Shannon Phillips

Quick update for the grandparents: Davy is a couple weeks past nine months. He had a check-up and is doing great. The doctor actually printed that on a sheet of paper, “doing great,” and gave it to us to take home. The same sheet of paper also has his height—29 inches, which is 60th percentile for his age—and weight: 18 lbs 13 oz, which is only 15th percentile, and hard to believe since he’s such a solid little ball of baby chub. He eats basically every waking moment, he’s like a hummingbird or something. The doctor’s print-out also says “General appearance: well nourished infant.” I think for a mom that’s like getting a gold star from your teacher.

Davy is fully mobile now: he still scootches rather than properly crawling, but he can scootch really fast. He’s also just starting to pull himself up on what Sam calls “his hind legs” (or, you know, as humans call them, “legs”). He’s enormously proud of himself when he succeeds, and will stand there clinging to the ottoman or the washing-machine rack or whatever, chortling at his own cleverness. His other tricks include playing peek-a-boo, waving, and occasionally busting out with a “dada” or “mama” that a fond ear can plausibly imagine to be directed at the appropriate target.

Less charmingly, he’s also developed the habit of emitting ear-splitting, high-register shrieks whenever he senses that he is not the center of attention, or if a real crisis develops, such as a situation where someone is eating something and not sharing it with him. This makes it nearly impossible for us to go restaurants. It’s sad because Robin has just hit a stage where he can be relied upon to remain in his seat for the duration of a restaurant meal.

Speaking of Robin, he’s now three and three quarters, which seems to be a delightful age. He’s fully engaged in imaginative play, and will regularly come up to me to announce that he’s now a kangaroo/pterodactyl/ballerina/Jackie Chan. Or one of a hundred other things. The correct response is “Hi, Robin [kangaroo/pterodactyl/ballerina/Jackie Chan], show me how you can [jump/fly/dance/do kung fu].” He had his first “observation day” at the preschool last week, after which he came home and announced “I’m a doggie. Doggies love school.” He’ll have another observation day at the school next month, but won’t start until the fall. The observation days are sort of the last chance between school and parents to call the whole thing off, but there’s no danger of that happening—Robin fits in great there. In fact after his first day there he was invited to a birthday party for one of the other children, which we went to last Saturday; he had a great time and it was really nice for us to get to chat with the other parents. So I’m still super happy about the school thing.