Adele, 9 months

She’s got the biggest smile and when she’s happy her whole body will let you know.  She vibrates whenever I enter a room she’s in, whenever she sees me.  

She’ll pull out individual strands of my hair, very intentionally, or pinch my arm just as a way of comforting herself.  When I come to pick her up from bed after a nap her arms and legs move so fast you can’t see them, like a beetle or a turtle that’s been flipped on its back.  

She loves bananas and cherries and cantaloupe and watermelon, but isn’t too fond of green beans.  It takes her awhile to enjoy something I’m feeding her, no matter what it is, and the first bite always seems to shock her.  She’s picking up her cereal now and fitting it into her mouth, working it around with those eight (eight!) teeth and learning to feed herself.  

She can switch from sitting upright to down on her belly, most of the time without scraping her chin or getting stuck.  She’s mostly content where she is, unless she wants you to pick her up or unless there’s a toy out of reach.  But she’s just started trying to scoot around and seems to almost have it, but isn’t in a hurry.

Her hair doesn’t stick straight up anymore, and that makes me sad.  But it is long enough for a bow, though I’ll probably never be the type of mom who remembers to use one.

Her brother can make her laugh like nobody else, just by giving her a smile. And he’s starting to share his toys and time with her, much to her delight.

She will fuss and flail if I’m holding her and walk away from something she wants to look at or somewhere she wants to go, like outside.  Just like Sebastian she’s never happier than sitting in the fresh air.  She loves to swing and to pick particular blades of grass.  She cackles if a breeze catches her.  

She is babbling more, and so expressive.  She growls at her toys and speaks to the ones with faces, having conversations in her own language.  

She’s probably more like me than Sebastian, and therefore much harder for me to deal with.  She contemplates things and her face shows much of what she’s thinking.  Her frown is deep and lasting, but so is her grin.  She doesn’t warm up to people right away and when someone she doesn’t know holds her she always has me in her sight.

Her cry tenses up my shoulders, makes my nerves rise.  I’m protective of her in a different way than I am with her brother.  

We’ve become co-sleepers, just in the last few weeks, since it’s easier.  But I’m thinking about fighting the big fight to get her sleeping through the night.  In the long run we will all be happier.

I will miss her little warmth curled up next to me, though, and waking up to her looking right in my eyes.  

It’s so amazing to be loved that way, like I am everything to her.  And all she asks is that I love her back.

That’s easy.