A short list of Cassius' accomplishments by 8 months of age

To Cassius -

Because we did this for your older brother, it's only fair that we do it for you.  To date, which is just past 8 months to the day, here is a list of things you are doing either poorly, in a mediocre fashion, or like a boss.

1.  You eat like a boss.  You want cereal and avocado and applesauce so badly you grab the spoon on its way to you to cram it into your mouth faster. Then you chew the spoon as if it had nutritional value.  You start to fuss a bit if we don't have rapid spoon deployment of food/reloading of food quickly enough.

2.  You roll over poorly.  In fact, you barely roll over.  You are crawling and you have the ability to roll over (in fact, you did it several times when you were 2 months old) but you seem to choose not to. And that's cool.

3. You're really good at being fat.  We mean, you wear it well. Your head is round, your cheeks are sweetly full, and your fingers, hands, and wrists almost seem swollen with pudge.  You have no fewer than 4 knee folds but no actual kneecaps as that is going to take a bit more time biologically speaking.  Your inner thighs touch, a no-no for swimsuit season. 

4. It's hard to upset you.  Your older brother tries very hard at times to do so but your good mood perseveres.  You want to smile at people.  And sometimes the door, or a ray of sunlight in the living room, but mostly you direct your two-toothed gummy smile at people.

5. You have an adulterated crush on Maceo.  Even when he tries to scrub your head with the bottle brush, you smile through the pain and hope he'll clean your back afterward.  We now give you and Maceo baths together.  Even when he splashes you in the face with water, your eyes turn a little red and a worrisome expression crosses your face but you smile at Maceo anyway.  That's love.  You giggle at almost anything Maceo does and you laugh for him in a way you don't laugh for us.  Yes, we are slightly jealous of our 3 year old's ability to entertain you.

6. When we pretend to eat you like an ear of corn, you are delighted beyond belief. 

7.  In turn, you seem to enjoy eating my face with your gummy mouth.  You don't like Poppa's bearded face. It's bad tasting.  I foresee a time in the near future, a future that contains more teeth, in which I won't find this as charming as I do now. But, for now, eat away, Cash.  It's perversely a very endearing move on your part.

8.  Stats-wise, you weight about 20 pounds, perhaps 21 at this point.  You are 1.5 inches shorter than Maceo at this age but the same weight.  See item #3 about being good at being fat. 

Latest news...

Maceo seems to have passed this phase, but as Joni Mitchell pointed out, seasons go 'round and 'round, so soon enough, we'll have Cash asking us lots of questions, too. Last night, Maceo stood at the top of the stairs and yelled down to Kate, "Mama, do you know who this is?" "Who is it?" she replied. "It's the Maceo!" And he went down to find her. And here you have it: inaugural footage of Cassius learning how to ambulate, sorta. He tends to keep his right leg bent, doing nothing, and straightens out his left to push along. This unbalances him, so he topples over. Plus he gets tired quickly and can only go a few feet at a time before sitting on his (substantial) haunches and clapping. Or falling forward to examine the ground verrry closely.

Stunt man extraordinaire

Stunt man extraordinaire!