8 months and a tooth

Everything happened at once. I turned 34, and you began crawling, pulled yourself to stand, and popped a tooth. Ten days later, you turned 8 months. You're moving fast now.

Every day is so exciting. I am utterly in love with you, your smiles, your laughs, your falls. This has got to be my favorite age--and stage--so far. Watching you explore the world.

Today, when I picked you up from daycare, you crawled to me. I've been waiting for this moment, since I dropped you off day-one. Some day, you'll laugh at this--but I've been scared you don't know who I am. When I drop you off/pick you up from daycare, most days you don't acknowledge me. You're busy playing with toys. But today...you crawled to me, and I felt like your mom for the first time. Your mom. Your mom. I am your mom. Everything is for you, now.

About to Crawl: 7 months

You want to go, go, go. On your hands and knees, rocking back and forth, flinging yourself forward to go after a toy, a book, daddy's remote control. You are about to crawl--and with that one simple action, everything will change. Let the baby-proofing begin. Goodbye days of letting you play on a blanket while I fold laundry in the other room. Goodbye listening to you grunt and whine because you cannot reach something. The world will become bigger. You will see more. You will find more. You will touch (and taste) more and more.

Explore, my son. May our home be the first place you venture into the unknown. Let the uncharted nooks and crannies make you curious. Learn here how to tackle challenges, to overcome obstacles.

I will be here watching, knowing one day I will have to let you go.

6 months: Waiting for Words

Waiting for your words is like waiting to walk down those pea-green carpeted stairs Christmas morning, like waiting for your grandfather to walk me down the aisle of grass to marry your father, like waiting for that test to turn blue.

Your words are sounds now, ahs and ohs and gas and goos. To hear you utter that first, distinguishable word...To talk with you...I cannot think of anything more beautiful, your voice already my favorite thing to hear.

The other day, I heard a son talking to his mother about what he learned in preschool that day: "the five senses," he said. The boy talked about "purple sand," his mom asking him what it felt like, and I teared up, thinking about you in school and our future conversations like this. Some day, I whispered to myself, to you.

Today, you are 6 months. I wait for your words like I waited for your birth.

Happy New Year

2010. A new decade. Ten years ago I was living in LA. I went to the Rose Bowl with friends from Madison who were in town. I was hungover. Big time.

Now, I'm watching the Rose Bowl on TV as you nap. It should be the Hawkeyes playing.

2010 will be an amazing year of growth and adventure for you. You'll learn to crawl, cruise, walk, talk, eat solid foods, climb stairs. It's so very exciting to think about. It's hard to imagine you in these various new stages, just as it's hard to imagine your future new years when you're a teen, young adult, grown man.

I dream of sharing a great bottle of champagne with you, some year, to celebrate.

I look forward to many moments with you in 2010. You continue to amaze me every day. Happy New Year, my son.

On Turning 5 Months and Having a Boy

It's been a long time since I wrote you. Such is my life as a working mom.

You turned five months on Monday, and each day you become more and more active. A few weeks ago you mastered the roll, every way. You now prefer your tummy, even sleeping on it. You're beginning to army crawl. Your giggles fill our house. It's Christmas time. And I'm in love.

***

I thought you were a girl.

My high school seniors are writing about love, their relationships. One of my male students writes about his girlfriend who doesn't treat him well. He spends too much money on her. She seems ungrateful. She seems to be using him. He seems sad.

As your mother, as a mother of a son, I now look at everything differently--especially love, how I treated boys, how I hurt boys, how I hurt mothers' sons. It kills me now to think of love in my teens and early twenties. How selfish I was. How if someone did that to you one day I'd be heartbroken.

I want you to know that I will be here through all the pain. No one will love you like I do.

***

Here's something I wrote recently on your friend Veronica's mom's blog about anticipation:

It's weird remembering being pregnant...it feels so far away now. Some days when I'm driving home from work and Noah's in the backseat sleeping, I think of last year being pregnant and all the things I could have done and didn't do, the freedom I had--but didn't know I had. On those days, I wish I was pregnant again, to anticipate the flutters of his tiny feet, with me every day, swimming in me. How wonderful that was! Everyone said, "You'll know when it happens." Waiting for that first real kick. And they were right. I knew it. And it was Noah, without being Noah yet, and that's an overwhelming thing to think about. To look at him now and imagine him in there, in me. His breath within my body, without breathing yet.

Now, I anticipate every day I get to spend with him. Christmases. First days of school. Swim lessons. Road trips. And the first glass of wine we share.

***

Tonight, in the bath tub, I watched you kick those feet. Who will you be? Whom will you love? Your life is yours to do something great with.

Pants and Bare Feet

I've missed your feet. They been hidden from me for five weeks. Trapped in white cloth.

We started weaning you from your Pavlik harness. You have less than two weeks left, and then you'll be out of it for good.

It's so exciting to put pants on you again. You look like a little boy.

You rolled over twice in a row, day two out of the harness. You're staring at your feet, touching your toes, discovering them for the first time.

Tonight, your dad cried because he loves you so much.

I live for your smile.

Back to Work (Sort of)

I thought it would be easy. For weeks I've been saying how I was ready to go back to work, how I loved my job, how you'd be right down the hall...

And when I dropped you off at daycare today and I went into my office for four hours to try to get some work done before I go back to teaching full time next week, it was easy.

But when I picked you up and then we drove home and you were asleep in your car seat, I became sad--sad that I wasn't exactly sure how you spent your four hours away from me. Sure, I know you ate 3 times, got your diaper changed twice, and slept in your crib for 45 minutes (and somehow Abbey got you to fall asleep on your own--a feat you never do at home), but I'm used to hearing you babble back at me all day long and I know the difference between your "I'm hungry" cry, your "I'm bored" cry, and your "I'm overtired" cry. It hurts to let go a little bit--four hours this week; eight hours next. I'm just thankful that you're close by, down the hall really, and that I'm a teacher and we will have plenty of vacation days and summers to play and cry together.

Know today that I love you, even if I can't spend every minute with you. And know that I hope this experience makes you more social and independent and well adjusted in the future. You will always be my baby boy--even when I'm driving you to college...