Dear Mads | 7 Months Old

February 6, 2014, 3 days before your 6 month birthday, at Grandma's house

Dear Wild Rover,

You love books and pens but don't know quite what to do with them yet.  You wave them in the air, clamped tight in your fist, and, after a while, you bring them to your mouth to learn more about them.  A couple times now I've had to spit-wipe pen ink off your cheeks.  We received a set of Baby Einstein board books when you first arrived, a gift from the mother of one of your papa's guitar students, and I cracked it open finally about a week ago.  The first book we looked at was titled Nature Words, and when we came to the flowers page you gave a little squeal of glee.  Perhaps you remembered visiting the daffodils blooming across our neighbor's driveway on the first of the month with me, and reaching your hand out to greet them.

Yes, Spring is coming.  In preparation for the warm weather and tall grass, you are on the verge of crawling.  You're mobile enough as it is to cause me trouble, rolling and scooting and always at the edge of the bed the moment I blink my eyes.  But, daily you lift yourself up onto your hands and knees and rock, ready to take that first step [of sorts].  Sometimes, you lift yourself onto your hands and toes in a plank, as if about to do a push up, and your Uncle Bobby is convinced you may do just that, so enthused is he with your sturdy boyness.  I know exactly what it is you'll crawl to when you can--Lunchbox or whichever cat is nearest.  You're taken with our animal companions these days and delight in digging your chubby fingers into their fur [when they let you, which is more often than not].

In the past week you've cut your first tooth, and, like Sunny Baudelaire, you're already trying your hand at biting.  You've been eating pureed fruit and veggie dinners for a month now and seem eager for finger foods, or, at least, eager for whatever's on my plate.  We share bites of banana at snack time, but it'll be another month before you get real snack foods like Ella.  You're favorite foods so far have been banana, pear, and acorn squash [though I was less a fan of what the squash did inside your diapers].  You were not keen on brussels sprouts, carrots, or, least of all, peas.  According to your Papa, you seem to have inherited my sweet tooth.  I hope for both our sakes that is not the case.

Once again this year North Carolina March can't seem to make up its mind.  This weekend after an ice storm in Burlington knocked out their power, your Grandpa Bob came back home to stay with us and brought your Great-Grandma Polly with him.  They left on a 60 degree Sunday, returning to a powered-up house in Burlington [sooner than they'd thought would be the case].  Yesterday [Tuesday], the temperatures rose to 80 degrees.  But, tomorrow will be cold enough to keep us in socks.  By March I am always eager for warmer weather, but wary, too.  Spring never lasts long.  North Carolina loves its summer too much, and the humidity, heat, and sun that come with it.

Love and luck to you this and every St. Patrick's Day,

Mama

February 18, 2014

February 24, 2014

March 2, 2014

March 10, 2014 - 7 months old!

Dear Mads | Five Months Old

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