Dear Man Cub,
You at five months old: shriek quite a bit, with joy and gusto, and pump your little fists into the air, and grumble when you're on your tummy too long, kicking your feet, but failing to gain any forward momentum. (Soon, little one! Too soon, really.)
You crack me up. I want you to know that when you were this little, I laughed so much and so often and so loudly at your antics, and when I laughed, you grinned all the more. You've discovered your feet, which is adorable, and your junk, which is less adorable but so very funny (and so very natural, but mostly so very funny). At this stage, you're developing so quickly I can barely keep up with scribbling down all these little feats of yours. Every day you do something new--you roll over in the opposite direction, grab a toy of your own volition, sit up unassisted for fraction of a minute longer, and so much more I am kicking myself for not being able to list neatly here.
2014 (HAPPY NEW YEAR!) reigned in freezing the cats' water dishes on the front step and back deck as well as a thin layer atop the snapping turtle pond beyond our back yard. Now it is warmer, but wet--every day it rains, though we usually see sun sometime in the afternoon, which bounces off the suncatchers in our window and refracts rainbows across the carpet and walls, for Lunchbox (Rainbow Assassin) to chase, and into your Papa's beard, into which you dig your fingers. There are some big changes happening around here. Your Aunt Sierra, Uncle Bobby, and cousin Ella are moving in with us for the winter. There will be movies, board games, a few drinks here and there, and so much sushi for the adults and stealing of toys, vying for attention, and curiously poking at each other between you babies. Already your and Ella's schedules have synced up a bit--you're both napping as I type this. When you two are awake, you lay on a blanket spread across the living room floor with Sierra and me hovering over you; we coo, giggle, offer raspberries and tickles, kisses and applause when various tiny baby landmarks are reached (Ella has started crawling on her hands and knees rather than soldier crawling).
We're hibernating this month. You and I have not made a trip out of the house for over a week, but I feel more cozy about that fact than antsy (for the moment). Papa brought me a seed catalog to day dream and plan over. I'm cleaning and making space for more family in the house. I read to you from your book of Norse Myths and The Jungle Book, both Yule gifts (from me and your pops and Great-Grandma Clacher, respectively). I press the button on the Humpty Dumpty doll I had as a baby and watch you grin and yell happily as he sings his song (a song your Papa says he now has stuck in his head, perhaps forever).
We're happy and warm, little man, and while you take many naps, I fiddle about around the house and look forward to Spring, to more misadventures in gardening, to introducing your bare feet to the grass and dirt. I munch on roasted seaweed snacks and dream of the beach. Sierra and I have discussed the wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff of motherhood--that each day moves at a glacial pace, but the weeks and months pass so quickly. How can it be that my grumpy newborn, with his scrunched up garden gnome face, is turning six months old in just a few weeks? The memory of you so little, sleeping curled up on my chest is so hazy now, now that you are a rotund, jolly guy, big enough to be tossed into the air and balanced, standing, in my lap. I've started taking little video clips of you as the weeks pass, so I can remember every slight change to your face, the way you move, the sound of your voice.
You're keeping me warm this winter, little guy--your love and your little heating pad of a body.
Love,
Mama
