Natalia's nine month letter

Dear Natalia,
You've been nine months old for a couple of weeks now and you are just getting so grown up! You've learned quite a few new things recently. Here are some of them:

First of all, you can wave now! You may have actually been able to wave when we wrote your last letter, but we didn't know if the arm flapping was really a wave. It now seems clear that it is. You do it at both socially appropriate and random times - as in, sometimes you wave when Mommy leaves for work in the morning and sometimes you don't, but you also do random waving at times that make sense only to yourself. Like, earlier today, Mama was holding you and bending down to get something and you started waving. Were you saying hi to the object on the ground? Or did the waving urge just happen to strike? Only you know for sure.

You have two new sounds: Ma and Na. You have said "mama" several times - again, sometimes using it to mean one of your parents and sometimes just saying it randomly. You also like to say "na na na," which, coincidentally, matches up with your brother's newfound love of replacing "m" sounds with "n" sounds - so our family is "Mana, Monny, Natanya and Mateno." This last month was brought to you by the letter N.


You have a deep and abiding love for Lucy the kitty cat. You want to look for her when you're nursing and when you see her, you want to crawl to her no matter where you are! You've developed a fun new trick of removing yourself from the boob, rolling over in Mommy's lap, and crawling away. Ah, the joys of independence!

You continue to have the sweetest little personality - smiley and mellow for the most part. One of our favorite things is figuring out ways to get a laugh out of you! For all your smiles, you really make us work to get you laughing! One thing that's gotten you giggling lately is when Mama lifts up your shirt and pretends to sniff you all over. You've got a great laugh and we hope to get it on video at some point.


As the months go by, you get more and more interested in your brother. You think he's quite funny and want to follow him around a lot. We know this will get easier when you learn to walk!


In other new things, you seem to recognize your name! This morning, you had your back to Mama and she called your name a few times. You turned right around and crawled over to see what was happening. Along those lines, you now raise your arms to be picked up when one of us gets close to you. You vacillate between wanting to be held and wanting to explore. Luckily, you get to do quite a bit of both!


In the sleep department, things are going pretty well. You officially moved out of Mommy and Mama's room and now sleep in our front room. It's not the easiest set-up, but it's working for now. We keep a screen up to shield you from the rest of the room and you have your own heater at night. You sleep through the night most of the time and, when you do wake up in the night, you can mostly get yourself back to sleep without too much consternation. Good job!

In the next month, we hope that your sleeping will solidify and that you might actually get some teeth! You were born with your tooth buds clearly visible right underneath your gums and there they have stayed, not budging, for nine months. Will this next month bring us some teeth? Tune in next month to find out! Here you are practicing one of your favorite activities: gnawing.


Natalia, you are our favorite little girl in the whole world. We can hardly believe there was a time when we didn't know you. We love you from the top of your head to the tips of your adorable little toes. We're excited to find out what you're going to be up to next!

All our love,
Mama and Mommy