A big round of applause for our little McGoo, who has managed to make it – alive and healthy – to his 9-month birthday. And for that I congratulate all of us, as there were honestly some moments when I thought the earth was going to open beneath our feet and swallow all four of us in one giant gulp.

As I mentioned earlier this week, I am (naievely?) optimistic that we are finally moving from Chaos-Land into Settling-Down-ville. Stella really and truly seems to enjoy and appreciate Porter more and more every day, Steve and I realized that perpetual forward motion is the key to survival, and most importantly, I have finally come to the conclusion that if I don’t stop my bitching, the whiner police are going to come haul my kids away and give them to someone who completed the program in This is Parenting You Big Baby, So Just Suck it Up Already – a degree in which I apparently took an Incomplete.

There are quite a few little McGoo idiosyncrasies that I have been remiss in chronicling on these pages of late. Following is a a quick laundry-list of some of the charming qualities that make us scramble to be the first to say, “Um, yeah. He get’s that from your side.”

Behold the tongue thing.

I’ve got about a million more where that came from. Think of it this way: The harder he concentrates, the more that tongue figures into the equation.

Then there’s the toilet and catfood thing. I have already mentioned his need to loiter in areas that keep him strategically positioned to bolt for either the bathroom or laundry room. I am not exaggerating when I say that he can be in the living room playing quietly, and the moment he hears that bathroom door open, he will drop everything and move at mach-5 to get there. 99.9% of the time we catch him. As for that .01% that we don’t, well, I think you can figure it out. Like, for example, last week while I was handling a Crisis Level 3 situation (untangling Stella from the mini-blinds) and someone stealthed his way into the bathroom. By the time I realized he wasn’t in the kitchen where I had left him, he had already managed to soak his entire upper body in toilet bowl water. As I raced in there to prevent him from taking a full-on swim, the look on his face as could fairly accurately be described as saying, “It’s exactly as beautiful as I’d imagined it. And, given the opportunity, I’ll do it again in a second, lady. Count on it.”

And, there is that thing about how he worships his sister, and can’t get out of earshot of her without nearly panicking. Now that he is moving under his own power he trails her like a shadow. And to my delight, she actually kind of indulges him. As she and I headed out to do some errands last week, I asked her if she wanted it to be just the two of us, or if we should bring Porter too. Without even considering it she said, “Porter has to come too!” I guess if I had someone worshipping my every breath I’d want to keep them as handy as possible too. As a testament to this wonderful (albeit temporary) sibling cameraderie, Porter unveiled a new trick to us last night, but now only will do it at Stella’s prompting. Before he decided that we weren’t worth his time, I managed to get a tiny video clip of it. The reason it gets so shaky (beware of motion sickness) is because I am trying to simultaneously hold the camera and clap my hands – something he will now mimic us (or, rather, Stella) doing. If you look closely, you’ll also see that tongue…

Porter wishing he had a set of cymbals.

And here’s a (dark and grainy) clip of Stella and Porter in a high speed chase scene.

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And for those of you who need to update your flip-charts (and you know who you are, Judy Walston): 22 lbs | 27 inches | size/height: average | 7 teeth | chest: same | slight baby bowleggedness (absolutely common) | advised that sleep problems need proactive resolution, given name of new literary resource