Six Months, More Or Less

It is unbelievable that half of a year has already passed since you were born. I find myself watching you everyday as you learn and discover new things and I want to commit them to memory. I know that by next month I will have forgotten what you are like right now.

The way you like to inhale and sigh really loudly so that you never fail to scare me into thinking that you are choking. Or the way you jump so enthusiastically in your jolly jumper, that you end up bouncing off of the trim in the doorway and spinning around. The way you hate to fall asleep and will scream for an hour every night while I try to settle you down. Nothing works, nothing makes you happy, but yet every night I feel compelled to try the same things. You just don't want to allow yourself to fall asleep. Yes, even the screaming I don't want to forget.

I hope I remember the way that your eyes light up when your siblings come to play with you, and your deep belly laugh when they tickle you. I don't want to forget the way your brothers run to you at the first sound of displeasure from your mouth, and how that always makes you smile. I can only hope they always treat you with as much love and compassion when you are two years old and destroying their things. Of course they usually will pick you up and then come and find me no matter what I am doing. And they always seem a bit surprised that I don't want to hold you while I am using the bathroom.

You have a special place in our family as the youngest. I feel happy that I don't have to store all the memories of your babyhood and childhood myself. Your older siblings will be able to tell you stories of what you were like when you were a baby. You will probably be thirty years old and I will still refer to you as my baby. I promise not to do it in public, or at least to try not to.

You still don't sleep through the night, not by any stretch of the imagination. But that's okay. I have full confidence that you will one day. Even though there are times in the middle of the night when I think, 'For crying out loud, just go to sleep already.' Mostly I savor the moment and rub your small head.

I never want to forget the way you you crawl around on your stomach . I love the way that you pull your legs up underneath you so that you are in a squatting position, like a frog. Then you try to hop, though you often just end up in the exact same position you were in.



I know that it won't be much longer that I get to see that toothless grin of yours. Soon enough there will be some little white buds poking up out of your gums and it will hurt when you bite my shoulder.




I have just started giving you cereal and baby food. So far you haven't been impressed. Though you did like the taste of birthday cake frosting Rob gave you this weekend, so perhaps you are just picky. Oh goody! I am not sure how much food is actually making it into your stomach. I put a spoonful of cereal into yourmouth, you push it back out with your tongue, and then I try to scrape it off your face with the spoon before you smear it everywhere with your hands or feet. Yes, feet. You think they taste yummy covered in cereal.




Last week you had your first experience with a baby teething biscuit. You loved it, except you would drop it and scream so hard that you wouldn't notice us trying to hand it back to you. So we would have to stick it into your mouth like a plug.

The next day, you had a rash all over you face. I'm not positive it was from the biscuit. It could have been from you dragging your face across the carpet that hadn't been vacuumed in days since the vacuum was broken. It could have been from getting pelted in the face with sand at the windy beach while you slept.




Things you like:

eating paper that you find on the floor, this includes ripping pages out of books and magazines
jumping in the jolly jumper
crawling on the floor
your pacifier

Things I like:

that you can entertain yourself for short periods of time
the way your eyes light up when you see me

Things you dislike:

sleeping
laying down
the airplane noise when I try to "fly" the spoon of baby cereal to your mouth
being strapped in your carseat
the back of my head

Things I dislike:
that you are growing up
that I will never remember it all