Takeshi,

You are growing up to be quite a little character. You are convinced that the most fun thing to do at any given moment is something that will have me yelling your name and telling you to “Stop before you kill yourself!” Your face lights up immediately and you continue on your merry way.

Right now you’re trying desperately to learn how to walk. This means you’re pushing chairs and other standing objects along the floor in an attempt to create a makeshift walker. (And yes, we tried to get you a walker but they’re all very flimsy and you like to crash into things which inevitably means the walker flips over and comes close to landing on top of you.) You also attempt to walk from one object to another and are getting pretty good at it.

You are still chugging along with your solids. I’ve now started to mix american cheese into some orzo and you LOVE it. You also love your Polly-O string cheese (the ones made from 2% milk, not so much the whole milk kind). You still act like pureed foods are death unless it is homemade sweet potatoes. We also started you eating some Puerto Rican rice and you love that as well. So far, there are very few foods that you don’t like which is making my life a little easier.

Your vocabulary is still limited to babbling and ‘Papa.’ When you get upset and cry, a bunch of blah blah gah bah duh daaah! comes out of your mouth to drive home whatever point it is you’re trying to make. I hate to see you cry but when you get vocal like that, it always makes me smile.

You still love the cats but are not as obsessed with them as you once were. You pet them, pull on them and then move on. Isabelle avoids you like the plague so on the rare occasion she is captured and held so you can touch her, you just clutch onto her and hug her over and over and over again.

Happy 9 months little guy — you have now been out of the womb longer than you were in it!

Love you always,
Mama