Peter at nine months

 One morning Peter awoke feeling like a merman. These distinctions are pretty important around here, so let me tell you that mermaids are girls and mermans are boys. We're pretty big into mermaids lately. Alice got some Little Mermaid toys for her birthday last year and is looking forward to her "mermaid birthday" this year. And, also, check out that hair. It was driving me crazy.

 So, this happened. I tried scissors but he was so wiggly and I didn't want to cut his hear off. He was pretty calm for most of it and he called Nathan up to shame him. "Look how calm Peter is! You could be this calm too!" Nathan hates haircuts. The mere mention will bring him to tears. If it hadn't been so close to bedtime, he would have gotten one too. Lucky him.

 Once it was over, though, sadness set in. He looks so big! My sister shed a few tears when she saw him. He'll be ten months old this week. He really needs to stop this growing up thing.

A few more things about Peter:

He loves electrical cords. He's knocked over a couple floor lamps by pulling on the cords.

He loves to put anything and everything in his mouth. One day we were at my mom's eating lunch and Clara asked what was in Peter's mouth. I told her it was bread or applesauce or whatever I was feeding him, and she said, "No, it's blue." I fished it out: a wire nut he'd found on the floor. It's a miracle he didn't swallow it while he was eating. Another day we found a fingernail sticker that Clara had gotten for her birthday, in Peter's diaper. And tell me again why I got the three other kids Legos for Christmas? It will be a miracle if Peter survives babyhood.

He started crawling on Clara's birthday. He's since progressed to pulling himself up, which he does at every opportunity. Sometimes he'll stand up, flop himself down, and do it all over again. It's a party.

When he's really happy, he'll grin and shake his head no.

He's working on growing his top two teeth. They're so close and then I think we'll get back to better sleeping again.

He's also fascinated by stairs. He's fallen down them a few times, but still heads back to them whenever he can. I'm getting better at remembering to put him downstairs to play, because it's harder to fall up stairs. If I put a baby gate up, I'll be spending all day lifting kids over it as they go about playing, and not to mention it will ding up the walls I've been so laboriously touching up. Every time I think I've got all the dings fixed, I find more.

He has said NO MORE, WOMAN! when it comes to baby food. If he can't feed himself, he wants no part of it. Except for yogurt and green smoothies. Those I can feed him. We gave him a little bit of hot chocolate on Saturday. His first drink he pulled back pretty quickly. Then he kept going back for a series of quick drinks as he adjusted to the taste and temperature. Then he got a little manic as he grunted and reached for more as he realized how awesome hot chocolate is.