This is a companion piece to both Dispatches from a Stay-at-Home Dad: Newborn Edition and to Lessons from My 6-Month-Old Baby.
My daughter Senita (not her real name) hit the nine-month milestone on Tuesday meaning she’s spent longer with us here on the outside than she ever spent on the inside.
It turns out that nine months is a really long time. I remember Jenny mentioning this during her pregnancy, but it didn’t really register with me until now.
The best comparison I had before this was an academic year, which is approximately nine-months long but full of wonderful breaks.
Parenting has no breaks. Babies are always here, even when they’re not.
I can’t drive a quarter-mile from my house without panicking that the car seat’s missing – even when I know I’m not supposed to have it. It’s not an attachment thing as much as it is a dread of finally announcing to the world that I have no idea how to actually be a parent.
I’m sure she’ll be fine; she’s remarkably resilient. I’ve seen Senita smack her head against fish tanks, mirrors, hardwood floors, and a crocodile-shaped xylophone without even blinking – which then makes me worry – why isn’t she blinking? Has she had too much screen time!? We only use it for FaceTime!
The nine-month mark is the twilight of infancy: just three more months until the milk and honey years of toddlerhood. Literally. The doctor insists we hold off on introducing cow’s milk and honey until her first birthday; they’re the cigarettes and lotto tickets of toddlerhood.
Nine months is also a good time to once again take stock of what’s happening – a sort of quarterly review of this strange and glorious year.
Eating
We’re far passed purees and deep into the finger-food stage of Senita’s childhood, where every meal takes an hour-and-a-half.
Half the time I’m amazed by how much Senita eats. She has well over a dozen different foods on a constant rotation with something new added every three days.
But it’s all eaten in small amounts so that the other half of the time I’m worrying she can’t possibly be eating enough. I compare her often to Harry, the neighborhood groundhog who’s approximately the same size. I’ve seen that guy eat an entire field of dandelions in the time it takes Senita to get a single scrap of bread into her mouth.
Her snacking ability unchains me from the breast milk lifeline for my jaunts about town. Whereas we used to plod around at the speed of nursing cattle we now have the nimbleness of grazing cattle.
Social Development
Senita’s become more than just a reaction to her environment. She has friends and people that she recognizes from her many playgroups. She can anticipate things and stores memories somewhere in her pretty little head.
This fills my heart with pride but also makes it clear that the choices we make today will have long-lasting consequences on her. It’s kind of like living with an Alexa that is programmed to start resenting you in 11 to 13 years.
Sleeping
The most beautiful word in the English language is self-soothing. We’re blessed with a daughter who’s currently sleeping through the night. Unfortunately, her zest for life means continued struggles with napping.
She won’t nap in her nursery so I spend huge chunks of each day shackled to a sleeping child.
She tends to fall asleep when I’m driving so I’ve started waiting for her to wake up in the driveway before going inside. The temperature is great, the air is fresh, and the baby is quiet – it’s hard to ask for anything better.
Luckily I live on a rural enough piece of land to pull this off without being reported for suspicious activity.
Routine
One year feels as if it’s right around the corner, yet I look at one-year-olds and wonder how Senita can be so close to such a stunning leap in development. I know things will only speed up yet at this exact moment it feels as if they’re slowing down and becoming somewhat manageable.
There’s some breathing room here as we settle into routines and start feeling competent if not confident in our parenting abilities.
This is one of those dangerous illusions that tricks us into thinking a second child will fold neatly into our lives like the outgrown clothes we’re tenderly tucking into basement corners, “just in case.”
Yet we’d be foolish to grow content with Senita on the cusp of true mobility and toddlerhood. If there’s one thing parenting has taught me it’s that a lot can change in a very short amount of time.
If Senita’s childhood were an academic year, the professors would still be handing out their syllabi and we’d just be getting that first glimpse of all the lessons yet to come. But at least we’d know when to expect our first break.
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