23 Months

Dear Bean, The sentences have begun. Verbs strung together with prepositions and nouns; laughter punctuating the funny parts.

In the bath tonight, the water up past your frog belly, and your sandy hair flecked with droplets, you pulled a pair of your summer sunglasses connected by an elastic band up around your legs. “Like pulling underwear on,” you said, enunciating every syllable of underwear carefully, grinning from ear to ear. Indeed. Just like that.

Or earlier driving home, watching the dalmation dots of snow falling against the inky dark of night—and you said, “It’s snowing out there!”

It’s amazing how tense has suddenly started to inhabit your language and your world. Present participles are flecked across the juicy terrain of your vocabulary like seeds in a wedge of watermelon. I love watching you unwrap language, making it yours. You’re so close to the dynamic, wild part of language that beats right at the heart of meaning and emotion, that you can still get away with making words when you can’t say the ones we use. I wish I could still do as much. Love seems like such a small word when I ask it to describe the endless scope of my feelings for you.

I picture you one day reading through this stack of letters, that I've typed and once posted on a long-defunct blog, and I wonder what you’ll be like then. Tall. Maybe with a kid of your own. I try to fathom you with chest hair, and my brain lurches to a full stop. Something about watching you grow has planted me unequivocally within the time-space continuum of now the way nothing else ever has. Before you, I lived with the delusion that I could imagine the future; that if I planned or tried, the outcome would be certain. Now I see how impossible this is, and how foolhardy. There is nothing but now, with your little off-tune songs, and your new big-boy underpants, and your glasses of milk.

Nothing but right now:

You take my face in your hands after I pick you up from daycare at the gym and pull me close. Then you kiss me, a smile beaming across your face.

On your yellow plastic sled, you are a red sausage of snowsuit and rosy cheeks. You zip by in a blur, with perfect balance, leaning from one side to the other like you’ve been sledding for years. And you’re grin at the bottom of the hill? Nothing could be more beautiful.

You’re eating vanilla ice cream with warm cherries. You stir the cream in the bowl as it melts, your face covered with purple syrup. Then you pick the bowl up and your face disappears behind it’s dome. You drink, then smack your lips, then lick the edges of the bowl.

I come home after work, and you’re there, eating snack with daddy. Your face is covered with peanut butter, and your hair tousled. You run to me, arms perpendicular to your body, a jet plane of affection zeroing in on me.

I love you,

Mama

22 months

Dear Bean, As though your heartbeat were the metronome of my time passing, your growing marks my aging. You’re so big now, tousle headed and bright eyed. You stand mid-thigh to me. Two months shy of two years old, you carry rocks and cookies and other small treasures in your pockets. You are passionate about tractors and backhoes and mud and books. You take long walks with us along the muddy dirt road, stomping in puddles and pointing at birds. Recently you began speaking in sentences, stringing syllables together, like so many bright beads on the sea glass necklace of language, and it’s a wonder to hear what you have to say.

In the past two months, the trees have turned into skeletons of bark and twigs and on cold mornings you put your own boots on. You have learned to climb up onto the stools in the kitchen, and we spend many family meals there, the three of us in a circle of yellow light around the butcher block island, passing forks and trying to carry on conversations. With words, you now have the ability to express that you want specific things, right this second. Mama, more milk please. Mama, mama, mama, milk!

The past two months have been difficult though. Not because of you exactly—your beautiful smiles fill up our hearts with heady glee and wonderment—but because your presence makes our lives full to saturation. Since you, there have been few moments for downtime, and fewer moments when your Daddy and I have a chance to gather each other up in our arms and really look at each other.

Parenthood took us like a storm at sea. Together our small red boat of tenderness , we threw ourselves into the process of staying afloat, and have somehow lost track of who we are for each other. The compass of our life trued towards you; your needs so primal and huge pulled our hearts with fierce gravitational tug. But gradually over the past two months, as you’ve become less needy and more independent, we find ourselves trying to redirect the vessel of our love. Often, we find ourselves flailing about, clutching at the driftwood of who we were. So much has changed. The raw fibers of our selves have been stretched and pummeled utterly.

So the past few months have been drenched with moments where we face each other on the shore of our love and find ourselves unbalanced and hesitant at the edge of the rubble-strewn tide line that stretches out between us. Invariably, you are right there, asking for more noodles, or “Mama, read book, now” and we only manage jagged interjected sentences. Or it’s late at night, and you’re finally asleep, and we’re so exhausted that everything we say comes out slanted and biting.

It’s hard to be in this place. Here, where we can see how the routines that have grown up out of necessity, have made deep grooves across the surface of our lives and love. More than either of us would like to admit, things have become for granted. We spend days hip deep in the mud of surviving; arguing again and again about the things of daily life that accumulate with great banality and abundance day after day. The dishes, the bills, dinner, laundry.

I’m writing about this because someday you’ll be tall and you’ll be shaving, and also, because someday you’ll be in love and you’ll be trying to figure all this out for yourself. I’m also writing about this because I want you to understand how loving travels the full arc between passion and deep despair, and how a lot of the time you’ll find yourself somewhere in the middle of it, flailing like a fish, one moment in the sweetest water, and the next on the harshest sand.

Just now, as I was writing you and Daddy burst into my studio, full of morning excitement, ready to do things with the day. It’s 10:30 am, the weekend before Christmas, and there are cookies to be made, and shopping to be done, and decorations to be hung. Daddy wraps his arms around me, and right away you climb onto my lap, grabbing first at the pencils on my desk, then going for my keyboard. In the three minutes you are in my studio, you scribble in my notebook, collapse my easel, and climb onto the futon, wanting to be read Good Night Moon. You are like a sudden rip tide; when you’re present, you fill the room up and make it impossible for me to do anything but swim with the current, keeping track of the horizon in the distance.

But I’m grateful for this. For the struggle of it. I realize how easy it would be for me to succumb to simply letting life change me gradually and unintentionally, were it not for the latent urgency you bring to my life. When you woke up two mornings ago, I carried you into our room and tucked you into bed between Daddy and I. There in the dark, while both of us were trying for a few more minutes of sleep you began to sing, ever so softly. Suddenly I realized you were singing all the words to the lullaby I sing you every night. Go to sleep, you sang and stroked my face, and goodnight, and tomorrow will come soon. You sang so sweetly and off key, but you had every word right, and I could feel my heart start thudding with sudden awe. You learned to sing over night, and here I am barely able to get around the width of my ego to say I’m sorry when I’ve hurt your daddy unintentionally, or when I’m so tired that I have nothing to say beyond the superficial.

I opened my eyes and realized you were watching me as you sang. This is what I mean about urgency. You’re watching me. Being your mama I am reminded daily, again and again, of our need and our capacity to grow, to learn, and to become.

I love you, Mama

20 months

Dear Bean, You were perfectly behaved. You sat in a little yellow race car chair, and only winced when the hairstylist sprayed water on your hair. Afterwards we celebrated with a vanilla milk and an oatmeal-raisin cookie as big as your face. And just like that you left your baby self behind.

Now we're in a whole new era of things: aiming for the potty, three word sentences, chasing games, and copying everything anyone says or does.

This month you’ve gained weight and grown taller. You reach for things on the kitchen counter now, and you say “thank you” (ta-woo) and ask for “more.” You also seem bigger because with the change of season, you’re wearing snug Thinsulate boots, fleecy hats, and wooly sweaters. The extra layers have not stopped you however, from your new found love of running fast down hill, your arms akimbo, the wind blowing in your hair.

Everywhere on our hillside cinnamon and yellow and vermillion leaves lie in heaps along the edges of the road, and in piles against the old stone walls that zig-zag through our woods. You fall into them, and laugh. You ask to be lifted up to pick apples with both hands, and then you eat them all the way down to the core.

Inside, you play with your new ride-on-top fire truck, and want to be like our cat. When she eats, you throw yourself on your belly next to her dish, and pretend to eat like she does. She isn’t so fond of this, but tolerates it until your adoration for her forces you to throw your body upon her.

In four months you’ll be two. This seems less miraculous to me than a year ago at this time, when I was first contemplating having a 1 year old, and you were on the brink of walking. Somewhere along the way we’ve gotten the hang of being your parents, and we’ve finally learned that your every wail or flushed cheek doesn’t always signify the worst case scenario. People tell me that two is Terrible, and that you’ll become the master of Button Pushing. But I’m not convinced. You are a pretty cool kid, most of the time.

Yes, you do throw perfect jelly-bodied temper tantrums. You melt to the floor, and wail when you don’t want to do something. You know how to shed gigantic crocodile tears. But you also know when we mean business, and you listen. You are sunny natured and easy going. You love to laugh. And somehow, remarkably, you are NEATER THAN YOUR PARENTS.

(Please remember that Daddy and I really will never mind your obsession with putting shoes away, throwing scraps of paper or dust bunnies in the trash, or closing left-open closet doors.)

Love, Mama.

19 months

Dear Bean, You sit at my feet making a picture all by yourself with the skinny markers I keep in a jar in my studio. Carefully you uncap each one, recapping it after you have added its color in bright stripes to your page. It is raining out and for a few short moments, we’re both working quietly—contented in the semi dark of the room, rain splattering the glass. This month has been all about times like this with you—times of longer concentration, conversation, and activity.

I love watching you close doors or pick up shoes after I’ve asked you to—a grin always spreading across your face like sweet jam. You spend time drawing now, or looking at books. You bring piles to anyone who will comply: climbing into their lap, saying “buh! buh!” And you’ve started to build with me—block towers ten or twelve blocks high. Of course, you’re favorite part is still knocking them down—but I’m excited that we’re on the cusp of this new kind of play. Construction.

This month you’ve become obsessed with walking in my shoes—literally. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that you can walk in them with such ease—you’ve already shown us a thousand times your natural sense of balance and coordination. I’ve stopped worrying you’ll fall and break your neck every single time you slip into a pair of my shoes—and instead have taken to wishing I could freeze you like this forever: goofy, and adorable, and still so small.

Other things you are obsessed with: stuffing toilet paper down behind me while I’m sitting on the loo. Eating peanut butter and jelly tortilla roll-ups. Climbing up onto the picture window sill. Riding on my shoulders. Visiting the neighbor’s sheep. And playing guitar with Daddy.

Driving home after work today I was thinking about how much I look forward to seeing you at the end of the day. How delighted I am to come in and find you and scoop you up. I love your gutsy little laugh as I tickle your tummy. The way you wrap your arms around my neck. And even the way you blatantly ignore me now, when you’re in the middle of a project.

Like always since you came into our lives, each month seems to go too fast. Yet, like always, the lesson you teach me again and again is to slow down, be present, and enjoy the pure intensity of every moment.

1.5 years old

Dear Bean, I come home after being away from you for hours, and gather you up into my arms. Your hair smells like wild grasses and sun. Your feet are bare; knees scuffed from climbing rocks and logs. On your collar, the crumbs from the small lemon vanilla cookies you ate by the fistful. Daddy tells me you finished the entire box on your way home from the grocery store, and you look pleased.

This is what you are like now: always hungry—devouring two eggs and toast at one setting for breakfast, and then coming back for melon and yogurt a little later on. We get glimpses of the future you: a lanky teenager, eating the refrigerator empty in one go. And like that boy you’ll be, you’re skinny now too. All lean muscle, with a little round belly leading the way.

I skipped last month’s letter, and in the turning of that calendar page, you were weaned and never looked back. I can’t believe it was only two months since stopped nursing. I can hardly remember the way you were then, still linked to me by those moments of sustenance, because the you of this moment occupies my mind so boldly. You are a whirlwind of running feet; a sky full of wild grins, a pocket full of mischief.

You are becoming yourself every single day, and watching you I long for that kind dynamic growth: to wake up each day open to learning things abundantly.

Every morning you are fresh to plunge in again. Always, you want to name your world. You open your eyes, then point. Door, window, kitty, Daddy, water, Mama. I hardly can imagine what it must be like to jump like that; to submerge oneself into the rich variety of experience, from the moment of waking, onwards.

My first thoughts rarely have to do with embracing the day. For me, it’s more about prolonging sleep, then coffee, then a list of obligations. It’s as though because I am ‘grown up’ I’ve come to think I know the world, and have as a result, stopped loving it as much as you do. I’ve let cynicism creep in, and it fills the small chinks between wonder and exhaustion in my mind.

Being with you, I’m learning how to dive back in; to feel wholly, to awaken to the bright fullness of the moment. When we walk down the road to get the mail, I stop expecting to actually get the mail. I stop expecting anything at all, and simply follow as you lead.

We go through tall grass to a big rock. You climb it’s sloping side, and when you’re at the top you lie on your belly. We are eye level now, and for a minute we stay this way, grinning at each other, feeling the warmth that the rock has absorbed from the sun. Then you swing your body around and climb feet first down the sheer side; your toes finding small foot holds.

You grin when you land on the grass again with a small thud. Then you run back around, ready to climb again. Once is not enough. Twice is not enough. Each time you climb and slide, you soak up the experience anew with pure exuberance. Each time you come to the experience with an open heart, expecting only joy.

I breathe in deeply, and feel the heat rising through my palms resting on the rock’s smooth surface. Above us, the sky is flecked with small clouds, and the field sings with a million insects.

Summer is coming to an end, and it’s as if they know it: their treble song is louder now, merging at dusk with the staccato of the night creatures. At the edge of the field woods behind us, a few branches on a one maple tree have turned vermillion, like a single chili pepper in a vast green bowl. On the hilltops across the valley, the evening light is falling rosy on the trees.

You’ve had enough of the rock now and want me to put you up on my shoulders. When I do, you grab my cheeks and laugh. I bring your toes to my lips and kiss them, and they smell like sweet clover, and are stained green.

If you were going to daycare this fall, my heart I’m sure, would be shattering into a thousand small pieces. But instead, you will be with your Gran, who has moved down the road, and so I’m looking forward to having a new routine, to being newly challenged by work, and to the time away from you. These moments with you then, are all the sweeter. Scooping you up after hours apart, I want to drink you up.

Your Gran is always bringing us small treasures: fresh eggs from the farm where she pulls weeds; amethyst crystals; bright zinnias. And it’s been nice to have her here—nice for us to grow into a new relationship, to see each other differently, and perhaps more accurately, as we are. Someday maybe you’ll understand this. Someday, impossibly, you’ll grow up and want to be wholly separate from me.

But for now, we’re both content to be thisclose. Your nose pressed against mine, your arms wrapped around my neck.

Love, Mama

16 months

My dear beautiful boy,

The sweetness and heartache of watching you grow is almost too intense to bear. You will understand this someday: how your growing marks my growing too; your life making mine finite and fragile each day in a myriad of small ways. But for now you are content to ponder simpler things: bumble bees, and ice cream cones, the tick tock of the clock, the orbit of the fan’s blades.

Your life is the punctuation for mine. Sometimes is it like an ellipsis, certain precious moments with you stretch out forever across my heart. Like today with your first ice cream cone after you fell on the pavement and cut your face. Sitting in the evening sunlight outside under the giant oak, you watched me first as I liked my cone. Then your tongue followed, inquisitively, and then with eager pleasure, the sweet cream running down your chin and onto your shirt.

Other times, your growing feels like a parenthesis around my life, as things begin for you, other things end for me.

We’re just on the brink of weaning, you and I. And I keep waiting for the perfect time, caught up in the warp and weft of the bond that this act of sustenance has woven between us.

I never pictured nursing you even this long, and yet I have, going off of instinct and circumstance. And the circumstances haven’t been easy. This past month your molars came in. Four of them, and two more front teeth, all jostling through your gums at once, causing you to constantly seek the solace of my breast. Then there has been the problematic fact that we moved out of our apartment, and not into anywhere at the beginning of the month. You’ve tried hard to keep up with all the places we’ve been, but the changes have had their effect. You’ve started to cry often when we leave you with one or the other grandmother, and when you’re with me, like this week, you’d love to be ON TOP OF ME all the time, if you could. So I’ve put off weaning again and again, but I think we’re both at the point where we could be ready (maybe I am more than you.)

You’ve started drinking milk from your sippy cup this week—for the first time, and often now when I put you down for a nap in your crib, you’re wide awake and you put yourself to sleep. You nestle into the corner of your crib like a puppy and wake with the imprint of sheepskin on your face, your hair smelling of sleep.

We will most likely wean this month, after my mastitis clears up and we’re home in our new house. Though I’m ready—my body is starting to feel drained, and my sleep is restless at night because of you—a small corner of my heart harbors some sharp shard of sadness. A part of me I could never have related to or understood before I became a mother. The part of me that has so often since I had you, swallowed old words of judgment, finding my heart a softer place than I had known. When you nurse for the last time, you’ll not remember it. But I will. The solace of this intimacy we’ve shared will be forever contained. Like a parenthesis, joy filling up the space between it's beginning and it's ending.

Watching you explore the world makes my heart spill out about me like a melting popsicle, the sweetness of my love pooling at your feet. You run now. You climb incessantly, instinctively. You have incredible balance, navigating uneven surfaces with so much confidence. I watch you and I’m struck by how YOU, you are. You are determined, sympathetic, goofy, pensive, thoughtful, and curious, often in the span of a minute. You have your own fascinations, and inclinations. The other day I watched you dig in the dirt, and then seeing that the dirt had made your pants all messy, you brushed them off. This is something you didn’t learn from either parent, I can assure you.

You’ve begun talking this month, with more frequency, and giving sweet perfect kisses. You call sun glasses “goo goo goggles” after the character in Dr. Seuss on the page for the letter “G” and you say “tick tock” and “ding dong” with the a lovely little sing song intonation. You figured out how to blow bubbles—all yourself yesterday, and now you love to blow bubbles out in the yard, watching as the drift up into the sky, and when you’re hurt or tired you run to me, arms outstretched.

My arms are always outstretched towards you in return, my sweet boy.

All my love, Mama

13 months and running

Dear Bean,

Today was one of those days I’d prefer, mostly, to forget. You started screaming practically the minute you woke up this morning—after sitting bolt upright and immediately pointing to, and fiercely wanting, every off-limit item on my night stand (a glass of water, a pen, nail clippers). You wailed your way through getting dressed, howled shrilly when I put you down, and proceeded all day to become a wet mess of tears any time something did not go your way.

It didn’t help that today of all days our landlord decided to have the insulation in the apartment re-done---without telling us. For hours (all morning and most of the afternoon) we listened to the sound of insulation being blown into the walls, pumped through feet of wide corrugated tubing by a very loud air compressor. Hours of drilling, of metal ladders being put up and then taken down. You ran from window to window, pointing and yelling, interested in all the commotion until it was well past your regular nap time---but the noise kept you from sleep.

When they left in the afternoon, the two of us were quite grumpy at each other but grateful for a soft bed, and so we curled up together like a set of measuring spoons and slept until 5p.m.

Not every day is like this. Though you HAVE begun throwing what appear to be tantrums: your legs turn to jello. You wail. You fall to the floor. It is really very dramatic. And you’d think that perhaps I’m torturing you, or maybe, at the very least, that I’m cruel and unkind and am preventing you from a happy childhood because I won’t let you try and figure out how the outlet covers come off, or how to turn the knobs on my easel (it WILL FALL! I Promise.)

Most days however, you are a delight. You love spaghetti, the baby sitter, swings, and taking the tops off of chapstick and pens. You bring us books to read—and use our fingers to point to stuff that you like on the page. You point at everything. And you hug and nuzzle us when you’ve missed us (even if we’ve only been gone five minutes.)

Your sudden explosion in receptive language has left me floored. You understand so much now. You can follow simple directions and know the names for many things you love: book, shoes, swing, breakfast, milk, nap.

Yet I can see how the gap between receptive language and expressive language has you frustrated—and I’m sorry when I can’t figure out or anticipate from your wild “uh-uhing” and pointing what it is EXACTLY that you want. It is also wildly frustrating to you every time you come up against a boundary. Trust me kiddo, it’s wildly frustrating for me to0---especially after you do it again, and again, to see JUST EXACTLY WHERE THAT LINE IS THAT YOU CAN’T CROSS.

You are already so different this month, than last month. Last month you were a brand new one year old. Now you’re a pro at this whole toddler bit. You run—everywhere. You run away from Bella, your little girlfriend, with HER sippy cup in your hand. You play chasing games with us, and with the cats. You want to run with the big kids at the park. You want to be just like them, and I’m not sure if my heart can grow fast enough to take this. Yet I know I’ll adjust—and you’ll help me. Now when we go for walks you reach up to take my hand, as if to say, “this is the way mama!”

How I love you!

1 Year Old

My dear beautiful boy,

Last year at this time you and I were not quite separate yet. You were still curled in the dark thrumming space of my belly. I was in labor with you all night, sleeping between contractions, willing you to turn yourself around. But you continued to face upwards, the back of your head pressing against my pelvic bone, and so I walked and walked about the house.

I watched the sun rise, a smudge of red and pink out the bedroom window. And when the day came it was warm, and I walked around the deck holding onto your daddy’s shoulders. The air smelled like spring. Like birth. Thawing mud and the sudden up-springing of sap.

I was exhausted. For the two days before I went into labor, I had been vomiting---fighting the worst stomach flu I’d ever had. I hadn’t eaten in a day and a half and was almost certainly dehydrated. My midwife gave me fluids, and I drank, willing them to stay down. But after fifteen hours of labor, sometimes in the tub that we had set up in the warm cocoon of our bedroom and sometimes on the bed, we decided to go to the hospital. The homebirth I’d wanted for you—for me—was something I was no longer capable of pushing for. I needed fluids.

Your doctor, who knew we were coming and who had supported our decision to try for a home birth, met us at the hospital’s front desk, smiling. I was hooked up to an IV drip, and almost immediately I felt a surge of energy. I started to laugh. But still you didn’t want to leave me, and it took more hours of pushing and finally pitocin to help my exhausted uterus to push you out. The sharp pain of your entrance into the world was immediately replaced by the most intense joy I have ever felt.

There you were. Wet, small, and big-eyed. I pressed you close to my skin, and warm blankets were wrapped around us. I held you by my heart—suddenly outside of me, suddenly your own small self.

And now a year has gone by. The most amazing year, filled with the wonder of watching you grow every month. You are a delight, a rascal, a risk taker, a love. You giggle, you are silly, you make mischief, you love to laugh. Because of you, your daddy and I decided to move north, away from the suburban tangled sprawl of the tri-state area.

Because of you I stopped teaching and stay home with you instead. It is a new kind of job---one that I imagined I might resent, but do not. Great abundance has come into my life this year, as I spend my days with you. I have found my creative self again. I have begun to write and paint and draw.

Your presence in the moment has taught me how to return to the moment. To right now, here where your heart beats next to mine. You are more than I could have possibly dreamed of or imagined or hoped. Happy birthday, my little one.

Love, Mama

For a photo narrative of Bean's first year, go here.

Eleven Months Old

Dear Bean, You are now officially one month shy of a year old, and flying. Well, almost flying. You’re cruising about and doing this funny falling thing towards the next piece of furniture with no hands, and it makes you look like you’re ready for take off. I have every reason to believe you’ll learn how to RUN before you learn to stand or walk.

This month things have become unpredictable. You climb now. You reach things impossibly high and far out of the way. You cry on demand when you want something and can’t get it. You’re getting three more teeth in at once (you currently have four), and it’s making you clingy. And you’ve stopped liking to eat any solid foods except for macaroni and cheese, green peas, pear-strawberry sauce and yogurt. You show your disapproval for all other foods by rapidly spiting it out while making totally disgusted faces and ptttt noises..

You are so funny and thoughtful. You love to make us laugh, and you furrow your brow like I do, when you concentrate. You still love to dance, and certain music makes you boogie more than other kinds. You love anything with a Latin flavor, and you shake your bootie and bob up and down to the rhythm. It makes my heart melt with happiness, watching you dance! (Nothing is better than a guy who can dance, little man. Remember this when you’re in college.)

You’re also starting to babble in long strings of sounds that sound remarkably like words, and you’ve taken to not only copying my tone but also my gestures. Apparently I shake my head when I say ‘uh-uh’ (no), and now you do this. Not just when you mean to say no, but all the time, until it makes you dizzy. You and daddy have head shaking contests in fact, over dinner. You both give up when you can’t sit up anymore.

I’m beginning to understand that everything I say and do is absorbed by you. You watch what I like and how I like it, and what I do not like. You calculate where I’ll be going, based on where I’m looking, and sprint of full tilt, especially when it’s towards doors to forbidden rooms. You love kisses. And pushing buttons. Thankfully, though you do on occasion push MY buttons, mostly the kind of buttons you really love to pushing are on phones and remote controls. You’ll sit for a very long time pushing the buttons on the phone, but when it starts beeping at you, signaling the line is dead, you look up terrified and fling the phone away from you.

You’ve started calling me ‘mama’ regularly now, and Daddy, ‘dada’ and I think it is not a mistake that when I say ‘kitty’ you say ‘di-di.’ You point to things that you want, you reach out your hands, and when all else fails you wail. You must be so annoyed that we can’t read your thoughts already. I can’t wait until I can say that I love you more than anything else in the world and you’ll know what I mean. And I can’t wait until you can say you love me too.

Until then I’m content with your fierce little hugs wrapped around my neck.

Love, Mama

10 Months

Dear Bean,You are starting to have a will of your own and it is amazing to watch you attempt to express yourself—your joy, your contentment, your frustration. You’ve started showing both compassion towards others and determination to do things your own way. You love to share now. You also love to go where you are not allowed. You smile wide, wide, wide when we dance, and at night when we lie down together, you sing with me as I lull you to sleep.

This month you’re doing big-kid things like sitting and looking through board books for ten or fifteen minutes all on your own, with quiet interest. You’re eating macaroni and cheese, reaching for each noodle with your perfect pincer grasp, and drinking water from a cup. You sing for milk when you want to nurse, and wave “hi” when we do. Suddenly, your babbling has increased ten-fold. Each day you explore new sounds. And you can point to things you know: spoon, book, your Daddy, the cats. (You love the cats and pester them mercilessly. One day, they’ll expect payback. Remember this.)

I watch you now and swallow hard—your first year is almost finished. Never before has time gone by so quickly for me: months wash by in the span of a giggle. And yet, never before has time gone so slowly: when you’re fighting sleep and I haven’t had enough, those moments stretch out forever, rubbing every nerve, and I can’t wait for them to be over.

So now you’re ten months old and almost walking—balancing recklessly in the middle of the room for brief moments. Today with your little friend Bella, you kept picking up your toys and handing them to her. You smiled at each other in wonder that you are both small people, and were amazingly tolerant of the fact that each of you has about as much muscle control as a stroke victim, and as much eagerness as a Labrador retriever.

Being your mama is everything like I imagined, and nothing like it. I came from a family of women who have made hard choices about the timing of their children: either choosing to have them, or choosing not to, and before you came I struggled with these choices too. Around me my peers were trying to shape the building blocks of their careers, and it was often said in passing: to have a baby would be the end of independence. Before I had you, I believed that. Even during my pregnancy I wondered, worried. I was reluctant to become a mother. I worked up until the last minute, and then, all of a sudden after twenty four hours of labor, you were there and you fit. Perfectly.

I want you to know that after we sigh with relief having put you to bed at the end of a long day, your Daddy and I then spend another ten minutes talking about how amazing, and silly, and wonderful you are. Tonight, for example, you went to bed early because you missed part of both of your naps and were literally falling apart at the seams. After I finally got your little body to unwind, shushing you a hundred times, I tiptoed out and told Daddy what you did to the slice of orange I gave you earlier.

It was too cold, so when you bit into it, it surprised you and you made an awful face and your whole body shuddered. Then you threw it on the floor, and ROARED at it. You kicked it and roared some more. Then you picked it up, and threw it down again, and roared a little more.

You can count on us laughing about the silly and ridiculous things you do for a good long while. But you can also count on us to be proud. So proud. Like when you put the wooden puzzle pieces into the correct slots tonight after Daddy showed you how. Each time you slipped the piece into it’s place, we clapped, and grinned at each other above your head in wonderment and glee. We think you're pretty darn incredible, kiddo.

Love, Mama

9 months of wonder

Dear 9 month old Bean, You have now spent as long outside in this big world as you did inside my stomach. It's a pretty cool place here isn't it? You have learned so much about your world since you arrived. Every morning now, you wake up, pat our faces and crawl over us to the window sill by our bed. You love to look outside:at the people passing by to work or school, at the garbage truck coming to pick up the jars and cans from the blue recycling bins, at the squirrels whirling up and down the trunk of the tree. You stand up on the bed with your hands on the glass, watching all the action and cooing. Then you play with the alarm clock: carefully fingering all the buttons with your thumb and forefinger.

You seem so big to me now, it is sometimes strange to look at you and realize you are still so small--I must seem SO TALL to you, way up above, when you crawl up to me and reach your arms out, asking to be picked up and hugged. You have started calling out "mama" and "dada" with unmistakable purpose and consistency now--and each time you do, we become jello.

This month you turned into a rascal: crawling away from us at top speed when you know you're headed to off-limits territory like the kitchen or bathroom. Giggling when you hear us calling after you, and squealing when you hear us come up behind you to scoop you up. You love to play wild and silly games now--tossing your body backwards while we're holding you in our arms, so you can see the world upside down, or playing airplane with daddy. And you love, love, love to pull daddy's CDs off the entertainment center--throwing them one by one with a crash onto the floor.

It seems you have also discovered that certain things do not belong in your mouth: and you spend all of your time trying to put them into your mouth. The pages of magazines especially catch your eye, and you shove ripped shreds into your mouth furiously when you see us swooping in to stop you. Invariably, you giggle and attempt to squirm away as we try to fish the pieces back out of your mouth. Why, my lad, is this so funny? It's PAPER.

Incidentally, though your intake of paper seems to have increased, your overall food intake this month has decreased---although you're willing to try just about any food we offer you. It seems, that because you have developed a finely tuned pincer grasp, you are obsessed with using it to feed yourself. Unless the food we're offering comes in a finger food version, you're just not interested.

Your FIRST TOOTH has cut it's way through your gums (much to everyone's night time dismay for several nights in a row!) last week, and you're now very interested in using it to gnaw on everything. It's still just a thin bumpy white line on your gum, but baby it's SHARP. You have been lovely about not bighting my boob, but you have not applied this same courtesy to my chin or fingers.

This month you got sick and my heart turned all to liquid watching you with a fever. Your eyes grew large and dark, and you just wanted to be held. When we finally gave you Tylenol, to relieve both the teething pain and the fever, you perked up, but broke out in a rash of red spots that made us very worried.

When you got better you tackled the task of standing unassisted with new gusto. You've started LETTING GO, trying to balance all on your own: and took your first wild, free fall steps towards Jess the other day when she was here visiting, her arms reaching out wide for you. It makes me gasp every single time.

At your nine month check up the doctor said that when you can stand for thirty seconds or so at a time, you'll start taking your first real steps OUT INTO THE ROOM, away from me. I have no idea what my heart will do when this happens.

I love you so much, my little one!

Love, Mama

8 Months

Dear amazing standing Bean, You are an unbelievable eight months old today. You can stand. You did this first in the middle of the night, pulling up on your crib bars, and grinning this huge gummy grin. Now you pull up on everything: your high chair, the laundry basket, the vacuum, coffee table, ottoman and of course our legs! You're attempting to build vertical stability, and often try to stand holding on with just one hand. This works out fine, unless you get excited to see us or the cats or a toy and let go. Then you topple over and fuss for a half a second before we can scoop you up and shower you with kisses and then it's all better.

We've bean proofed the entire apartment so that you can have the run of the place. We want you to feel confident to explore your environment and take risks, while feeling safe knowing we're nearby. We want you to be able to explore gravity and push and pull. We want you to be able to figure out what happens when you climb INTO something or ONTO something, or occasionally THROUGH something. Even if you get stuck, which you invariably do. Even if you fall, which you invariably do. Because we want you to grow up knowing that you can explore things---and that you can get stuck and make mistakes, and it's okay.

Each month goes by in a blur. Some days feel long. Like when you wake up at night screaming because of a fart, or seven, or because you have the wiggles, or because you had a bad dream—or whatever it is that possesses your little self to wake up at 2 a.m, 2:30 a.m., 3 a.m., 4:30 a.m and so on. Or when, for some reason, during the day, you simply cant wind down enough to nap and you become a ferocious grump, crying whenever we set you down. This makes us exhausted. And often your daddy and I realize that we start pointing fingers at each other when we're like this (so tired our heads feel like they're splitting open). We start arguments and wax very sarcastic. But we're getting better at remembering that we're just tired. And that we love you more than anything in the whole wide world. So we make a lot of coffee on those days. We stop trying to pretend we'll be able to sleep in, and get up. We take long hot showers and go for a walk to the market with you in the Borjn, where we buy flakey raspberry Danishes and pumpkin muffins. And by the time we get back you're usually asleep.

You are a sensitive, thoughtful, goofy little guy. You giggle with delight still when you see the cats, or when we build towers up for you out of blocks and you knock them down. You love your book, That's Not My Lion, and grab the lion's ears, or tail or nose when we ask you where they are. You turn the pages yourself, and then you eat them. You discovered how to put things INTO your toybox this week. And it's amazing to watch you make choices about which toy you want to play with.

It's also amazing to watch you play with your little friend Bella. You smile so wide at her, and reach out to touch her face. And she thinks you're so cool because you can drink from a cup and stand and crawl. And you think she's just dandy and you suck on her socks. Last time you saw her you put your pacifier in her mouth. Her mama and I nearly died with laughter. You also get very jealous when I talk to Bella: you crawl over right away and flash me your most winning smile. If I don't pay attention right away, you start to yelp and get cross. It is incredible to watch your emotions unfold.

And yesterday, when you'd had entirely enough of mama by the end of the day, when you saw your dada come out of his office you reached out your arms to him. Then when he didn't come to you right away you squirmed to be put dow,and then you crawled straight to him, and tugged on his pants. His heart melted all over the floor.

Love, Mama

7 Month Update

My Dear Little Bean, It is amazing to me that the weeks fly by this fast. Having you in our lives makes the days blur together the landscape does out the window of a moving car. It's a wonderful, giddy feeling, watching time dissolve like this: watching you grow. But also bittersweet, because you're officially more than half way through your babyhood.

You are seven months old and there are so many moments I spend with you when I want to scoop you up and devour you with kisses. You're so yummy right now, with your milky breath, your big sparkling eyes, and your butterball thighs. You've become all mischief and adventure this month, my little one, because YOU HAVE LEARNED HOW TO CRAWL.

We didn;t expect you to do this quite yet, but you're a determined little man it seems, and you spent your days (and nights, might I mention—thank god that part is over!!!) first diligently doing Supermans and then rocking back and forth on your hands and knees. And then suddenly you made your first fwippity-fwappity attempts---hands smacking the floor as you moved forwards with your brows furrowed. And then you were off. Just like that.

Since then, you've gotten into everything of course. Which for the most part works out okay for dada and I since we’re not extraordinarily sophisticated with our interior decorating and don't have anything you can really destroy (except of course dada's lovely CDs which you relish tossing onto the floor!) Our concern is less about what you can damage, and more about what you can get into.

Perhaps it says yards about our parenting my love, but little Bean, you have officially licked the following: your daddy's flip flop, your mama's running shoe, the cat's waterbowl, the underside of the rug, the wall, the floor, Momo the cat's tail, and the doormat. (Yes we will remind you of these things in front of your girlfriend, after we;ve just caught the two of you French kissing!!!) Of course, you've licked other more appropriate things too, like the apple slices you love to gnaw on, and frozen bagels or your wooden spoon… but I fear the number of items in the first category vastly outnumber those in the second. Thank god you're still breastfeeding, and thereby are more or less immune to everything in our immediate surroundings.

Speaking of which, you ARE still breastfeeding dude. This is your primary mode of sustenance, and it is highly advisable that you STOP TRYING TO BITE ME. Got that? We give you oodles of yummy things to bite, and eat even--and you do (you especially like bananas, apple sauce and avocados)---but never with the fervor and glee that you reserve for the occasional illicit chomp on my boob. I am not okay with this, by the way.

That said, the teething thing does seem to be on hold however. No sign of pearly whites in your mouth yet. Just your lovely gummy grin. Which I can't get enough of, so don't feel in any hurry to grow teeth.

Last month you were a disaster in the sleep department because of all that "milestone wake-up" business, so we implemented a bedtime routine that involves taking a warm shower with Daddy and then snuggling into bed with mama for nursing and lullabies. I never thought I'd be this kind of mom. The kind that crawls into bed with her baby to put him to sleep. But I am. And for the most part I enjoy those quiet, sleepy, dark-room moments where we're pressed up against each other, and you're all nestled into the crook of my arm. And when you're next to me you don't try to roll over to crawl, which works out just fine, since you GET SO MAD when you do that, but you can't seem to stop yourself---or couldn't, all last month.

You amaze me little guy, with how much you've already learned about how this world works. You babble all the time now---long strings of vowels and consonants---and you say "mamama!" when you wake up to nurse at night. And Daddy and I are trying to keep up with all your changes. We're discovering that you've grown very attached to us, and last week, visiting friends you cried when he when I sat you down by yourself for the first time in their house. You have begun to recognize of familiar faces and places, and you want your mama or daddy by your side as you're starting to explore the big world. We'll always be there, little guy. Promise.

Love, Mama

Half a year

My little man,You are SO BIG, suddenly. You are six months old today and you do things like sit up and rock back and forth like a drunk little Buddha. You eat mashed bananas and peaches and watermelon now, and reach out for more saying "mmm, mmmm, mmm." You also tried rice cereal, but it seems to have spent more time on your little moon cheeks than in your mouth. You loved it though. And every time you try a new taste (like garlic mashed potatoes or lemonade—which I put on the tip of my finger for you to try) you make the funniest faces in the whole world.

When you're 16 you'll accuse me of doing this for my own entertainment, and it's ENTIRELY TRUE. You're hysterically funny to watch: the way you pucker up your lips and furrow your eyebrows. But man, do we love you! And really, since your diapers are clearly NOT for my entertainment, something has to be. And by the time you're 16 I'm sure I'l have a whole list of things that you do that are for YOUR entertainment at my expense, so I'm living it up while I can.

I didn't write you monthly letters when you were very little because I was still so stunned that you were here, and I was just getting the hang of the whole co-sleeping, boob-feeding way of life.

When you were teeny tiny, just two and three months old, you impressed us because you could hold your head up just a little bit, and occasionally you'd roll over, tummy to back, though always looked confused when it happened. Then, you were fascinated with your mobile, and we lived for your smiles which made your crying jags and your night time wake-ups worth it.

When you were small and fragile like that it was rainy and springtime, and we had to bundle you up to take you outdoors, and we were anxious about selling our house, and antsy because the dog next door would yip for hours in the middle of the night so we couldn't sleep deeply---even when you let us sleep.

But now it is summer and we are in our new apartment, and every day we go walking along the big lake, where we can see mountains that look like old dinosaurs napping, slung low along the lake's edge. They are soft shades of blue, like an impressionist painting, and gently rolling, and we never get tired of the view. We're happy to be here, where people are kind, and where we can play at the beach and it’s only a walk away from our house. And we're happy that we at this point in our lives: where we can't imagine life without your grins, your delighted giggles, your smell, your softness.

Yesterday, your grandparents drove all the way up from New Jersey to visit. They miss you so much, and you thrill when you're Poppy makes piggy noises, or chicken noises, or cat noises. You giggle until we're all giggling.

You're long now: longer than most babies, I think. And you've outgrown all your 3-6 month pants even though your jusssst 6 months old. You've discovered that you like eating your hat, or throwing it out of your stroller, and we've lost many hats this way. You little bugger. They're for your own good.

You are trying to crawl. You do push ups and scoot your knees underneath you but then crumple up and face plant when you try to move forward. You're still not coordinated enough, though each day you practice, and we're sure you'll be an early crawler because you seem so determined.

You have also discovered our cats. You can't get enough of them. You smile at them from across the room, and roar loudly with glee whenever they approach. Of course, they have also discovered you, and are none-too-pleased, knowing their days of lounging on the floor are numbered. When Momo, our boy cat, comes to purr next to you on the bed, you grab his WHOLE FACE in your hand, fiercely, and don't let go. He meows pitifully but doesn't claw you, as he waits for me to unclamp your little fists.

This month I feel like you're on the verge of so much. You've started looking like a little boy to me--rather than a baby. You look so mature with your little baseball hat on. And you're so dexterous and purposeful with how you handle objects now. You switch them easily from hand to hand, and have just discovered the joys of POUNDING THINGS ON THE FLOOR.

One thing though, that makes me completely crazy, is that you're DRIVEN TO ROLL OVER onto your tummy. You do this all the time now, with perfect ease. And although you've rolled from tummy to back dozens of times before, you seem to have FORGOTTEN HOW, and it's driving me nuts because you get stuck on your tummy. A lot. And when you're napping, you wake yourself up by rolling onto your tummy and you muffle into your sheepskin and huff and wail until I turn you over again. And then you roll over AGAIN. And again. And again. Stop please. Or at least, remember how to roll back over onto your back.

Oh, and you're still not pooping regularly--which is something that I'm sure you'll be delighted to know about when you're 17 and I'm sharing this information with your prom date. (Which I will! I promise! Along with the photos we took of you with infant acne.) But really, bud, what's with that? It would be nice if things were a little more consistent, because that's how the rest of the world operates, and we just can't quite get used to your poop sabbaticals.

But mostly, we love you so much! My heart has never felt so big, so gleeful, so proud, as when I am looking at you're face. I love watching you learn. Love being home with you to watch these small miraculous discoveries occur. And I'm so happy you're here.

Love, Mama

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20 Weeks Old

Dear Bean,You are a 20 week old bean today. That means you're five months old. Where did the time go? Holding you tonight, in the big white armchair in the livingroom, with your face against mine, I could hardly imagine you as the little grunty thing you were, newborn.

Today you went for your first nap in the running stroller. I ran all the way to the park by the water, three miles from home--and back. You slept the whole time, and then woke up when we were in our driveway, and gave me this sweet, sweaty grin.

You know how to do so many things now--like roll over from your tummy to your back. You look funny when you do this--you crane your head high and sort of rock back and forth like a drunk before flopping over. I imagine you must feel triumphant when you find yourself on your back all of your own volition. A little like a sea lion must feel upon galumphing his way back into the surf. Rolling over from your back to your tummy proves to be a bit trickier--though you're working on it. You can roll side to side, but it's still hard for you to get up enough momentum to roll ALL THE WAY OVER. But when you do, you grin and grin, even when your arms are stuck under your belly and you're doing face plants into the carpet.

You also know how to grab ahold of your feet now--and put them in your mouth. This has become an obsessive pastime of yours. You LOVE your toes.

And you've discovered how to WHIMPER. I'm not sure if I'm a fan of this discovery--but you certainly are. You love the feeling of power you get when I put you down and you make these little huffy fussy noises and I COME BACK AND SMILE DOWN AT YOU and put your pacifier in your mouth...or...pick you up! I am sure there are millions of people out there who will say I am spoiling you, but I don't believe it. I think our way of being together feels right and intuitive. And I think spoiling a baby is a bunch of crock. You are begining to communicate with your world, and I think that is exciting. Even when, like today at nap time, you just wanted to be with us so much that every time I put you down you'd fuss and look around frantically until I came and held you. But once I finally sat down with you and we rocked together in the quiet, cool bedroom, you fell asleep. And you took a lovely two hour nap and woke up smiling.

You can reach out with both hands and grab anything and everything that's in front of you--and put it in your mouth. You've tried watermelon (you LOOOVE IT) and banana and plums. Your eye's get huge when you taste something new, just like they get when you experience anything else for the first time. Like taking a shower with Daddy today, or seeing the grunting pigs at the farm last weekend.

You have also started to giggle, especially when I kiss your tummy or when Daddy puts you up his head and calls you "super bean." You're such a goof ball, such a ham--with your big, wet, gummy grin. It's amazing to watch you grow, despite the moments where I feel worn out and totally sick of lugging your little hair-pulling self around.

Love, Mommy