care much for avocado or hummus (this saddens Mommy), but she'll eat it.
  • Willow crawls everywhere, anytime. She loves to crawl around Mommy and Daddy's legs like a cat, but she'll venture off to a vacant room, which sends us chasing. As for keeping her from undesirable places, such as the TV stand, "not for Willow" works sometimes. Sometimes it doesn't. We've been able to distract her from undesirable spots with toys and affection, but she's starting to get keen.
  • She naps twice a day now, 10:30 and 3:30, and she takes five 5-ounce bottles each day. She eats three solid meals a day. Mommy reads to her every night before her 9 p.m. bedtime. She usually wakes at 7 a.m. each day. She usually doesn't stir at night, but Mommy and Daddy do (darned nightmares).
  • Of course, she loves going to the park whenever it's warm. Soon she and Daddy will be going to story time at the local library every Monday (we went once already, but the other kids were a little too big for her), and we're eager for warmer weather so we can head back to the zoo and its awesome playground.
  • Her favorites times of the day are spending time with Mommy in the morning and spending time with Mommy at night. She tolerates Daddy the rest of the time.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Adding a splash to the winter gray

Willow, Mommy and I went to the Y's pool on Sunday to take advantage of our membership and to do something summery in this dreary and cold weather. We had so much fun swimming and splashing, Willow and I went back on Tuesday. On Sunday, surprisingly, nobody else was at the pool, and the lifeguard seemed resigned to having to sit boringly in her stand. I have no problem with having an entire pool and a lifeguard all to myself, but, again, I was surprised nobody else was there, except for a few exercisers coming and going to use the steam room and the sauna (and a couple of guys hopped in the whirlpool for a few minutes). When Willow and I went on Tuesday, several people were in the pool, but they quickly scattered when the tot and I entered the pool. Maybe their time in the pool had come to a planned end. Maybe they didn't want to be in the water with someone who might pee or poop at any moment. After the initial scattering a couple of men came into the pool area and swam qui...

Among chaos, peace

I want to show you two pictures, but a little later. First I want to introduce you to chaos (or at least what I consider to be chaos) via a handy, dandy list: I am sitting at a laptop, pounding out a blog's letters as quickly as I can think of them. The laptop is only three months old, yet some of the keys stick sometimes. These sticky keys are the ghostly reminders that a toddler's sticky fingers have been pounding on them. Four loads of laundry lie in various states of "unfinish." One load is wet. One load is wrinkling. Two loads await their spins. A fifth load already has been tucked away in drawers, cabinets and closets (then untucked by a toddler then tucked again by me). Cups, plates and bowls hang for dear life to a hastily stacked pile of dirty dishes in the sink while a clean set of dishes sits in the dishwasher. A pile of pictures and postcards blanket the floor beside the desk in the guest room. This was the work of the sticky fingers that pounded on...

Willow's sliding frenzy

Last week, Willow took a huge step in her quest to become a big girl (she's abiding by her plans, not Mommy's and Daddy's, who want her to stay a baby forever). Willow and I went to the playground for a morning of play and a picnic. Willow's idea of "a morning of play" is usually spending A LOT of time on the swing. Up to last week, if she wanted out of the swing, it was to walk over to another, better swing. Then back again. Last week, things changed. I put Willow at the top of a tot slide and started cheering her to let loose. I readied to keep her from tumbling off the bottom of the slide. She let loose, scooted down the slide and stopped just short of the edge. She shimmied off, smiling and took off after the steps to go back up. She clamored to the top of the slide (this set of slides had one "top" with the option of going down three slides: a straight one, a curvy one and a tunnel one). Willow reached the top, sat down, scooted her bottom t...