The Oldness
Josephine turned 9 months on Saturday. We had her check-up this morning, along with her Polio vaccine and the second half of her seasonal flu shot. All went well. Here are the stats from the nurse's form:
Head circumference: 45.1 cm (75-90th percentile)
Height: 27 inches (25-50th percentile)
Weight: 20 lbs. 2 oz. (not quite 75th percentile)
Josephine's a busy little bee these days, with her crawling and sitting and pulling up. She does some mild cruising-- inching, really-- along objects, but no transferring between objects. She loves initiating games of peek-a-boo, and it's sort of possible to roll a ball back and forth with her. The one toy you can't give her to play with during church is a baby doll because she talks to it too much and too loudly. She's a lot more fun to read to now, and when music turns on, often gets giddy and starts clapping. What a kid.
The Wisdom
Josephine's instincts are a constant source of amusement for me. I must say, she has a very healthy set of them. She seems to know exactly what to be concerned about
should she need to survive in the wilderness. Of course, she's NOT in that predicament, so I have to agree with Sean's take on this: we can't help but wonder if this reflects an inherent distrust of our caretaking. Anyway-- water, fire, carnivorous animals, unstable heights: these all merit a scrunched face and excited, worried yelps. Complete strangers, however, do not. She practically dives into the arms of any cooing, maternal figure within a 5 foot radius (further heightening my suspicions about her lack of faith in me...)
Specific examples of the instincts at work:
~Water~Turning on any faucet gives her a little jump, but letting her watch the washing machine fill with water = terrifying. She glances worriedly from my face to the rushing water and clings to my arm.
Similarly, I've learned not to remove her diaper until AFTER the bath tub water has been turned off. It just really scares it all out of her. And in general, baths aren't fun. She doesn't fuss, but she does look concerned the WHOLE time.
**While this pic is pretty representative, I have even more telling video footage. However, in hopes that she will hate me just a hair less as a teenager, I've decided not to post that on the internet.~Canines~
Knowing she has serious anxiety about large dogs, I shouldn't have been surprised when the taxidermied animals at
Stag set her off. I was just wandering around waiting on Sean, when we walked past a stuffed wolf and she looked up and saw it. Oh YIKES. Even when I walked away from it, she kept wheeling her head around in order to keep a close eye on it and repeatedly "told" me about it with short hollers. Similarly, on our last trip to Teague, we found the best way for Josephine and Badges to hang out was through a glass door. They were both far calmer that way.
~Heights~
I thought it'd be fun to carry her around on my shoulders the other day when we were home alone. Until I couldn't get her OFF due to the DEATH GRIP she had on my hair. I seriously thought I was going to have to cut her hands out of the hair, or else sacrifice two large chunks of my scalp. I'm not exaggerating. Although, this might not be so much fear of heights, as fear of Mommy's clumsiness
(again with the lack of faith!!), since she shows no respect for the edges of beds, changing tables, chairs, etc. Apparently she doesn't mind the thought of plunging to her death as long as it is by HER choice.
~Fire~This isn't the best example, but this clip will give you an idea of her alarmed reaction. In this case, it's in response to Sean's New Year's Eve indoor bonfire. Right at the beginning you can see the scrunch and the worried voice (but I don't have footage of the yelping, hollering noise she makes):
So yes, while nine month old shoulders are still relatively small, Josephine seems ready to carry the weight of the world. I guess there's just a lot to worry about at that age.
Which brings up the issue of hair. We all know grey hair accompanies wisdom. But it's hard to have grey hair if you don't actually have
hair. So as an outward sign of her increased wisdom and world-wariness, Josephine has decided to grow hair.
Well, a
few hairs, at least.
Proof:
Another high chair shot:
And in response to
Alison, whose boys are hilarious and soooo cute: the no-hands thing in the high chair stemmed from the fact that when we first started giving her solids, she wanted to follow EVERY bite with finger sucking. It was making a
huge mess, so I started holding her hands in her lap with one hand and feeding her with the other, along with the verbal instruction "put your hands down, please." We just kept doing that, and she caught on fairly quickly. It still takes reinforcing every now and then, (like tapping her hand, or placing it back in her lap if she pulls it out), but she understands the verbal instruction and knows that she won't be fed unless her hands are down. In terms of pay off for amount of effort invested, this trick was definitely worth teaching.
...Now, my efforts to teach her to stay on a 4x4 blanket during "blanket time" have been a lot more exhausting. She is beginning to catch on, but the jury's waaaaay out on the effort's true success...
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We had a lovely visit with Sean's parents (Mama Jo and GrandFavog... hey, I'm just relieved he traded in "G-Diddy"...) and Gam, Sean's grandma. Josephine loved Gammy's sweater with blinking-lights! 
GrandFavog reading Josephine The Grinch Who Stole Christmas:
Hands down, my favorite moment from our Christmas vacation came when we had Josephine choose between her new toys: dolls from Mama Jo and Gam or a Black & Decker tool set from GrandFavog. The choice...
Ah, she's a mommy's girl! Warmed my heart to no end. And since we've been back, I've LOVED handing her her hammer when I'm using mine and showing her how they're the same. Furthermore, out of that tendency babies have to gravitate towards small objects, it turns out that one of the babyproof "nails" from the tool box is her very favorite thing to carry around with her everywhere. I'm just so, so proud.
Out in the gazebo with Sean:
And by that evening, the house looked like this:
With the cold temperatures overnight, the snow was still around to play in after all presents were opened, though it didn't last long.
Josephine with her Grandma and Grandpa:
As you can see below, my mom hit Grandma JACKPOT when her friend passed along all the toys and gear her grandchildren have out grown. Clearly, Josephine went to town. (We now use my mom's house as a toy lending library, since there's no way we could store all that stuff at our place!) Here's Uncle Jason the Architect encouraging Josephine to destroy towers. Just trying to secure himself more building projects, if you ask me!
My sister, Janell, is FABULOUS with Josephine! She knows exactly how to play with little babies; I even heard her make up a song spontaneously for her. I love watching them interact.
The color on my film pictures from the Haigler family portraits got messed up, so after a bit of messing with different images, this is what I have:
Sorry for being so slow to post, as usual!
**While this pic is pretty representative, I have even more telling video footage. However, in hopes that she will hate me just a hair less as a teenager, I've decided not to post that on the internet.
Another high chair shot: 