Letter to Esme

Dear Jemmy,

You are nine months old today. You are doing a fantastic, fantastic job of sitting upright with only minimal wobbliness (my friend told me today her child was walking at nine months, but we still love you). You are doing an equally impressive job growing rolls of fat on your extremities and a nice little Cushing’s-like hump of fat on the back of your neck. Your soft little mini-mullet brushes against the hump of fat in the cutest way. Your arms are so chubby you look oddly buff, until of course one realizes it’s all squishy fats.

The best gift you gave us on turning nine months was suddenly sleeping through the night! Real twelve-hour stretches. Your mom feels like she has a new lease on life.

After refusing to touch food for the longest time, sometimes to the point of repeated vomiting if we tried to force some down, you’ve finally started to eat. Turns out what you didn’t like was anything pureed. You’ll pretty much eat anything as long as it’s in huge, choke-worthy, solid form.

The whole food thing, plus your waking up at crazedly-random hours of the night until suddenly deciding to sleep it through, has made us wonder whether you have a stubborn streak, but for the most part you’re pretty congenial. I wouldn’t say placid—none of our kids were placid—but you’re happy to be entertained by your older siblings, and are used to going along with whatever we’re doing. You get a lot of love, Emmy, a lot of love: in-your-face-yelling love, pulling-at-your-feets-while-mommy’s-holding-you love, stuffing-food-in-your-mouth love, suffocating-hugs love, tickling-your-fat-folds love. When younger, this caused you to have a wary look on your face often, but now I think you love it. You smile a lot.

One of the most special things about you is how well you nurse. Mommy’s never nursed a baby out this far. You nurse patiently even when the milk doesn’t come in right away; you’re always willing to feed right before I need to leave for work; you don’t bite with your now-eight teeth. You’re good at telling me when you want to feed, and truly seem to enjoy it even now. I love how your little hand kneads into my chest or reaches up to play with my hair while you feed (or sometimes reaches back to swat my kindle or iPhone if you sense I’m doing something else. You actually nearly prank-called someone once).

You’re so cute! Daddy likes to say. He squeezes and kisses you a lot. You’re our last baby. We love you lots.

Mommy