9 months - Josephine

Dear Josephine,

You’re nine months old! When did that happen?! When did you get so big?

You are the little light of my life, my smiling happy girl, my little sweetheart. Your personality is so sweet and happy and joyous, you light up every room you’re in. Everyone thinks you are a little character, and you really are! You charm absolutely everyone into getting whatever you want.

You have four teeth, one of which just broke through the gum on top. You are such a good little eater, you open your mouth and eat almost anything. You aren’t picky at all. You love avocado, the soups your Nonno and Mama make for you, fruit, anything. We discovered that you love strawberries when we went to the farmer’s market and you kept crawling over and trying to grab them out of the bag as we were having a picnic. You’ll sit there and just much on a strawberry contentedly until you finish it, like a little chipmunk.

You still love your pacifier, and you tend to hoard them, probably because your brother likes to steal them from you. When we went to Papi’s office for pizza lunch the other day, you managed to have four at one time! I have a feeling that breaking that habit is going to be tough.

You pull up on all the furniture, but you haven’t shown that much interest in walking. Probably because you crawl so well – you are super fast and can get anywhere you want to go. I still think you’ll be an athlete one day. You LOVE going to the park and swinging in the swings, and going down the slide – probably you like it a little too much, you try to go head first! You fell off the merry-go-round when Papi’s attention wandered for a moment, and landed in the tanbark without any problem – no crying at all. You also love going to the pool for your swimming lessons, you’re so much fun to take!

I can’t believe how fast these nine months have flown by, in no time at all you’ll be walking, and you’ll turn a year old. As much as I wish I could keep you small and sweet forever, I’m so excited to start playing games and sharing this great big world with you and watching you discover new things every day. It’s such a privilege to be able to watch you grow up, every day I’m looking forward to the next step with you.

Love,

Mama

9 months - Vincenzo

Dear Vincenzo,

I missed your nine-month birthday by a few days, but I wanted to write anyway. You are so much fun now! You crawl around, although you have a funny way of doing it. You started crawling with one knee and one foot, sort of sideways, and even though you eventually learned to crawl normally, you seem to prefer your own way. I suspect that you aren’t that interested in crawling because you’re really interested in walking. You’ve been pulling up on furniture, cruising around, and walking while holding two adult fingers for a while now. Sometimes you can even walk while holding on with just one hand. I think you’ll be walking for real pretty soon.

You’ve become really jealous of your sister, and you never miss a moment to steal her pacifier or her toys. You get angry and frustrated with her, and start hitting and pushing her, too. I only hope you learn a bit of patience from her, because so far you don’t seem to have too much. Watching the two of you interact is fascinating, though.

You’re still a complete sweetheart, and your smile and laugh are adorable. Your laugh is contagious – I don’t know how many times we’ve been out in public and your laugh has made everyone around laugh, too. You love your Mama and your Papi, but you really don’t like to sleep for us. You especially don’t want to nap at home, if you can help it, but typically you fall asleep in the car before we’re even out of the driveway.

You love reading books and watching TV, especially Sesame Street music videos. You can turn the pages of the books, and you like to sit on my lap and listen to me read each page, and then turn to the next one. Everyone is so impressed by that.

You have FIVE teeth! Unfortunately, you like to use them to bite me, which I don’t like very much. You even bit Josephine once. I hope this is something you grow out of very soon! You haven’t been easy as far as eating, recently. You hated solid food at the beginning, then went through a phase in which you liked everything and ate it all up. Then suddenly you only liked sweet foods, like fruit and sweet potatoes, and then only from a jar. You’re getting a bit better now, but you’re so hard to feed! You fuss and complain and throw your head back. We have to distract you with singing or cartoons. You love avocado, and your Nonno just made you some soup with pastina in it for the first time.

The other day, I couldn’t get you to sleep, so I went outside and rocked you on the swing, and you finally fell asleep, face-down on the swing, for over an hour, while construction workers pounded away and we ate lunch nearby. It was so sweet. You love being outside. We started taking you to the playground, and you like to go in the swings, down the slide, and on the merry-go-round. I can’t wait until you can run around and play! I think we’ll have a lot of fun.

The last nine months of getting to know you have been wonderful. In the next few days, months, and years, there is so much new stuff for you to discover and places to go! I am so excited that I’ll get to share it all with you.

Love,

Mama

7 months - Vincenzo

My darling Vincenzo,

Your seven-month birthday was three days ago, and I am amazed as usual at how fast the time has gone. You are a sweet, sturdy, handsome little guy and your smile (and laugh!) melt my heart every time.

You are still conservative about smiling (relatively), but when you do it is contagious, open-mouthed and full of joy. You like to smile at waitresses and especially at the flight attendants on our trip to Italy for Christmas – they were your absolute favorites, even when you were in the middle of melting down. And your laugh, your Papi and I agree that it is the best ever. It’s so contagious. I wish I could predict what you find to be funny, just so I can make you laugh on cue when I’m feeling down.

You have grown so much in the last few months. I saw your first tooth coming on New Years Day, but it took eight days (!) to break through your gums, and man was it sharp. Number 2 was close behind, and now you have a little two-tooth smile that is even cuter than it was before, if that’s possible. It seems like your upper teeth are ready to make an appearance, but so far they are taking their time.

You learned to sit up right after we got home from Italy, and you mastered it right away. You are amazing the way you sit with a toy and study it and turn it over and over, totally lost in thought. It’s incredible to see. Sometimes when you are in the right mood, you can sit there for over an hour just studying your toys quietly. You like it when I (or someone else you trust) sit right behind you, or if I sit with my leg next to you. I’m not sure if you like the physical closeness, the support in case you fall, or just the comfort of knowing someone is there. You occasionally put your hand on my leg or just reach out to make sure I’m still there. It’s very sweet.

You’re generally a cuddly little guy, and you like physical contact. When you get upset and you’re sitting by yourself, you reach your arms out to be picked up, or try your hardest to grab whoever is nearest to you. You like being held and cuddled, and you like us to walk around with you and talk to you. You also like sitting on my lap when you play with your toys.

Feeding you has been a lot of fun – you make great faces!! You pretty much assume you won’t like something the first time you try it, and you make an awful face accordingly, even if you decide you do like it two bites later. But then you sometimes change your mind later anyway, and we can’t keep track of what you like to eat.

You have slept through the night, quite a few times now! It’s wonderful, and when you wake in the morning you are really happy and cheerful for a little while. You and I often spend some cuddle time together in the morning before anyone else is up. We did that every morning in Italy, it was my favorite time of the day, cuddling and playing with you. But … ugh, we’re still swaddling you. That’s going to be a hard habit to break.

You still like taking baths, and generally spend bath-time chewing on a rubber duck. I remember your first night in Italy, your grandmother thought a nice bath would be a good way to get you ready for bed. She stripped you, carried you off, and dunked you right into the tub without warning. You screamed your little head off! Things went better after that. Except for getting dressed to go outside in the cold, you hated that with a passion.

These past seven months with you have been the most beautiful months of my life, and I can’t wait for all that lies ahead. You are the best little boy I could imagine.

Love,

Mama

7 months - Josephine

My dearest Josephine,

You just turned seven months a few days ago, and you are the most adorable little girl I have ever seen. You have rosy chubby cheeks, you smile like there is no tomorrow, and you charm absolutely everyone. Not much has changed in the past few months in that respect.

You have changed a lot in the past few months, though. You’ve been through a LOT! You went to Italy and met your entire Italian family, or at least as much as we could manage in three and a half weeks. Took your first plan flight, and it was trans-atlantic. You charmed all the flight attendants, as well as everyone at security.

When we got back, you started crawling almost right away, always going after two things: a bottle, or a laptop. It was easy to show off your crawling on skype because you’d always crawl towards the computer. It’s really more of a military crawl, and in the past three or so weeks, it hasn’t changed much except that you’ve gotten faster.

Then finally you sat up by yourself, and once you learned how to do that, you perfected it quickly. You’re adorable, sitting there with your legs sticking out straight and your hands resting on them. I could stare at you all day while you smile back at me.

And then you got teeth!!! Two sharp little teeth that came in almost at the same time, I’m not even sure which one was first. You also got sick around the same time poor little thing, spiking high fevers for days in a row and really worrying your Papi and me. You looked miserable for quite a while, and then it settled down into a pretty awful cold, which you still have. You HATE when we clean your nose, and I feel so bad doing it.

You still love taking a bath, it’s one of my favorite times with you. You became interested in bath toys, and go diving after your rubber ducks with abandon. You’ve also tried climbing out of the tub, and have no fear of the edge of the bed or couch. You are quite a fiery handful, and I’m terrified that one of these days we will not be quite careful enough.

You have a fierce sense of independence. You want to do everything yourself, which is why I suspect you started crawling so early. It’s part of your plan to take over the world. As far as you are concerned, you can hold your own bottle, feed yourself solid food, cut your own nails, and probably change your own diaper.

You’ve started eating solid food as well, although it’s hard to tell what you like and what you don’t. You started off well, grabbing the spoon and trying to do it yourself, of course, and you were a good eater, but since you got sick, you’re not so interested. Even now that you’re feeling better, you complain and don’t eat much.

And you’re finally starting to sleep (knock on wood)! It’s wonderful, it makes me and Papi so much happier. You don’t quite have the “sleeping through the night” thing down yet, but I can tell we’re getting close. In any case, things are much better – you usually only wake up once or at most twice.

You are the little sunshine in my life, and without you my life would be so much darker. One smile from you is enough to make my whole day. I’m SO happy you’re my beautiful little girl.

Love,

Mama