Despite the rather cliched complaints about having kids (all of which are true, which explains why parents are all, to a greater or lesser extent, terrible cliches themselves), Olivia is in a pretty fantastic age right now. We are approaching nine months - that magic point at which she has been an outside baby for as long as she turned the Wife's insides upside down. This gives me, as the dad, a new perspective on pregnancy. It lasts forever.
Some science types, attempting to make a name for themselves, have opined that human babies actually have a gestation period of 18 months - not nine. This is really me grossly oversimplifying their doctoral theses, but since none of us are going to care enough to read them anyway, I feel like I'm allowed. The reasons for this theory of human development are simple. Unlike most other animals, which are born with some basic abilities that might give them a possibility of survival, humans are born more or less useless (in a purely anthropological sense). It is only at about nine months (give or take) that a human infant begins to show the level of survival ability that other animals generally have within hours or days of birth. The theory goes that we are born in this underdeveloped state because our far greater intellect (as compared with, say, a boll weevil) would require a head circumference at eighteen months too large to permit childbirth. So, we come out half-baked, and do the rest of our cooking on the outside. For nine more months. Give or take.
Nine months or so also happens to be a pretty fun age. Babies have a lot of personality at nine months, and provided your baby isn't a total jerk (some are) they can actually be a lot of fun at this point. Olivia can crawl now, which means every morning, after her first feeding session of the day, my Wife and I get our blood pumping by playing hockey goalie to keep her from stage diving off of our bed. She is also much stronger, faster, and more curious than she has been previously. Glasses of liquid within her eyeline are fair game to go in Daddy's lap. The only time we can safely stop paying attention to her for three seconds is in her playpen, where Beagle lays nearby staring at her, confused by the human version of his crate. If she is anywhere else, and we turn our attention away, we inevitably turn back to find her with baby wipes, power cords or dirty shoes in her mouth. This is an astonishing ability, really, since it doesn't matter if any of those items are even in the room with her when we set her down - she will force them to materialize.
We're expecting the letter from Hogwart's any day now.
The only real downsides to this age as far as we can tell are baby-proofing (see above if you are confused about why) and teething. Your average baby has six teeth between six months and twelve months. Some spread them out. Olivia is still sporting her toothless smile, but they are getting close, and will probably be coming all at once. She is not amused.
Got no creative closer this time - gotta get back to baby proofing. Hooray.
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