Dear Thomas,
It’s hard to believe, but somehow you are already eight months old! When you were a tiny newborn, I wanted to write you monthly letter, a la dooce, but I decided that I didn’t want to be that much of a copycat (oh, and also I was exhausted). But watching the months fly by and noticing, all of a sudden, that you aren’t a tiny baby anymore, I think I’d better start writing some of it down, so I can remember what all of this was like when I blink and you’re a big kid.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what it was like when you were brand new, and how different things are now. Take feedings, for instance. At the hospital, they told me to feed you whenever you showed hunger cues. And the cues they listed included basically every single thing a newborn does (even rapid eye movement during sleep was listed as a hunger cue). They gave me this little pamphlet in which I was supposed to record each time I fed you. I was looking at it the other day, and I noticed that during your first two weeks, I fed you an average of twelve times per day. Twelve times! And there were several days when you were a week and a half old that I fed you fourteen, and once, even fifteen times. Holy cow, that was a lot of feeding. A feeding didn’t “count” if it lasted fewer than forty minutes (I was very worried about making sure you were getting enough) and they often lasted an hour or more. I didn’t yet have enough milk, and luckily, you were very persistent. (Persistence, your dad and I have learned, is one of your defining characteristics.)
Now feedings are so different! You nurse five times a day, which is much more manageable. The feedings still take a long time, but now it’s because you’re so interested in what’s going on that you feel you need to keep an eye on everything even while you’re eating! But it’s fun, catching a smile from you while you’re eating, even if that smile is snuck in between squirmings and grumpings about not being able to see what’s going on across the room.
Month eight has been a big month for you! Just four weeks ago, your method of locomotion was rolling, and you used your rolling prowess to move across entire rooms. Since then, however, you’ve become much more efficient at getting where you want to go: you crawl! And you’re good at it! Way too good. You’re lightning fast and fearless, which means that your dad and I must be right next to you at all times; even in the babyproofed livingroom, you’re liable to knock your head on something or sneak up on Otto and startle him. Otto is, perhaps, your favorite thing in the world. You smile and laugh whenever you see him. So far the poor (but very good) dog is humoring you, but if push came to shove, I think he could take you. So dad and I will just stay close.
All of this has become even more complex in the last week. Our first indication that something was up happened when we heard a thump and then a series of sobs coming from your room after we’d put you down for a nap. We rushed in to find you with a bruise on your forehead, and we assumed it was because you had sat up in the crib and then fallen over, knocking into the side of the crib. For a couple of days, we operated under this assumption, but then once when I went in to check on you, YOU. WERE. STANDING. UP.
!!!
Yes, you’ve begun to pull yourself up to a standing position, and you’re obsessed with it. You pull up in the crib, on the couch and ottoman, on tables and chairs. But sadly (for your dad and me), you also try to pull up on things that are much less stable: your toy baskets, your firetruck toy (which has wheels!), and, lately, just on your own hands, which leaves you in an hilarious downward-facing-dog-like position. All of this is very cute, but it’s also very alarming, since you’re not particularly good at staying upright once you’re there, though you get pretty annoyed when we try to help you. (If you can’t see the following movie, try a browser other than internet explorer.)
This month you’ve also found your voice. Sometimes it’s soft and sweet, when you’re saying, ever so gently, “da da da da da.” Just as often, however, you’re screeching and screaming, almost always in glee. This makes going to church and going out to eat more interesting. Just yesterday we were in a coffeeshop with some friends, and I realized, I’m that woman. That woman with the shrieking child. And I looked around and saw that indeed, several people were giving us the evil eye. But Thomas, I don’t care. Keep on babbling and screaming. You’re happy. You’re ecstatic. And they just can’t stand it that someone could express such joy right there in the coffeeshop. I really hope you can hold on to that joy as you grow up.
This month you have also gotten very interested in your solid foods. Most of the things you eat are either green (green beans, peas, avocados) or orange (peaches, sweet potatoes, acorn squash). The exceptions to this are apples, pears, and oatmeal, all of which are virtually colorless, so they don’t really count.
All of this food (the orange and green food in particular, I believe) has wreaked havoc on your digestive system, with the result that you poop much more frequently than you used to. (Yes, I have become one of those moms who blogs about poop. You can hate me for this when you are a teenager.) And Thomas, for some reason you seem always to poop during naptime. This is sort of a problem, since, very reasonably, you do not enjoy sleeping in a poop-filled diaper. I get that. No problem. Completely understandable. But why, then, don’t you just poop during the numerous hours during the day when you’re awake?
You see, Thomas, it’s a bit vexing to change your diaper, put you down for a nap, and then fifteen minutes later have to get you up and change a newly dirtied diaper. Even worse, quite often you poop later on (but not quite late enough) into the nap, and you poop yourself awake. This is less than ideal for everyone involved, since it leaves you tired and grumpy and leaves your mom and dad with an unexpectedly abbreviated naptime (read: this-is-when-I-get-all-my-work-done-time).
Every day, even the days when you’re inexplicably irritable, when you beat me while I’m feeding you and squirm away from me as I try to dress you, I am thoroughly in love with you and with being your mom. It’s all very humbling, to realize that you’re a little person and your dad and I are the ones responsible for shepherding you through babyhood and childhood and into adulthood. I promise that I’ll do everything I can both to guide and teach you and to let you forge your own path. I can’t wait to see what comes next!
Love,
Mama
