I'm still here.

So hey! Hi! It's only been like three months since I last posted anything here. That's not a long time or anything, no. Apparently, writing in a blog is like working out: the longer you go without doing it, the harder it is to just get up and do it. I guess there are many reasons for my long absence, including but not limited to Robert's short nap times, my own insomnia, a bout of depression somewhere in February, and the beginning of gardening season. Not that any of those are real excuses, of course. But they add up. It's not like I don't spend plenty of time on the computer; I do. But it's all little chunks: read a blog, play a game, update Facebook. Nothing that requires any real time, thought or energy. Often when I'm laying down with Robert, I'll think of things that I'd like to write, start drafting in my head, but when he's finally asleep... I don't know, I just don't. And I'm sorry about it, mainly because I think I'll regret having let a big chunk of my baby's first year gone undocumented.

As always, his sleep is all over the map, but I think it's slowly, slowly starting to improve overall. His naps have sort of coalesced from many little sleeps into two long-ish sleeps, or at least into sandwich-style naps (i.e. he sleeps for twenty minutes and when he wakes, I nurse him or otherwise convince him to return to sleep, putting him down all over again.) We have an official bedtime routine now that goes dinner--bath--bed, hitting the bed part right around seven. Sometimes, he sleeps all evening and night, only waking to breastfeed. Other times, he bounces up at 8:30, wide awake. Or, worst of all, at 4:00am. But, as I said, it's ever-so-slowly getting better. I think the amount of people foods in his diet is helping, as is all the crawling. I've completely given up caffeinated coffee, which helped some, too. Plus maybe just getting older.

He's crawling like crazy, can get from room to room no problem, gets into everything. When he's on a mission, he crawls very fast and makes this funny "eh-eh-eh" sound to himself. It's quite amusing but I haven't been able to capture it on video yet. He pulls himself up to standing. He waves hello-goodbye, says 'mama' (or 'mamba', depending), is still toothless, but has had a lot more hair come in. He has made the predictable shift from social butterfly to shy mama's boy. At his nine-month doctor visit, he was declared the picture of health, as well as still enormous-- 85th percentile for weight but off the chart still for length. He is wearing size 18-month onesies. He nurses maybe six times a day still, as well as eating three people-food meals. His favorites are avocado, anything mixed with mango or apricot, and a chicken-carrot combination I made, but he'll tolerate pretty much anything. He likes egg yolk, but only from a fried egg, not hard boiled.

I have become a master at over-easy eggs, and as Don says, if you can do a good over-easy, you can do any kind of egg.

I am not making any promises about posting more, but I am going to try.