Letter to our 9.8 month old…

Dear William,

This week on 10/04/12, you turned 43 weeks or 9.8 months old.

Yet another date has been filled in your baby book… your first cold. Last Thursday night/Friday morning, you were running a fever of 100.7 and had a snotty nose and I felt like such a mom wiping your boogers away and comforting you when you couldn’t breathe out of your cute little nose. As germaphobic as I am, and I tell everyone not to HAAAA on me when they’re sick, I was surprised to find myself laughing at you when you popped up right in front of my face, opened your mouth and HAAAAAed, right in my nose… oh, how being a mom changes someone. Since it was Thursday night when you came down with it, and facing a weekend ahead, for peace of mind we took you to the doctor on Friday, just to make sure your ears, throat and lungs were OK. They were, and it was a fast moving thing, because by Saturday you were acting like the whole thing was gone. Oh, and to stick with tradition, you pooped for the doctor. You ALWAYS poop for the doctor. I blame your father.

Another development: You’ve been standing independently more and more. On Monday night you were banging on the closed toilet seat as if it were a drum and when you stopped, you just stood there with your hands in the air… for about three seconds, then you plopped down on your butt. Your Grandma D. claims you took your first step this week. She brought over an activity table that she’s had at her condo for when you visit her. The first day she brought that over, you started pushing it (looking as if you’re about to fall on your face the whole time) and using it as a makeshift walker. You pushed it over to the couch and saw something on the coffee table you wanted, she said, so you let go of it, took one step over to the coffee table. I haven’t seen it yet, so I’m waiting to document it…

Just when we had a routine worked out for your naps and night time, you’ve started screwing with things again. STOP SCREWING WITH THINGS! Refusing to take one of your naps, which all things considered, if you’re going to refuse a nap, I would rather it be your morning nap. What I think is going on, even though all the experts say it’s too soon, is that you’re trying to go to just one nap a day. So now we’re reworking your schedule to try and make things work again. The thing is, your afternoon nap is way too important to miss. So we moved your bedtime up to 7pm to compensate for the sleep you’re losing during the day. Just as it’s important to look at the amount of milk I pump on a big picture basis (i.e., am I freezing some at the end of the week?), I’ve learned it’s also important to look at the amount of sleep you’re getting in a 24 hour period — I like to make sure you’re getting a minimum of 13 hours in a 24 hour period, I don’t really care how you dice it, with the exception of I prefer you to sleep until at least 6:30 AM in the morning.

Food you’re enjoying this week:
Plums, banana, steamed broccoli, steamed onion, banana/oatmeal bars, carnitas (pork).

Development at a glance:
Diapers — double stuffing inserts for first 3 morning diapers.
Clothing — size 18 month, some 24 month.
Speed crawling is your main mode of transportation
Standing for long periods of time holding on to things and standing seconds at a time without holding on to anything at all.
Using your activity table as a makeshift walker, and pushing it around the room.
Mimic sounds — if we drop something, we say “Uh ohhh!” You now say it, too, but the first time you said it was on 10/02, “uhhh uh uh uh… Uh Oh!”

Things I want to remember about you this week: When you poke your hand between my breasts when nursing, your little elbow sticks up and I tell you “I’m gonna get that little chicken wing!” and then you laugh and laugh, all while nursing. It is the best thing when we reconnect at the end of the day. The way you sneezed while nursing yesterday, and then kept nursing as if nothing had happened. The heat of your body, the heat of this summer, the overwhelming heat of those two things together (I will be grateful for cooler weather). If you are upset, the way you instantly calm when I start singing You are my sunshine. The way you roll over when I put you in your crib at night and stick your butt in the air and babble “Mamamama.” The way you twist your hips when you crawl, and your little butt bobbles along. The way you belly laugh when I try to clean under your chin. How quick you are to go up the single stair out of the living room. How pleased you were with yourself when I let you climb the stairs all the way to the first landing (with me right behind you). That you have figured out how to slide off of the la-z-boy in your room, belly first, and take off crawling when your feet hit the floor. How your face lights up when we go for a morning walk and round the corner and you spot the little community playground. How you laugh and squeal when you see the pool. How ridiculous it is when we change your diaper after swimming and you cry your head off. How you know when we pull your feeding chair out that means FOOD and you come crawling across the floor as fast as you can. How cute you were when I let you try plums for the first time and you LOVED them.

P1420860 from Jammie J. on Vimeo.

Cleaning under his chin

When your Godmother’s daughter was small, she put her tiny little hand on a window above their dining room table, and for the longest time her mom left that handprint there, unapologetic to any who might see, glaringly visible in the evening lamplight. It might still be there, for all I know. I remember that because she commented on it to me that she liked it there. Motherhood has brought out uncharacteristic nostalgia and a desire to hold onto the younger version of my baby in me, and I assume that was what she was doing. In my own way, I try to do the same, I suppose, by drawing your hand print every month, writing these letters to you, taking weekly pictures to document your growth… all of these tangibles. But the intangibles, the things I can’t see with my eyes — the feelings you evoke in me when you do these things that make me smile or laugh days or weeks after you’ve done them, or when my heart is just full to overflowing and I find myself crying when I hold you in those early morning hours because I love you so much, those are the things that I desperately try to capture and hold near to my heart. Your father and I joke that our home is now called “William’s house” and if every joke contains a bit of truth, then there’s more truth in that than humor. Because really, it’s not just our home that you’ve captured and now own, it’s our hearts, too.

Love, Momma