6 months

Dear Baby Boy,

Six months old. Six months. Halfway to a year in the blink of an eye. One day I brought you home from the hospital, and the next you are up on all fours, wanting to crawl. One night we sat and snuggled while you slept on my shoulder in the wee hours of the morning, and the next you put yourself to sleep in your crib, waking only to eat and then immediately sleep again.

I know what they mean now when they say that it passes too quickly. We spend our days moving at a frenetic pace, striving to merely keep up with all the things we have to do, and I don't get nearly enough time to stop and sit and watch you grow.

Have I already told you what an incredibly happy boy you are? I don't think I've ever known a baby so agreeable, so cheerful, so easily amused. It's so easy to make you laugh, and so addictive. You think your big sister is the funniest person in the world. You laugh at her when she shows you toys. You laugh at her when she dances and sings. You laugh at her, full, deep belly laughs, when she blows a toy horn that unfurls in front of your face with every puff. And she loves you. Still, after six months, she wants to know where you are at all times. She wants to hug you and kiss you good night every night. She spontaneously gives you hugs, and when you're crying, she'll say to me with a worried face, "Baby Sam is upset!" The other day the two of you sat in the living room together, unloading a box of your toys one at a time, and you dad and I stopped and watched the two of you from a distance. I'm so happy you have each other, and will always have each other. I'm so happy at the love I already see between the two of you.

At six months, you are already a complete sitter. It's what I call the "potted plant" stage because I can plop you somewhere with a couple of toys and you sit there, perfectly content, without moving. Alas I think this stage will be short-live for you. You are up on all fours every chance you get, rocking and wanting to move forward. You have figured out how to spin in circles to get to what you want, but the only true motion you have down so far is backward. One day, probably very soon, you're going to figure out forward and then life as we all know will change forever!

You have the sweetest little voice. Your babbling is back in full force, and I love to hear all the sound you make. I've heard the D, B, P, and G sounds, and all the vowel sounds. Sometimes it even sounds like you're saying "bubble!" I haven't heard the "M" sound yet, but you love when I put my lips to your cheek and say "muh-muh-muh-muh-muh"--the noise and the vibration give you the giggle fits, which in turn prompt me to do it over and over and over. And then you turn and plant your open mouth on my cheek and grunt, your way of doing the same thing to me, and I laugh and laugh and hug you close.

We started solid foods five days ago, though we did cheat a bit and give you a taste of an apple last week. As soon as you tasted the sweet fruit, you clamped your little hands down onto mine and pulled the apple slice as hard against your face as possible. You were pulling so hard the tips of your fingers where white! We laughed so hard at your enthusiasm. You cried when I pulled the apple slice away to hand you off to your dad so that I could take a picture, and then immediately perked up as soon as you had the slice back in your mouth. Unfortunately, you didn't have exactly the same enthusiastic response to the avocado we gave you when we started solids for real. That's okay, baby. You'll get there. You seem to like banana a little better, and I have squash and sweet potato ready to give you this week. I recently read that we can start giving you a sippy cup of water to begin to learn how to drink. I still think of you as my itty bitty baby; I can't believe you're already old enough for a sippy cup.

You are still waking once a night to eat. Thought it's hard for me to get up in the middle of the night every night, when I'm actually there with you, in the dark room, I kind of love it. The rest of our lives are so hectic that these quiet minutes with you in the middle of the night are sometimes the only slow, still moments in my day. I do hope you'll get to the point sometime this month where you don't wake to eat any more, but it's okay to take your time. I'll wait 'til you're ready. The big improvement this month, though, has been with your naps! Whereas I could pretty much rely on only 30-45 minute naps before, you have started to consistently take at least one 90-minute nap a day now. Yay! And you are getting so much better at settling yourself to sleep. I'm so proud of you.

You don't have any teeth yet, but I have a sneaky suspicion they are on their way. Though you've been drooling like a leaky tub for a while now, just in the last few days you've started shoving your fists inside your mouth, too. I hope the teething process isn't too much of a bear for you (and I hope you take it easy on your momma while nursing!).

Your dad was gone for a week on a business trip this month, and big sister went to spend the week with G-Mommy and Granddad, giving us some rare time to ourselves. I loved getting to focus all of my attention on you and just you for a change. Our time together only underscored for me what a sweetheart you really are: happy, loving, kissy, snuggly, fascinated in the world around you but oh-so content to observe it all from the security of my arms.

These have been the happiest six months of my life, and I know that the next six months will only improve.

Happy half-birthday, sweet boy.

Love,
Mom

Fallen

I pretty much think my husband is the most awesome in the history of ever. He's funny and smart and absolutely devoted to me. He's the first to apologize after a fight. And his apologies are amazing. Even if I want to stay mad at him, I rarely can. He has a huge heart. He doesn't want anyone to ever be upset if he can help it. He's an amazing dad. He loves his kids totally openly and without self-consciousness about his feelings.

But.

I've been feeling for a while that things are just different this second time around. I don't know if he's really been different, or if I've been different, or if the perspective has just been different. There's not just one kid now, our first, with nothing to compare to, nothing to measure against, both of us feeling things out and groping through parenthood together. Little man is our second, and as much as it hurts me to think about or admit, in watching my husband parent him, I no longer see my husband as the ultimate be-all, end-all of parenting.

Again, I don't know if it's because my own patience, my own confidence this time around is so much greater, but it seems like TH loses his cool so much more quickly with little man than he ever did with baby girl. (And maybe it's that wonderful mom memory, that makes all objects in the rear-view mirror seem rosier than they actually ever were.) I trust him less with little man. I trust myself more. Where once I was happy to hand off the baby and get a break, now I'd rather keep the baby and give TH a break. And not out of some sense of sacrifice on TH's behalf...it's out of a sense of love for my son, a sense that his needs would be better served and met with me than with his father.

Last night, little man woke up only two hours after going to bed for the night. That NEVER happens. And he woke up crying. Not fussing, but full-blown crying, arching his back, screaming. I was in the middle of pumping (I pump to empty before bed) and couldn't readily detach myself, so I sent TH in. I don't know what happened in the room in the next 20 minutes, but by the time I was done pumping and had brushed my teeth, little man had been quieted (rocked back to sleep, I was later told) and then wound up crying again about three times. TH was in our room, eyes wide and panicky. I told him to remember the checklist--poopy diaper? gassy? too hot or too cold? teething pain? TH went to get him (he was screaming again) and I went to get some gas medicine. I was heading back to the nursery to give little man the medicine when TH emerged from the nursery, carrying the crying baby, telling him to "shut UP!" He went into the guest bathroom (this is where we often calmed little man when he was a newborn...the loud vent fan works as great loud white noise) and I caught a glimpse of him start to rock little man too hard. It's not that he was going to hurt little man in any way. He was holding him cradled in his arms, all body parts fully supported. But it was the frustration and anger in the movements of his own body that crossed the line. I banged my hand on the door as loud as I could and snapped at TH, "He's a BABY. He's in pain. Get a fucking GRIP." I gave little man the gas medicine and then took him myself.

For the next thirty minutes, I barked orders at TH and cuddled a screaming baby. "Bring me a thermometer. Bring me a pacifier. Get some infant's tylenol." With every scream, my heart broke and my nature was to hold little man more gently, speak to him more soothingly. I didn't understand then and I still don't understand now why that wasn't TH's reaction to those same screams. I thought he might be hungry, but I had just pumped. The fresh milk was made into a bottle, but I couldn't give it to him--he won't take a bottle from me, he just wants to nurse. TH told me that he would give him the milk, and I snapped "No fucking way. You don't get to touch him right now. I don't trust you." I was livid.

Eventually, he proved that he had calmed, that his head had cleared. I gave the baby back and stood two feet away, watching like the overprotective mother bear I am. Little man twisted and squirmed. He wouldn't settle with me there, so I had to leave the room. I went and laid next to the monitor. After a few minutes, little man settled, and we all eventually slept.

I used to think my husband was a better parent than me. Or, at least, if not better, a totally equal partner. Like I said, I don't know if he has really changed, or if I have changed. All I know is that I find myself more and more unhappy with the amount of patience TH has with little man, with the expectations he has for his behavior, with the amount of work he puts in before giving up or becoming frustrated. I hate that my husband seems to have infinitely more patience with our screaming 2-yr-old, whom we can communicate with, who is old enough to reason with, than our screaming 5-month-old, who is helpless.

For those of you who have read my blog and have some idea in your head that our lives are easy, that we are somehow perfect parents, have perfect kids, have a perfect marriage . . . please know we are just like all of you. We struggle. We have our moments of doubt, our breakdowns of trust in others and in ourselves. And this post is in no way meant to indicate that I feel like I'm perfect as a parent. I have had my share of moments when I didn't know what else to do with my crying child, didn't know how else to get him to sleep. In those moments I'd put the baby in his crib and walk away, crying myself, to give TH a turn. But I always believed that I had a solid partner I could rely on, and right now I can't honestly say I do.

All I can do is hold out hope that this won't always be the case. That I won't always feel like my husband has fallen from the pedestal I used to hold him on.

Mother-Son Dance

The room is dark.
I hold you in my arms and we move
slowly, in a circle
swaying to the rhythm of the song I sing you,
of my shhh-shhh-shhhing.
Sometimes you cry, and I wipe the tears from your eyes
and wrap you in the comfort of my embrace.


I know one day, we'll dance together again,
and it will be less clear if I'm holding you in my arms
or if you're holding me.
In a dim room, we'll move slowly in a circle,
swaying to the rhythm of a song.
And I will smile, and I may cry,
and you'll wipe the tears from my eyes
and wrap me in the comfort of your embrace.

I think about that one-day dance
every night.
And it makes me hug you a little tighter,
your 5-month-old body already heavy in my arms.
And it makes me sway with you a little slower
and shush you a little longer,
trying to hold onto every moment
of our mother-son dance.