You and I met 183 days ago. Together but separately, we were both doing a lot of hard work so we could say hello. Since that day you've become your own exuberant person. Since that day you've opened your eyes wide and shiny, every morning a little happier to be. Since that day you've almost tripled your weight: from 5 pounds and 15 ounces to 17 pounds and 1 ounce. Since that day you've learned to babble, roll over, self-propel, play with toys, hold books, eat food, drink water, pet your dogs, hold yoga poses (happy baby and cobra are your faves), focus your eyes, hold your attention, soothe many of your own anxieties, and communicate surprisingly effectively. Since that day you've grown your hair out one whole inch. And tomorrow you'll be closer to your first birthday than to that summer day we worked so hard.
You love the baby in the mirror. We did the are-you-smarter-than-a-gibbon rouge test: we put a dot of white toothpaste on your forehead and brought you to the mirror. Turns out you're happily oblivious to the toothpaste on your head, so it appears that you believe the mirror contains several highly amusing playmates who seem to look very familiar but you can't put your finger on it. I must remember to get a picture of you and that fun mirror baby having one of your lengthy philosophical conversations. Your dad has kindly augmented the mirror for our continued amusement:
You have such a frolicsome personality. I love how your eyes light up when you think something is funny, or when you first see that I'm awake in the morning, or when you check to see that I'm still around and I wave at you from across the room. I can see your smile all the way back on your scalp. You really feel your oats, happily playing on the rug with your toys and dogs for many an hour each day. Sometimes you get frustrated because you really want to do something you can't quite do yet, or you're cranky and growth spurt-y, or you just need a change of pace, but 92% of the time you have a huge loony grin slapped on your face.
You played your first trick on me -- we were playing a pattern game where I was bending and straightening your leg along with you. You would stiffen your leg, then relax it slightly so I would know when to bend it. Eventually we established a lilting sort of rhythm with it, bend-ing, straight-en, bend-ing, straight-en, bend-ing, straight-en. And THEN. Oh and then. I'd say around the 20th go-round -- when it was time to switch from straight-en to bend-ing -- we got to straight-en and you raised your eyebrows and opened your mouth into an O shape, and then when it was time for bend-ing you didn't relax your leg you kept it stiff instead and then you just exploded with laughter.
You are a water bug baby, you love all faucets and sprayers and hoses and anything with water coming out. You close your little hands around the stream and pull them back to you and open them to look at what you have and are so confused and disappointed when there's nothing there. But you love them anyway. I can't wait to take you to see your first mountain stream, your first water park, your first fountain. I was reading that many babies go through a phase around your age where they develop a fear of the bathtub -- I would be so surprised if you went through this phase.
You like to grab my mouth while I'm talking to you. It makes you giggle to feel my jaw move up and down and to feel my teeth.
You fell asleep completely on your own for the first time in your entire life this month. You've always needed help, either with nursing, rocking, or being wrapped. But one night we were all hanging out in the bedroom, and you were playing happily on your back. I could tell you were getting sleepy because your eyes were getting puffy and red and you were rubbing your face with your hands. I started to hunker down for the 15-30 minute process that is helping you go to sleep, but something seemed different this one time, so I watched for a minute instead. Instead of getting more violent and flaily, your face rubs were getting more gentle and soporific. Your leaden eyelids started to sink towards your nose, and your movements became slower and slower. I actually started taping it because I couldn't believe it was happening. Usually the sensation of falling asleep is not a pleasant one for you, but just this one time, you made it there on your own. Got me all verkelmpt, for sure. This has definitely not happened again yet, but it was a bittersweet glimpse of the future when you won't need my help for the simple stuff.
You *love* naked time. Sometimes you cry when it's time to put your diaper back on, but you're so good-natured you've usually forgotten why you're crying by the time the last snap is snapped.
You went for your first ride in the jogging stroller, and you're a natural. I think you like it for the same reasons you like being in the moving car -- fun things to look at flying past your field of vision plus the sensation of moving quickly.
Your taste in books has improved, by which I mean you've curbed your compulsion to eat them and started actually looking at them. You turn the pages and scratch at the pictures, and sometimes when you're done reading you'll clutch the book for a long time without wanting me to take it away. I'm okay with that.
You roll around the floor like some sort of crazed rolling little hedgehog and you're thisclose to figuring out some sort of scoot- or crawl-like movement. Dad swears he saw you do downward dog the other day, but I missed it so I am skeptical. I did just now see you roll onto your tummy, fold your feet a little, and then press the bottoms of your toes onto the floor. You moved about 0.75 inches forward, but I don't think you noticed. One day soon you're going to notice. You're deftly exploiting the rolling-for-moving concept, but I can see it irks you that you can only move left and right, when you clearly want to go straight. One day you rolled yourself up in the blanket completely and decided that baby burrito was HILARIOUS and you didn't want to come out.
You figured out how to clap your hands, but in all your innovative cleverness you prefer to do this vertically instead of horizontally.
You like to scratch things to find out what texture they are. I watch you roll onto your tummy and scratch the rug, then roll onto your back and scratch the wood floor, then roll onto your tummy and scratch your shirt, then roll onto your back and scratch Aoro's paw, then roll onto your tummy and scratch the rocker on the chair. Once you started eating big boy food, you noticed an intriguing property of food -- you can bang it onto the table or squish it in your hand and it changes texture slightly. You've generalized this to the rest of your world and embarked on a very large-scale experiment where you bang everything you own onto the ground and into every other thing you own to see if anything changes texture after that.
You're not using words in expectedly contingent ways yet, but you certainly have a vocabulary: Hi, dad, dada, yeah, *raspberry tongue*, oowah, gur, *cough noise*, *guttural barbaric yalp*, rah, eh, wah, (and more). Your first babble syllables were Hi Dada, which continues to be a huge hit.
You like to put your hand into your mouth and make your babbling noises around it. I think it's helping you learn your bilabial consonants, which would be oh so nice if it leads you to the addition of Hi Mom to your lexicon.
You are a baby, but somehow not a baby anymore. You look very different this month compared to even just a few weeks ago -- quite kid-like, person-like even. It is a heavy, shining love I have for you, Moss. You make the stars sing and the moon laugh.
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