A Letter To My Son {Month 9}

Sweet Little Prince,

This month it has been absolutely amazing to watch your personality EXPLODE! It was as if one night we put this tiny baby to bed and the next morning we walked in your room to find a toddler! You chatter non-stop. You make facial expressions that typically match my thoughts on things, but I try to be a bit more discreet than you do. You move. constantly. You crawl. You pull up. You open every drawer, cabinet, book, purse, whatever you can get your hands on. You unpack boxes like it's your job. You climb. You get yourself stuck. You fall a lot. You have zero fear of anything, yet you prefer we don't go out of sight (even if your sight is simply blocked by the couch, table, box you are unpacking...). You are loud. You are squirmy. You give kisses and I swear, they are the best kisses in the whole wide world... and you only give them to me! 

Everything about the baby we are used to is changing at a rapid rate right now and while my mommy heart breaks that you are growing right before my eyes, I can't help but feel overwhelmed with happiness. Sweet son of mine you are so incredibly fun! We can tell that you are going to be a person that is bubbling over with JOY. You are one smiling, laughing, happy-regardless-of-the-situation little ball of energy and we could not be more proud. 

You light up our days. You bring a smile to our face. You make us want to be better people. You make life so much more fun! A few days ago, I watched you crawl from the room your Daddy and I were in towards the kitchen where your Mama Shawna and Gigi were... You came around the corner and you chattered and just smiled at them so big that they couldn't help but stop their conversation and give you their undivided attention. It was one of those moments where I felt like I could literally feel the overwhelming love in the room - it was so apparent in all three of your faces. I told your Daddy how it was odd that before you were born I felt like life was so good - we have always been very happy people and to be quite honest I couldn't imagine life getting much better than it was at the time and now that you are here we've taken "happy" to an entire new level. We're so happy it's borderline disgusting! Ha! It's so crazy... I can't even hardly remember what we were so happy about before you showed up!! 

Sweet son of mine, joy pours out of you and it is so incredibly contagious. My prayer for you throughout this month has been that you will never lose that excitement and happiness in your eyes. We know that some day, life will be hard and the world will be a cold, mean place but you can know two things without a shadow of a doubt - God will never leave you and your Mommy and Daddy will always love you. We'll do everything in our power to protect you, provide for you and make all your wildest dreams come true (within reason, we're just your parents after all, not super heroes). We pray that you use your joy to bring happiness to others, as we are confident you will.

Thank you for the smiles and the laughter and the overwhelming happiness. You have made our lives immeasurably better.

All my love,
Mommy

NINE Month Milestones:

Eye Color - Hazel. Mainly brown, but with definite gray flecks.

Weight - 25 pounds-ish... 

Height - Don't know that either... 

Clothing - 9 to 12 month clothes.

Nicknames - Little Prince, Coop, Squirmy Worm (because you NEVER stop moving) and Chunky Monkey (for obvious reasons).

Hair - The duck tail over your left ear continues to grow... A hair cut is in your very near future! Even the back is beginning to curl near your collar. 

Teeth - Your bottom two AND your vampire fangs have pushed all the way through now! Your front left tooth is pretty coming along nicely and the front right is starting to stick out as well! You are going to have a full set of teeth in no time!

Crawling - Full speed! You are one fast little booger - you crawl everywhere and pull up on everything! The funny half-crawl/half-bear walk is a thing of the past - you are doing the normal crawl full time now and you are very good at it!

Walking - As long as you have one hand on something steady you can cruise. You are pretty unstoppable! I thought this was the month you'd break lose and just start walking, but it seems that since you found your stride with the crawl, you see less of a reason to walk. Go figure. You still pull up and then make your way from one object to another, but you are much less interested in letting go and taking off than you were a month ago.

You added a few new tricks to your bag this month: Waving - still totally spotty. But you mastered "roll it, roll it, roll it" from Patty Cake without us even practicing! I was just saying the words and one day you just did it and thought it was great fun. Now you "roll it" nonstop and are very pleased with yourself! Another one that came from out of left field was the handshake... Grandma Dorothy was talking to you and she stuck out her hand and said "Pleased to meet you Cooper" and I about fell over when you reached out and perfectly shook her hand! I have no clue where that came from, but it wasn't a fluke because now you shake hands with Grandma Dorothy every time you see her! Ha! Super random. Of course, my personal favorite trick probably of all time happened this month... You started giving Mommy kisses! I am the only one that gets the coveted kisses and, very selfishly, my heart could not be happier! I kiss you all the time and always tell you "kisses!" before and after - sometime in the last week I was giving you kisses and, just like you've done for months now, you laid your head over on my face and gave me little butterfly kisses with your lashes... I was pleased and completely satisfied with the little brushes of love when you looked up, opened your mouth and very clearly kissed me on the cheek. I squealed with delight and you did it again! We repeated the squealing/kissing/squealing/kissing game for quite some time and then tonight as I was carrying you into the house you were chattering away, really telling me something, when I stopped walking and looked at you... you cut off the chatter and planted a big wet kiss right on my lips! It was pretty much the best thing in the whole wide world. (And as long as you continue to only kiss me, you are allowed to say "Daddy" first and I will be totally okay with it... If you start kissing Daddy you best say "Mommy" first. End of story.)

Swim and music class are over. Boy were they fun! You truly enjoyed swim lessons as long as the water wasn't too cold and I know that they will come in so handy when we introduce you to the lake in a month... Oh how we will miss music class and Miss Ginger! She was so wonderful!! She very sweetly recommended some places for us to try to find another class when we move, but I must admit she set the bar very high! You will get to go to her summer "camp" after we get back from vacation and I'm pretty excited about that - you LOVE music class and I have been amazed at how you really have picked things up and recognized what we were doing. I am always in awe of how much your little mind soaks up!

Still chattering away. Still no real words. No rush, when you start I am quite confident you'll never stop! I can't wait to know what is going through your little mind... I'm pretty sure you are going to be funny like your Uncle Awesome, I can tell by the faces you make when you chatter at me - you are very expressive!

You continue to crush some food! Baby boy loves to eat!! This month we introduced water - I get a little in my straw and then you suck the end of it to get a drink. Works great - you love it - except now no straw is safe. You can whip a straw out of a cup so fast it is incredible! We have started giving you a sippy cup but, honestly, I haven't figured it out well enough to really get you going. I either pick one that just pours out all over you or you have to suck ridiculously hard before you get a drop... I have the perfect ones packed neatly away in the box in the storage building - typical. You also aren't real sure what to do with a cup - you never had to hold a bottle so you aren't real sure about how to hold the sippy. If we sit it on the ground by you, you crawl over to it and without picking it up or even touching it with your hands you stick your mouth on it and basically try to nurse... when it doesn't give you anything you quickly knock it out of the way and move on! Tricky, tricky.

Cooper's temporary room - a crib surrounded by boxes!

Bless your precious heart this entire month we've been so focused on packing, moving, picking things for the new house and so on that you have been strapped in a car seat for what seems like the entire month. You have been such a trooper! I feel so bad, but there isn't really any way around it. You cry for the second that I'm strapping you in but are fine the minute I put the car in drive.