Saturday, October 20, 2012

If You're Nine Months, and You Know it...

For the past couple of weeks, I've been reserving Saturdays for "Raspberry" posts. I'm pretty happy with the arrangement, overall, but a couple of things have happened this week. The first is that I'm two now two days behind on Michael's "month" pictures, and I don't want to put off posting those for too long. The second is that my horrible Fall allergies morphed into some kind of sinus thing yesterday, which has since settled in my chest and left me feeling tired, breathless and miserable all day. Needless to say, I wasn't in much of a mood to get a "belly" picture taken. So, this week I'm switching it up, and Michael's "month" pictures it is! (I know that everyone would rather see those, anyway.) ;)

Unfortunately, today's photo session was a bit of a fail, on my part. I wasn't really feeling up to it, but wanted to get it done, and I didn't have a lot of natural light to work with. Despite this, and partly because of it (in the past I haven't gotten the greatest results on auto with that level of light) I decided to work with manual settings, choosing a slow shutter speed to avoid maxing out the ISO. I really should know by now that it's going to be a lesson in foolishness and frustration to work with shutter speeds under 120 while trying to work with babies and toddlers, but I tried it anyway.

I'm going to go ahead and blame the whole thing on little Raspberry, whose kicks of irritation as I lay prone on the floor trying to get each shot must surely have caused me to jostle the camera. I will definitely need to reconsider either the lens or the set-up for next month's endeavor, as I won't likely be able to get down in that position again by then (for very long, anyway). In any case, the end result was a whole bunch of pictures that are, to varying degrees, out of focus. But I can't bring myself to set it all up again, so I had to pick from what I've got. And these were the best of them.





Okay, so maybe those first few weren't so bad, apart from the dust motes dotting Michael's face (or maybe they just don't look as bad on Tom's laptop as they did on the PC downstairs). However, those were the ones taken before Michael started making sudden movements like this...



... and before I got it in my head to try to make him laugh and smile, and then failed to get myself properly repositioned before attempting to take the picture. It's a tricky thing, though. If I don't move fast, the expression is gone before I get a chance to catch it. But if I don't take the time that I need, those perfect expressions end up blurry. It's almost worse than not having gotten a picture at all, because every time I see it, I lament over how perfect a picture it would have been, if only it had been in focus (and properly framed, though that's more easily fixed in editing). {sigh}




Also, around this time, the sun came out from behind the clouds, and the light from the overhead window shone on the top of Michael's head, giving him a funny cap of light.



I knew that the end was near, however, when it occurred to Michael that it might be fun to head over towards me.


I tried once to get him back in position, which worked for all of about five seconds.


The next time he came at me, I tried to go with it and get some action shots.


Unfortunately, the lens that I was using can't handle close-ups. This was the last shot I tried to take before giving up, for good.


As if this post weren't long enough, here are a few special Nine Month Notes.

Michael did incredibly well at his Nine-Month Health Assessment. He got one vaccination, which he wasn't pleased about, but the part that I had the most anxiety over was the blood draw, which Abby had to get at the same age, to check for anemia. When Abby had it done, three people (plus me) were required to hold her down, and it was pretty traumatic for me and for her. Michael's experience was, thankfully, completely different. I held my breath as the needle went in, but Michael did not even flinch. A few seconds into the procedure, he jerked his arm a little in annoyance in response to having it held down, but that was the only remotely negative reaction I saw from him. I've never seen a Phlebotomist's eyes go so wide (in absolute wonderment). I told her that she must have a "magic stick," and thanked her profusely. As I got up to leave with Michael, I saw that everyone else in the room shared her expression. It was a pretty proud moment for me. Though, I guess when you have to get your first IV put in at only 8 weeks old, you learn to grow a tough skin. That's my hope, anyway. More likely, the whole thing was a lucky fluke.

Official Nine Month Stats:

Weight: 20 lbs, 10 oz (65th percentile)
Height: 29" (75th percentile)
Head Circumference: 17.5"

In the last month, he's made the following advancements:

Clapping
Crawling
Grasping small objects with thumb and index/middle finger
Growing two teeth (lower central incisors)
Pulling up to standing
Adding Corn Chex, avocado, rice, and bread to his rather limited diet
And, finally...

Babbling. He's not babbling much yet, but can make the following sounds (along with squeals, shrieks, and laughter): Bwa, puh, guh, agoo, ha, hi, (no duh or muh yet, so- sadly- no mama or dada, either)

He does have a 500-watt smile though, and when he flashes it, I think I could wait forever to hear him say anything, including my name.


1 comment:

  1. I so love the pictures. I don't think there's any fault/flaws with how you took the pictures. He's just so precious.

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