Nine Months!

Jeremy is nine months old today! Life is getting more difficult; he has his first zit.

Milestones of note:

1. Jeremy enjoys brushing his teeth -- all two of them. He especially likes the squeaky sound the brush makes on his enamel.
2. Jeremy is efficiently cruising along the furniture. Now the dogs aren't even safe on the loveseat.
3. Jeremy is one quarter-inch shy of 30 inches. We can still trust him.
4. Jeremy weighs 19 pounds and 3 ounces.
5. He still prefers either silence or honest-to-goodness belly laughs over senseless babble.
6. Two days before he turned nine months, Jeremy played with the classic donut-stacker toy for the first time. After I spread all the colored donuts on the floor, he promptly picked up the orange one and put it right on the center spindle. No big deal.
7. Jeremy will eat solid food, but loves Loves LOVES his bottle.
8. Jeremy's hair is curly all over his head.
9. Jeremy's cuddles are the most precious thing on the planet.
10. Jeremy still wakes his mommies up nearly every night, at about 1:45am or 4:00am -- or both.

This boy is pure love.

Bella Arrives!

In his more dignified moments, Jeremy is happier that his new friend, Bella, has joined the family! Bella is from Sweden, and will be Jeremy's au pair for the next year. We introduced her to California by dragging her to the State Fair two days after she arrived! She (smartly) chose not to eat anything on a stick, although I don't know how she passed an opportunity to eat a deep-fried Twinkie on a stick! Luckily, the summer is winding down, so she won't need to deal with Sacramento's 100-degree-plus weather for very long. Arrving in the Central Valley in the middle of August, she finds it hard to believe that anything green can grow here, ever.

So now the riddle is: How is it that two feminist mothers came to decide that this one little boy needs three women waiting on his every need?