So I’m not quite walking per say yet, but see what I’m doing there? I’m trying this out today.

(Mommy notes: you can skip the last part – thought she would do it again so I kept filming, and I’m too lazy to edit it out.)

Ssshhh, don’t tell… Orly’s first Christmas gift: a three-story Barbie doll house with an elevator and wood furniture!

What, are you saying I picked out a gift for her that I really wanted? As if. My 9 month-old specifically requested this.

I started walking in recent weeks. With a walker, like my great-granny Blanche. (Still great, isn’t it?… What?! I gotta do it without the walker? Dang.)

I’m 9 months old today, so it’s time for my score sheet! Let’s see what I’m doing better this month (I put my progress in bold):

• 100% = Sitting upright without support
• 100% = Crawling on my belly (but I’m always moving on all 4 now)
• 100% = Moving on all 4 (It’s been a month, almost… I started when my parents were on their NY trip, to surprise them. Now I’m lightning fast!)
• 100% = Climbing and standing upright
• 100% = Moving along the furniture, and from a piece of furniture to the next
• 00% = Standing without support
• 10% = Walking (I use the walker)
• 80% = Using a sippy cup

I’m still hopeful to meet my objective, which is to start walking in a month – we’ll see how that goes. Oh, and remember, how I was sleeping so great last month? We lost some ground on that front – teething and colds bother a lot, ie. twice a night. I’m a very awake and alert young lady, as strangers like to comment (and mom to reply “Oh, you have no idea…”).

What’s new besides all that? Well, I scared mama a little the other week: I fell on my back and hit my head – but that happens all the time… except this time, I wouldn’t roll over to get back up! I would do other activities as usual (I was even pretty joyful that day) but, all day, once I was placed on my back, I would stay there like an upturned turtle. Eventually, I would get frustrated at being thus immobilized – I didn’t express pain, but I refused to roll onto my belly.

There was some worry about back injury, but at the end of the day, I started rolling over again, carefully. My auntie Annie, orthotherapist and future osteotherapist, still came to check on me that night, but I was all ok. Probably just a sore muscle. Ah, good! (Thanks Annie!)

Oh well, if it doesn’t count, with the walker, I better continue working at the walking thing… see ya!

- Orly, 9 months

PS. Some of my favourite things: walking on all 4 around the kitchen island with mama and Xavier, dive head first into a pillow or Xavier’s bed, shake my booty to the sound of music, take apart the magnetic Dora puzzle on the fridge, eat small dry apple pieces with my hands (in fact, it’s often the only thing I’ll eat these days, with sore gums), watch daddy through the window in the morning.

You know, fv mentioning this whole “Pluto’s not a planet anymore” made me remember how this totally messes up the acronym-phrase they taught us, for memorizing the planets’ order.

The French sentence was “Mon Vieux, Tu M’As Jeté Sur Une Nouvelle Planète!” – ie. “Old buddy, you threw me on a new planet!” – for Mercury, Venus, Earth (la Terre), Mars, Asteroids, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. And very ironically (Simon won’t fail to tell me if I’m misusing that word), Pluto’s acronym word was “Planet”.

But I’m sure they considered that carefully when they decided to ditch it.

François programmed a little horoscope generator (he likes to code little stuff like that sometimes, just to test new programming languages).

It spits out a new horoscope each time you reload. Don’t even need to tell it your sign! It’s a powerful generator!

(Unfortunately for you anglos, it’s French only. But isn’t it worth it to learn French just for a laugh?)
Here’s your totally genius and true horoscope!
Have fun.

Here’s our morning:

BUT, we had to head back home, which didn’t make everyone happy…

It was for a good cause. We had to prepare the lasagna, because tonight, we’re celebrating someone…

CHRISTIAN! Yup, happy birthday to this brother of mine. 27 years old, wow, he’s aging as fast as I do!