Dear Ingrid,

I am so very late in writing to you about your 9 month birthday, because February 2007 will be remembered as The February of the Plague, with our whole little family wrestling with one illness or another all month. In fact, your nine month birthday highlight was the first time daycare called to have me pick you up, as you had a fever of 102.5, and weren’t acting much like yourself. I picked you up, and that evening was spent with Daddy taking care of both of us, as I got desperately sick, too. The next day, daddy stayed home in the morning to make sure we were all okay, and you and I cuddled on the couch for much of the day.

Your ninth month has also found you with two new teeth, on the top, flanking the front teeth that emerged last month.  You’ve also started to use your teeth a bit, enjoying the satisfying crunch of biting one of you beloved fruit puffs in half. You also liked eating an avocado wedge, and now my quest to find another decent avocado (in Maine, in February) is on. Unfortunately, the last few trips to the store only found withered, gray looking things. Yuck.

You continue to thrive at your childcare. The caregivers are so wonderful to you, reading you stories and taking you in buggy rides. They genuinely adore you, and our first Valentine from School was made with their assistance — your little handprint smudged across a heart shaped doily. I can only imagine the challenge of making that happen!

You’ve started to ‘talk,’ repeating sounds, mamamamama, dadadadada, nununununu. In the bath, you read us your bath book, turning the pages one by one, babbling in a very serious way, and pointing at the illustrated creatures.  You have learned how to Put Things In, and will dump your blocks from their canister and drop them back in. You also have started to Do Things Back, like if I put a block in my mouth, and you take it out, you will feed it back to me. Or, if we’re playing Where’s Ingrid? with a receiving blanket, you will try to re-cover your own head.

You continue to amaze us every day, with your giant personality. There is so much that we can see of your newborn days, and so much that has changed.  You now weigh 18 pounds, and are 27.25 inches long, putting you squarely at the 50th percentile, but your head is at the 90th. (That comes from my side of the family. We all have big heads.) You make every day better, in some way.

Love, Mama