Nine Months

You are upstairs playing in our new shower with your father, and I hear you making contented "oohhh wahoow wahooow" sounds all the way down three flights of stairs, so I know that I have a minute to note down your state of affairs on this, your nine month birthday, official moment in which you have been outside my body for longer than you were inside it.

You have two teeth. But you are still a huge partisan of nursing, perhaps even moreso than in your tiny infancy. The other night while reading your favorite book, when we got to the part where the pigs say "LA LA LA," you said "LA LA LA" along with us. You are tall, and you stand by yourself, and I have seen you balance briefly and pass a block from one hand to another before having to hold on again. You will walk, I think, any minute. You have been observed to crawl, but you hate it. You love Milo, and your parents, and Callie, our neighbor who now watches you sometimes while waiting for her big banking job to begin.

You are almost a little boy.

But not quite.