Say Yes

He sits on the lawn amidst heaps of brown oak leaves giggling wildly at the dog. Tomorrow we leave before the sun comes up. Today, his Nonna scoops him up, and carries him off for a nap. Such sweetness. Such sheer delight. It's been good to be here where the December sun is mellow and warm, and someone's always ready with open arms to play with Bean. But we're ready to go home to a house waiting with late-arrival packages, tivoed Project Runway shows, and the simple routine of just us.

Yesterday, after many phone calls, it was confirmed: the house will close---later rather than sooner---but it will. The mortgage rate will stay the same for another month (big exhale), and in the meantime we'll have a chance to ski a couple times, gather paint samples, and visit kitchen showrooms.

Yesterday Marilyn reminded me to visualize the positive, and last night I read this post, and decided simply to say YES. To trust, to breathe, to be thankful. Looking at Bean, his entire face dancing with grins, how can I not?

Milestone wake-ups and the magic of slumber

As I lie in the semi dark with my son waiting for his breath to settle into the rhythm of sleep, I wonder about the bigness of his small self. So much more than the tiny bundle of limbs, soft and warm curled in the nook of my arm. One look into his big beautiful eyes and I find myself swimming in the wide pools of his spirit.

It amazes me that something as vital and natural as sleep is something we have to learn. Of course, there are the times when exhaustion overcomes him and he sinks, sack-like into a deep sleep wherever he is. But on a nightly basis letting go of his body---surrendering to the tide of sleep is not something he knows---I must teach him how to still his active little body. Find a rhythm. Breath in sleep.

Each time his body works itself through a sleep cycle, the neurons in his brain send him the busy active messages his body is reading all day: stand, stand, stand, they say. Reach. Climb. Walk. Before I come to bed he sleeps in his crib, and usually I hear him cry out at least once. I come to find him awake in the dark, standing. Then I nurse him, hold him close, allowing the tide of my breath to wash over him, carrying him back to the world of sleep.

Sometimes in these long moments with him in the dark I realize that I am at the cusp of one of the mysteries of being human. Wonder saturates me each time he awakens, trailing the stardust of dreams, a smile blooming at the corners of his eyes.

Mischief

It seemed a little too quiet. I was in the dining room (which serves double duty as my office) and Bean was in the living room---within earshot, but just out of sight. For five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, only silence. An occasional grunt or rustle let me know he was still alive---but there were no shrieks, no customary giggles or roars. And you know---it's probably terrible that I didn't jump up immediately, and instead thought "I wonder how much I can get done before he starts making noise." Yes, I imagined the possibilities. Even the worst, when weighed against fifteen minutes of undivided (quiet) time to finish writing xmas cards, print pictures, and wrap presents, was just not terrible enough.

Finally I heard a giggle, and then the fwapity-fwap sounds of him crawling away from the scene of the crime. This is what I found. I didn't have time to adjust the iso so the pictures came out all blurry. But they probably would have come out blurry anyway. I couldn't stop laughing. He STUFFED THE TISSUES UP THE FRONT OF HIS SWEATER, people. All by himself. How funny is that? And the wreckage of the tissue box (and my living room)? It was TOTALLY WORTH IT.

Sunday Mosaic # 4: family

We bundle up in our red jackets, and put Bean in the running stroller which is wind proof and warm, and walk two miles to a gormet market, stopping to get hot chocolate along the way. Inside it has the most wonderful little café, tucked in among isles stocked with wine and marzipan, biscotti, and maple butter. The walk made us hungry, and we order big fluffy slices of cinnamon raisin French toast, omelets, and fruit. The girl who waits on us has a lip ring and a punk hairdo and a beaming sunny smile. She tells, "careful, the maple syrup is really full.’"

I watch Bean sitting in his highchair, picking up slices of fresh strawberries and eating them as though he has always done this. His little thumb and forefinger working together perfectly to grasp each piece and bring it to his mouth. It takes my breath away to watch him and I feel tears smarting up in the corners of my eyes. He catches me looking at him and bursts into a huge grin, his two brand new teeth poking up from his bottom gum. Then he reaches out his hand and offers me his gnawed on strawberry half.

Walking back we peer in the windows at the architectural salvage warehouse, at claw foot bathtubs and old doors we imagine maybe using during renovation. When we open the door at home the smell of the garlands we hung yesterday hits us: piney and warm. We nap, three to a bed, and as my two guys sleep I can’t help lying awake staring in wonderment at their faces.

When I wake up it is already 3pm and the afternoon light is pale and weak out the window. I dress for a run—the first in two weeks since I injured my knee. It's my first run since it’s been snowy, and I thrill to feel my body fall back naturally into the rhythm of it. I run a new route, on sidewalks through the hill section of town and then up past the University where the gibbous moon hangs fat and solemn in the blue sky above the red brick buildings. I can see all the way to the lake, a thin blue ribbon at the feet of the mountains. Ice has formed where the air and water kiss the rocks and sticks along the shore.

We eat dinner with friends in a small Italian restaurant, where we watch a family celebrate their grandmother’s birthday. She coos at her granddaughter saying too loudly, “Isabella say cheese,” and they all say, “don’t talk so loudly.” I can’t help smiling. Later I talk to my mother on the phone as I finish making linzer cookies. We are trying to learn how to reword our communication so that it’s clear and present, not painted with the lacquer of childhood miscommunications, and our conversation is full of love.

The antedote to all my idyllic posts

Tonight I can't help wishing I had hired cleaning help, a clawfoot bathtub, a bar of chocolate, and a nice glass of merlot. Instead... when the bath drains the toilet makes gurgling noises. We ran out of toilet paper ENTIRELY. Of course I was ON the toilet when I discoverd this. And our house needs so badly Bean managed to eat an entire second dinner off the floor under the table.

***I wanted to write all sorts of brilliant and reflective things in response to hanging out for four days straight with my friend Willow whom I’ve known since fifth grade. But instead I spent the night single parenting and ate cereal for dinner, so all insight has been shelved for some later date.

I have no idea other mamas pull it off with any grace at all. After just a couple of hours every surface in our tiny apartment is strewn with toys, or objects being rendered as toys (think spatulas, bowls). Actually that is an understatment. What I mean is our apartment went suddenly from livable to kick-it-when-you-try to-walk messy. The laundry is in a heap at the top of the basement stairs, and every counter top is covered with dishes.

In an effort to turn things around I washed dishes for so long my fingers pruned. In the past I’ve tried to be very zen about having to wash dishes by hand: it brings you into the moment, yada, yada, yada. But it doesn’t really. It’s less sanitary and a total waste of time that could otherwise be spent reading Bean a book. You can bet we already have a dishwasher picked out for our new kitchen.

The real trouble though is that DH has the stomach flu, and truly there is nothing nastier. It is so hard for me to take care of someone who is vomiting. I think of all the times as a kid when my mom held the bowl for me to puke into, and I shudder with awe, realizing the lengths mothers go. I suppose I would do the same for Bean in a heartbeat—but I can’t quite feel the same empathy for DH.

I couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for myself as he lay on the couch with a low-grade fever clutching his stomach, and I went through the motions of making dinner for Bean, feeding him, cleaning up. To my credit I did manage this more or less to myself, and instead of turning into a total harpie, I proffered ice water and a cool hand. All the while Bean was trying to stand hands free, narrating his progress with a series of high-pitched shreeks, and I kept wondering hell she does it with two little rascals.

There were no catastrophes, really, other than a solid stone rolling pin landing on my foot (clean up from gingerbread cookies I made earlier), but I couldn’t help feeling like I was flailing about in a rising tide. After such lovely days with an extra set of hands, and lots of laughter, it felt really off tonight to be down to just me and Bean. Now everyone’s tucked into bed and for some reason, though it’s earlier than I usually call it quits, I’m totally exhausted.

Back to normal operations, or: sleep is for the weak

I got it here, when we were there. Could there be a more perfect T? If you look reeeealy closely, you can see his first little tooth poking through. And yes, the other one's coming in so we're not getting much sleep around here. Still.

Laid up

I woke up at 5:30 with stomach flu. NO, IT ISN'T FOOD POISONING, or everyone else would have it---and I'm the only one who had to run to the bathroom this morning where I sat in agony on the loo. I've been floating in and out of a feverish haze all day. The real reason I'm posting however, is that I spent most of today away from my beautiful baby and I missed him something fierce when I finally dragged myself out to the living room. And you know what? He missed me back! He reached his arms out and grinned and chuckled and just about ate my face of with his version of kisses. It is as though I'm watching him grow at light speed today. Suddenly he seems so big: eating mostly solids (soup and sweet potatoes spoon fed by his nonna). Just in a heartbeat during our visit here he has learned to stick his tongue out and wave 'bye bye' and 'hi.'

I'm writing about it because I'm not sure it's really happening--as feverish and miserable as I've been today. I'm looking forward to coming back to what I've written when I'm better--to read it like a postmark. This happened. Because right now I'm pretty much just whimpering and wishing I could fast forward.

Small good things

I accomplished something nearly impossible today: I found a pair of jeans that fit my silly long legs!

I bought my first pomegranate of the season, and type with bright red juice staining my cuticles.

I went for a run in the cold for the first time all week. I've missed it. My body thrives on the rhythm of running and breathing.

I got an extra hour of sleep this morning---while DH read the newspaper and watched Bean.

I taught Bean how to sign *milk* this week---he caught on faster than I ever imagined he would---and it's made things so much simpler. We've avoided several typical meltdowns because he can convey what he wants.

I got a cup of Old World hot chocolate walking back from dinner out tonight. It's thick and rich and dark and unbelievably good, especially on a cold evening.

I decided to trust that the house thing will work out. And didn't think about it again all day.

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

Mohawk grins

Bean is on the mend, it seems. He spent the afternoon flinging CDs off the entertainment center shelves, one at a time, giggling with delight as they crashed in a puddle of plastic cases around him. One little sharp tooth has (finally!) cut through, and the spots are fading...and last night he actually slept for more than two consecutive hours.

Serious

Teeth coming in and a night of very restless sleep. Today pensive. I am blown away, watching my son, at the complexity of his emotional life--at only eight months. He has started anticipating our actions in response to what he sees us looking at. He reads our faces like an emotional roadmap. But today I felt like his mood was all his own, solemn, wanting to be held. A day where the world must have seemed very large to him.

"Becoming a mother is a trial by fire"

Growing up, I bucked up against my mother fiercely. I felt similar to my father with my academic, intellectual habits: late nights devouring books and talking about ideas. But I almost felt scornful of my mother who was quiet and shy. She would ask me to keep my voice down in public places, and when we fought, she would use silence to win every time. In many ways I simply took my mother for granted. She was just my mother---the one who cooked meals, and drove me places. It was only after my father died that I started to get to know the woman she really is. Perhaps she too began to know herself then, differently, finally out of my father's shadow.

And, though I think my mother would say that she is still unsure of her own voice, after so many hearing my father's, she is becoming someone whose words I admire. She observes the world carefully, noticing the smallest of things; constantly connecting the big picture and the small. Since Bean, I have grown to understand that her quiet attitude of giving and her selflessness came not from lack of self confidence, but from her vast love for her children.

Last night she wrote me this:

Ah yes, Christina, you are getting it: motherhood. Nothing prepares you for it, that is one sure thing. I cannot imagine that heart surgery is more intricate or painful than the push/pull of a mother's being as it continues to form a womb around her child. A kangaroo pouch would be so much simpler! The gods give us women this incredible learning around compassion. Of course dads feel it too, but, I believe, in a different way. Their very skin hasn't been stretched beyond belief leaving memory marks. Nor has their body carried the growing weight of a child. I think men in battle, caring for their wounded, must feel a similar stretching of their being---as buddies die or are profoundly wounded in front of them. Maybe that is why motherhood, and war, have existed down the ages. There are many ways to experience this selflessness. But becoming a mother is a trial by fire.

Sick

Nothing prepared me for this: the fragility and fiery protectiveness I'd feel when confronted with caring for my sick child. Bean awoke last night about an hour after going to sleep---crying inconsolably, hysterically, till mucus ran in two small rivers from his nose. He cried hard and frantically, throwing his body about in my arms as I tried to offer a breast, or hold his hands under running water, or show him the cat---my usual ploys to calm him when he's upset. But for a long while nothing consoled him—a long enough while enough for DH to call pediatrician and then make a trip to the store for children's Tylenol.

Finally I put John Gorka on and danced with him, slowly, in the semi-dark of the living room lit only from the streetlights outside the window. Finally his breathing grew regular. He sucked in the last puckered sobs. His head dropped to my chest.

Then we sat together, his body pressed tightly to mine---wrapped in blankets in the rocking chair, and I rocked him until his body grew limp with sleep. And then I kept rocking, never wanting to let go.

Later in the night he woke again: crying, sobbing, wailing. Again I put the music on and danced with him till his cries turned to whimpers, and then I curled with him in the big white armchair in the living room, burrowed under a down comforter, listening to the music until he finally slept. I carried him to bed and he slept nestled up against the heat of our bodies, his small feet pressed into my belly.

He slept then until morning, and woke happy, with a running nose, wanting to be carried all day.

Nothing prepared me for this: the quivering feeling of guilt, when I look into his sweet sick face. What could I have done wrong? What small neglect?

By mid morning I realized I was sick too, and we napped for hours, our cheeks next to each other---his hair damp with sweat. And later, he was content to ride about in the sling on my hip---something he almost never does because he wants to be moving about, exploring, active, pulling up on things.

I'm not sure how to begin to comprehend the immenseness of this feeling: this love, this guilt, this exhaustion. And yet a part of me realizes it isn't about comprehending at all. It's simply about being there in the dark, dancing with my son up against my heart.

The lives of inanimate things

As a child I always imagined that when I left the room my toys had lively conversations and busy lives. I imagined them scooting about fighting or loving or adventuring (like in Toy Story but before I'd ever seen it).

And I'm starting to think maybe they do, because recently in our house TOYS ARE EVERYWHERE. Strewn about, always underfoot, our floors have become a battlefield or a ballroom for inanimate things:

The small, developmentally appropriate, carefully selected objects: brightly colored wooden blocks. Rattles. Board books. Stuffed animals.

The not so carefully selected objects that work just as well: mixing bowls, a wooden salad spoon, an empty water bottle, a calculator.

And the things he selects himself: our magazines (shredded), The Wall Street Journal (crumpled), my cell phone (is that why it's suddenly beeping like it's posessed???) and anything and everything that can be climbed upon, pulled on, or sucked on.

My little helper

Yup, he's wearing a biking helmet in the last shot. He didn't even seem to notice it was on his head. We're excited because his head now is large enough for the teeniest, tiniest helmet on the market...which means lovely long rides in the bike trailer on quiet back country roads with mama & daddy for the remaining days of autumn! DH and I have only been able to ride together sporadically for the past 7 months, and it's probably the thing I miss most about our pre-Bean life.

Studio Friday: Paytime

I put watercolor paints on a plate and let Bean play. This is what he made. Click on the picture for more photos of us in action.

The effect that crawling has had on my brain

The boy, he gets into mischief ALL THE TIME. Because our house is small, single storied, and mostly free of hazards, we give Bean more or less free reign of the place, as we go about daily activities. And he loves this. Going from room to room, investigating.

He crawls FAST now. FASTER when he knows we're coming for him when he is say, elbows deep in the cat food bowl, or happily pulling CDs of the entertainment center and throwing them with glorifying crashes onto the floor.

Mostly, it's both awesome and amusing to watch him discover his world. Incredible to observe the finely tuned sequence of brain development that led him first to do exquisite "supermans," then rock back and forth, now crawl. And though he's only been crawling with agility for a week or so, he is already driven to try pulling himself up into the vertical. Kneeling, balancing, and occasionally falling.

I'm filled with wonder watching his brain absorb all the information he gathers about his environment as he explores it: push and pull, gravity, depth, cause and effect, orientation. And I am happy to be able to be here to witness it each day.

But there are times when I miss the full days of teaching other people's children. The business of accomplishing things start to finish. My days are so fragmented now. Things are left started everywhere. Half folded heaps of laundry, a half-edited section of writing for my weekly workshop, a collage partly painted.

I can't help but feel resentment sometimes then, at the way things work out. That DH job affords him six hours of "alone" time, no matter how stressful the market is. Of course we're both compressed at the end of the work day, and of course the "work" isn't done. But for me the compression often doesn't have a release. The day doesn't end until Bean goes to sleep, far longer than even my longest days teaching.

Invariably, exhaustion catches up with him RIGHT when dinner is done. And then I try to remember that being in the moment is what I'm here for. Even when the days fragments gather under my skin like so many shards of glass, as Bean's body curls up against mine, I let his whispered breathing and the sweet scent of his hair settle down around me. I try to allow this to be enough.

Artifacts of ourselves

On Friday, the minute after I posted, Bean woke up, still fussy, still with huge brontosaurus tears, inconsolable, needy. It was a long weekend. We're adjusting to a possibly teething, much more active little guy, and it's been a bit of a crash course. The house is finally quite tonight. The first time all weekend I've had down time--away from Bean, DH or friends, who often stop by now that we live in a neighborhood of people who share, among other things, our passion for outdoor sports and good food.

I went for a run this evening with Bean, and felt myself gradually shifting back towards my center. Bean napped for my entire five mile run, despite the fact he'd cried hysterically when we tried to put him down to nap beforehand. And as I ran, feet thrumming against the uneven, slightly damp pavement, I got to thinking about how having a child makes you examine your own archeology, as it were.

I see myself in my son. He's starting to be so purposeful in the ways in which he interacts with the world. He's cognizant now of cause and effect, and has discovered that HE can affect the outcome of something. He is active, curious, and ready to laugh. Yet he is also stubborn and determined. Like me as a girl, when he gets wound up, crying hysterically, water sooths him. I wonder now, as he's becoming an active participant in the world around him, what lessons I'm inadvertently teaching him, simply by being myself.

What do I affirm, or negate with my daily actions? My choice of words, the way DH and I interact, the places we go, taking Bean with us in the Bjorn or running stroller, how do these things all affect him? The tracks we make with our daily living, grow apparent in his big eyes, in his laughter, in his tears.

I once read an article by a mother who had wisely observed that her elementary aged daughter mimicked her patterns of speech and tone of voice. At the time I remember thinking how as a teacher I noticed this as well---my entire class of third graders would pick up certain mannerisms or idioms I frequently used. Like chameleons, children take on the color of their world.

I realize that my son watches me intently and often. He beams up at me when he sees me looking back, and then contentedly turns back to his toys. But he often stops to watch me adjust my hair, or sigh. He notices when I grow tense, and his body tenses too.

All this to say, after a long weekend of too much tenseness. Of fussiness and aggravation and short words, I realized something small, yet huge. I need to take space for myself regularly and often. I need moments of quiet, where I can paint Bean's bath dinosaurs, or sip a glass of wine, eat some dark chocolate and finish my book.

It feels selfish and obtuse to insist on this time. Yet without it, I find my inner landscape feels shaken like a snow globe. I scatter myself carelessly, pounce easily. And Bean absorbs this, his whole being noticing these

Gathering up the pieces

The morning was unassuming enough. Out of routine, because of the rain and the fact that Bean woke up nearly an hour earlier than he usually does. No morning walk, but cinnamon toast instead. The newspaper. Coffee. The essentials were all there. And Bean took a nap, like he normally does, but woke from it suddenly, fussy. And then the day went careening off kilter. Bean gradually fell apart. As did I. One of those days where darkness seems to fall early because of the weather; when the house feels hot and tight. My body pent up and sluggish from having missed my runs for three days in a row.

Refusing to sleep, Bean skipped his second (typically long) nap and then screamed hysterically when either of us tried to lie down with him; to cuddle, to offer a boob, a pacifier, a warm body to curl up against. Of course, he seemed to know how thin my patience was.

DH and I kept shooting each other looks. DH trying to remain on the periphery as though it were MY duty to deal with Bean.

"You could ask me for help," he said.

My skin prickled with angry heat. "You could ask to help," I replied.

All either of us wanted was some solitude and down time. This is what makes parenting so hard. The fact that you can't just take space when you need it. I tried. DH, readily apologetic, made me tea, while Bean crawled in forlorn circles around the coffee table, alternately bursting into tears or grins depending on whether the cat walked by or not.

I wolfed down chocolate chip cookies, sipped tea and tried to read a chapter in my book while the two of them sat on the couch opposite me: Bean pushing all of Dh's buttons by repeatedly dropping his teething cracker under the couch.

When DH and I get sucked into self pity, we're both fools and we know it. The situation is beyond us. Neither of our faults. We know this. Yet we can't seem to help ourselves from lashing out. Acting morose. Bean was exhausted, over stimulated, inconsolable. Teething perhaps, or simply off.

Finally I drew a bath, and we all spent the next 45 minutes in the bathroom trying to regain our humor. Bean and I in the tub, chasing his wooden spoon. DH sitting on the tile with a dolphin washcloth tickling Bean and making him giggle. And everything was better.

Bean nursed for a long time then, and fell asleep making little whistling whimpering noises with his breath the way he did when he was a newborn. It's likely he'll be out for the night. There is still time for a swim, for making pizza with potatoes and Italian sausage, for drinking the bottle of wine we picked up at the store earlier. For laughing on the couch, finally watching the indie flick our neighbor recommended.

But oh the agony of getting to this. Like broken pottery. Shards everywhere. The mosaic can happen. But seeing the bigger picture is sometimes so hard.

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