Dear Henry - Month 10

Dear Henry,

Happy 10 month birthday!

Ugh, double digits.  How on earth did that happen?  Would it do any good to ask you to slow down?  No, I didn’t think so. 

Where do I even start with all the changes?  You – exploded with change in your 9th month.  Last month you were just learning to crawl and this month you took off like a rocket, gaining  a speed and determination that makes your mobility truly terrifying.  Crawling is second nature to you now, and you no longer want to be contained at all.  You’re also pulling yourself up on everything.  EVERY.  THING.  I sat and watched you try to pull yourself up on an overturned kettle the other day.  It was only maybe a foot off the ground, and there you were, feet flat on the floor, legs kicked out straight, body doubled in half while you supported yourself on that little kettle.  You haven’t figured out how to do it without supporting yourself – but that’s not far away now.  In fact, just yesterday your dad and I shared a moment of shocked silence as we watch you stand, completely unsupported for about 5 seconds before toppling over.  We shared a glance that can only be described as sheer panic before one of us spoke "did that just happen?"  Yes.  That just happened. You are moving full steam ahead and we all know what that means : walking.  Soon you will be walking. 

I’m just not even going to think about you walking.  Let’s move on.

Now that you're mobile and confident, you are into everything.  We've come up with some interesting ways to deter you - mostly some makeshift barricades that work with varying measures of success (and do wonders for my decorating scheme). Occasionally, when we mount a gate to keep you from getting into a section of the house we're not interested in chasing you through, you look at us in outrage like we've just taken away your civil liberties and you are contemplating sending us a strongly worded letter.  You like to explore every nook and cranny you find, and the stuff you find in your explorations is usually surprising and alarming.  One day I looked down to find you playing with a bunch of pictures of yourself.  You'd found them tucked in an envelope in some spot we never thought you'd be interested in and you decided those pictures made fine toys.  You were so happy, waving them around in the air and squealing,  I just let you play with them. We probably paid $.30 for the lot of them, and frankly, it was totally worth it to see you so excited and proud of your treasure!

Another big milestone happened this month.  You got teeth!  Hurray!  Your dad said he was relieved because now we know you won’t be a little hillbilly baby with no teeth.  I pointed out that this changes nothing.  You only have two teeth.  It’s still possible that you’ll be the little hillbilly kid with two teeth.  But they are cute teeth, and I'm pretty sure you'd be the cutest hillbilly baby on earth if it played out that way.  I still get a little surprised when I see those peeking out at me when you smile. Just another reminder of how fast you are leaving this babyhood thing behind.

Speaking of making you smile – that’s getting harder and harder to do.  I guess you’re getting more particular about what you find funny.  Our old “make crazy faces and noises” trick isn’t working anymore.  Now we need to resort to technology.  You love to look at my phone – and you’ve figured out how to use your finger to scroll through the pictures on there.  A surefire way to get smiles is to play videos of babies laughing.  Oh man, you LOVE babies laughing.  We play a game sometimes where I show you my phone and make you laugh.  You grab the phone out of my hands and I pull out the digital camera to try to capture your glee.  You notice the digital camera immediately and toss the phone aside and launch yourself towards the camera.  This results in many, many photos like the one above. 

Early in the month you found your tongue and so for a couple of weeks that tongue was out and wiggling at us constantly.  Including the week we took your 9 month pictures.  You were pretty stingy with the smiles, but you gave us tongues galore.  I was worried that we weren’t going to get any good pictures out of that photo session, but when your Aunt Sara sent them to me, I realized what nonsense that was.  Your tongue is adorable.  And someday – someday you might just be mortified by these pictures and I’m not going to lie about how that makes me giggle a little bit.

We’re getting peeks of your little personality these days, and man – you are a character.  You love to be on the move.  You prefer to play with the most dangerous things you can get your hands on.  If there’s an exposed cord in the vicinity, you will find it in seconds.  The torrid love affair you once had with the ceiling fan has been replaced by your new love of power cords.  The other day we had you in our bedroom and you were crawling around and making the little clucking noise.  Your dad said you were using sonar to navigate the room.  Only seconds later you had your hand on the cords in an outlet we had completely forgotten about.  As we frantically grabbed you and pulled you away – we realized that you were using your sonar to locate unsecured cords.  Obviously, you are a genius. 

You think your toys are okay, but the very best things to play with are things we never thought to put on our baby registry.  Socks, pans, the bottle brush, a package of wipes, a spoon.  We even gave you your own (unplugged) cord to play with (it’s not the same, you hardly touch it, much like the remote control with batteries removed.  You're on to our shenanigans).  You’re learning how sound works, so sometimes you’ll take your little toy drumstick and beat it on the pizza pan to hear the noise it makes.  You love any noise and I'm not sure - but I think we've caught you dancing when you catch a tune.  You’re also learning cause and effect and lately you’ve begun to love splish splashing in the bathtub, watching the water run out of the faucet, and the noise the cats make when you grab hold of their tails. 

Everything is a wonder to you.  I was sterilizing your bottles yesterday and you crawled up to me reaching to be held.  I picked you up and we watched the steam rise towards the ceiling for a solid minute.   You kept looking at the pot and then looking towards the ceiling.  Those moments, witnessing your innocent wonder at these seemingly simple things – those are the ones I try to lock away in my memory.  I'm so grateful for the opportunity to see the world through your eyes.  Someday you won’t remember a time when the world was so new and amazing in every way – I’m hoping, with these locked away memories, maybe we can find ways to remind you.

You’re an affectionate little turkey.  You love snuggles, and I am eating that up because I know it won't last forever.  You’ll sometimes be playing and moving and having a ball and then suddenly you’ll make a beeline for my lap, sit and snuggle for a minute (or a few seconds) and then go back to what you were doing.  You do this in the bathtub a lot.  We splash and play with rubber duckies and then suddenly you are launching your slippery wet body at me for a snuggle.  That’s usually how we figure out you’re tired.  We’re learning how you communicate with us.  We’re figuring this whole thing out. We've come a long way in 10 months - and honestly, it just keeps getting better.  I keep thinking "This.  This is pure perfection.  I want to freeze this time in our lives forever."  And then you keep exceeding that perfection and I have to say that whole thing all over again.  How blessed are we to have these moments of perfection?  How unbelievably blessed are we to have you?

I’m beyond excited about the person you’re becoming.  It’s amazing to watch and be a part of this transformation.  We brought you home 10 months ago and you were just a tiny, helpless little squish.  You ate, slept and pooped on repeat with very little deviation from those three things.  We loved you, but we didn’t even really know you yet.  Now we’re getting to know you and, oh man – you are a delight.  You are strong willed and single minded.  You are mischievous and curious and wondrous.  You are playful and funny – we can see peeks of your sense of humor every day.  You are good natured and tough and not easily frightened.  Simply put, you are AWESOME.  You are, without question, the best thing I have ever done. 

Happy 10 months sweet baby.

Love and kisses all over,

Mama

Dear Henry - Month 9

Happy 9 month birthday!

Dear Henry,

Happy 9 month birthday!

First, let’s take a minute and talk about math.  Math is something I hope you’re going to be super duper good at because you’re not going to have a lot of help from me on that.  For instance, last month I said something along the lines of making the most out of your 9^th month when, really, it was only your 8^th month.  I guess an argument could be made that I was just planning ahead to REALLY enjoy your 9^th month, but the more solid argument is that my math was wrong.  Oops.

Bright eyes - scored contraband bottle (empty).

 With that out of the way, let’s talk about how awesome you are.

You are.  SOOOO.  Awesome.

You are so much fun!  (Well, except for last night when you didn’t go to sleep until 10 p.m. – that wasn’t as much fun.  But MOSTLY you are SO fun!). You are starting to mimic us and will respond to noises we make with your own noises.  I feel like we’re having conversations in ancient Swahili some days, and I think we’re all taking great pleasure out of that.  We’ve figured out what your happy noises are and what your angry noises are and sometimes it’s just a matter of the inflection you put into those noises, but rest assured, we’re sort of figuring you out.  That said, I have no idea why you wouldn’t sleep last night.  I suspect you’re playing mind games with us sometimes.

This is what trouble looks like.

 You are officially mobile.  It didn’t happen like I was afraid it was going to happen (with the “publish” of the last monthly update).  Well, not exactly.  You’ve been mobile for a while – in a way that looks like a whole lot of effort and your dad pointed out looks exactly like you’re doing “the worm” – but it took you a while to figure out what that meant.  Like, you would flail your way across the room in pursuit of a toy, but you didn’t seem to understand that you didn’t need us to coax you to do that.  Until one day you did.  That day, I looked up and saw you flapping the laptop cord gleefully all around you, just before you shoved it in your mouth.  The next day you launched yourself at the power strip under the table.  When I blocked that off with a basket of Daisy’s toys, you decided that Daisy’s toys would be just fine, thankyouverymuch.  Now some of your favorite toys are Daisy’s food dish, and the water bowls.  If we’ve sufficiently distracted you from those things, you’re perfectly content to destroy some books.  The childproofing has begun.  We expect that you will show us all the areas of the house that present previously unforeseen dangers – in short order. 

Grandma helping you into the pool - you appear to be enjoying yourself, though this won't last long!

 We did lots more camping in the past month.  You are officially an expert and have even made a couple of forays into the pool.  You can’t decide exactly how you feel about the pool.  You always start out looking somewhat pained and then after that mostly resigned.  Although a couple of times you actually started to fall asleep in the pool, so it can’t be all that bad.  Maybe it will grow on you as you get older.

Daisy - guarding you.  You - playing with garbage (your favorite)!

Your relationship with Daisy continues to grow.  She is the one thing guaranteed to bring a smile to your face.  During a recent car trip, you were fussing and loudly complaining about being stuck in your car seat for so long.  Then Daisy stood up to take in her surroundings and immediately your complaints turned into gleeful giggles and cooing.  You delight in her!  And she is so patient with you.  We set you down on the floor next to her one evening and you grabbed her tail.  She patiently watched you grab and play with her tail until you tried to stick it in your mouth. She then jumped up and ran into the other room.  We’ve talked about it, Henry, and Daisy would like you to know that she is not for eating. 

This guy LOVES the camper!

We had to say goodbye to Oliver this past month.  It means nothing to you – you only got your grubby little paws on him a couple times when he accidentally sat too close to you.  He was very tolerant of you – in a way that I never really expected him to be because he was a crabby old man.  But then, he was always good with kids.  It was always such a surprise.  He’d take my finger off getting a piece of food out of my hand, and then turn around and gently nibble it away from the nearest toddler.  In any case, I sometimes think that Daisy handled losing Oliver so well because she still has you to love on.  I realize that is humanizing Daisy, but it sure does seem like she’s crazy about you!

Daddy time snuggles.

 Know who else is crazy about you?  Your dad.  And you’re pretty crazy about him too.  One of your favorite things to do is swap his arms for my arms and then turn around and beam at him.  We play a game in the bathtub – after you’re all scrubbed up and are playing in the water, your dad will start peeking at you in the mirror.  No matter how tired you are, your whole face lights up and you shriek and wiggle like crazy at the unexpected delight of seeing his face in the mirror.  Even after you’ve figured the game out and you sit for long seconds staring at the mirror just waiting for him to appear, the sight of him just fills you up with giggles and shrieks.  Between Daisy and your daddy, you sort of hit the playmate jackpot.

Bath time hair = also epic

I find that these days I am more troubled by what I hear in the news.  I cry more often.  It could be that I’m just WATCHING the news more than I used to, but it’s also probably because my stake in the world has changed significantly.  I still believe that there are mostly good people out there and I want you to believe that too.  I also don’t want to be the kind of mom that raises you to fear everything and everyone, even though that’s sometimes exactly how I feel.  The other day I was driving to pick you up from daycare and found a bunch of kids jumping around waving pieces of paper and shrieking at passing cars.  They were having a lemonade stand.  I pulled over and paid my $.50 (they were having a BOGO sale on the lemonade, apparently.  I was impressed with my ability to sniff out the clearance lemonade stand – but I passed.  There was just one of me.  One lemonade was plenty) and they were so excited and happy.  And I decided that I wanted you to be the kind of kid to get all excited and shrieky about a lemonade stand.  And more importantly I wanted you to grow into an adult who would pull over to buy a $.50 cup of lemonade from a bunch of shrieky, excited little kids. 

Hair.  HAIR.

This past month there was also a lot of hubbub about some music artists who did some scandalous thing on some music awards show (I’d give you the details, but by the time you read this these people will probably be irrelevant and you’ll have no idea who they are.  I mean, I hope.)  I’ve been kicking that around in my brain – how I would want to address this with you if you were old enough to know what I’m talking about.  I mean, there’s an argument in there for keeping your daughters off the pole, and there’s an argument in there for raising your sons to respect women but I’m not sure that’s what I want you to take away from this.  I mean – OBVIOUSLY I want you to respect women.  But I feel like that’s in the day to day of raising you, of being your mama.  If I do my job right, that’s just how you’ll wind up.  It’s also your dad’s job to show you how much he respects me, and other women.  WE are your first and best role models.  So – I guess what I would want to tell you to take away from all of that is that you shouldn’t take things you see on TV (or in video games, or in movies) too seriously.  You will see a thousand shows in your lifetime wherein someone kills someone else – but it’s never ever ever (EVER.  EVER.) going to be okay for you to do that.  That’s not real life. It’s not how real people behave – it’s just a show that they’re putting on.  They’re playing pretend. So please don’t take your life lessons and your view of the world from what you see in mainstream media and hoo boy, if you get everything you know about women from what you hear in pop song lyrics?  We are both in big trouble.. 

Anyway, enough about big world stuff.  Back to how cute you are.

My heart.

 You’re starting to look so much like a real boy.  Not as much like a baby.  Your body is getting SO long, and your face is more expressive.  Your hair is still epic (and I’m not using that word lightly.  Your hair actually defies gravity.), but even that is a little easier to tame these days.  You’re becoming more independent and you need us less every day.  You can feed yourself.  You can move around on your own.  There’s a certain sadness in watching the little squish of a baby we brought home from the hospital 9 months ago disappear, but there’s a tremendous amount of pride we take in the little boy you’re becoming.  Each tiny milestone is cause for celebration.  Eat it up, because someday we will not think it’s that big of a deal that you can pick up a tiny puff with your two fingers, but right now?  Right now it’s the most amazing thing you’ve ever done.  Until you do the next thing that is the most amazing thing you’ve ever done, and I sometimes wonder if you aren’t just the most amazing baby in the entire world because it’s not possible that there’s a baby any more amazing than you.  I will probably always feel this way, because I am your mama and that’s what mama’s do.  So please remember that when you are 16 and I am hollering at you about something that will seem incredibly important at the time.  You are amazing.  You are the most amazing baby in the world.  I will always feel that way.

Love and kisses all over,

Mama

Oliver

I was twenty-three years old and living every bit of my age in North Carolina when he came into my life.  My mom told me to stay away from him – that I wasn’t ready for him, that it was a big commitment and I should really think about what I was getting into.  But I took one look at that face and it was too late for things like logic and rationality.  He was mine.  It was meant to be.

 

The truth of the matter is that he was probably going to go to the shelter if I didn’t take him and I figured that if I couldn’t handle him – that’s where he’d wind up anyway, so the very least I could do is try.  He fit in the palm of my hand when I carried him home. 

I had a used wire crate that I used to confine him until the day he tore through the wires and made it so that it was less safe inside the crate than outside the crate.  Thus began the adventure of creating a “run of the house” dog.  We sacrificed a lot to the cause – shoes, blankets, and at least a half dozen of my roommate’s bras.  He had a thing for bras.  He was always such a ladies man.

He truly was a ladies man.  He was fearful of men, for reasons that I never really knew.  Possibly because I was single for most of his puppyhood/young adulthood and so he only really knew females.  Maybe he had a bad experience that I wasn’t aware of.  He was quirky and submissive and he’d crouch and pee whenever someone new approached him.  I was asked all the time if he was a rescue dog, if he was abused?  I always felt like it was a perfect testament to his character that he made me explain to people that no, I was the only owner he ever had, and I certainly never abused him.  He was just sensitive.  And quirky.  And weird.

I often say that I’m surprised that he lived as long as he did.  On at LEAST three separate occasions, it seemed that he was trying his darnedest to die.  It started the day – he must have been about 2?  I was driving him home from a friends house, the back window cracked for him to take in the smells.  Cracked, mind you, not rolled all the way down.  Less than half a block away from my apartment building, he spotted a cat and in a split second eruption of sound and motion, he was out the window and in the street.  I slammed on the brakes and just sat there, parked in the middle of the street thinking “Oh.  My god.  My dog is dead.  My dog is dead.  My dog is dead…”  Then, from the blackness at the back of my car came Oliver, trotting slowly, looking extremely confused.   I was so mad at him.  SO MAD.  I put the car in gear and drove slowly into my parking lot, making him trot along beside me instead of allowing him back into the car.

The second time I was driving him to a boarding kennel  (those who knew Oliver in his later years may not believe that he was ever a dog who would be kenneled, but there was a time!) before I left for a weekend with friends who were visiting.  I was driving a rental car, and had Oliver in the back seat – again, with the windows cracked.  Suddenly I heard a yelp and the sound of him struggling in the backseat and when I glanced behind I saw that he had stepped on the electronic window lever and closed his neck in the window.  He was freaking out.  You know that smell that dogs emit when they’re freaking out (No?  Just me?  Great.)  Well that smell was all over that car.  That.  Rental.  Car.  It took us days to air that thing out. 

Finally, the most infamous attempt at ending his own life was while on vacation with my family up north.  My sister and I had taken the dogs for a walk.  As we were walking back up the path towards the cabin we had rented, we heard a car coming up behind us.  The car couldn’t have been going more than 10 miles an hour.  As if in slow motion, while I tried to tug Oliver towards the side of the road, he bucked, shirked loose of his collar, and stumbled into the road JUST as the car approached.  The car hit him.  He fell over.  He screamed.  He was completely unscathed (that car was barely moving.  It’s like he basically had to run into the car for it to hit him).   This dog – he has taken years off my life.

He’s also given me such joy.  Of course, my mom was right and I had no business taking on the responsibility of a dog when I was that young and stupid.  But we survived, even if we had to learn some things the hard way (don’t give dogs pear beer.  For that matter, don’t give humans pear beer).  He was my best friend, getting me through some of my darkest, loneliest times.  He pre-dates Todd, and traveled across the country with me to move back to Minnesota.  We grew up together.  He was my first baby.

He was such a loyal, good boy.  He loved to snuggle and give kisses and he LIVED for a game of ball.  He was single mindedly obsessed with his ball.  And not all balls are created equal because he knew the difference and wasn’t interested in anything that wasn’t his.  He’d play fetch until he collapsed.  He’d drop that ball into the middle of whatever else was going on in the yard – raking, gardening.  I can’t tell you how many times he dropped it into an enormous pile of leaves causing me to have to dig back through them to fish it out and throw it again.  I always felt like the other dogs knew he was obsessed and liked to tease him about it.  My parent’s old dog used to grab the ball and run around with it – playing keep away with him.  Later on, Daisy would do the same thing. 

He loved to swim – or more accurately, he also loved to play fetch in the water.  As a young dog, if we were swimming and he was on shore, he’d swim out to check on us.  He’d drape his paws over  my shoulders and I’d hold him by the butt and we’d sit out in the water until he was sure I was okay, and then he’d swim back to shore.  He was so, so loyal. 

He was also a royal pain in the butt.  I took him with me once on a second date with a man who also loved dogs and had a yellow lab of his own.  We thought this would be a fun double date.  Five minutes after we arrived at the apartment, Oliver peed on that man’s curtains.  Needless to say, that relationship didn’t work out – although not for that reason.  It is possible that Oliver knew something I didn’t know.

He went downhill so fast.  At least that’s how it seemed, although as we look through old pictures and talk about the way he used to be, it occurs to us that it’s been a long time since he’d had that special Oliver “spark”. 

Last night he got whatever he wanted, which wasn’t much anymore.  His appetite had diminished and he looked at everything I set in front of him with a mixture of supreme suspicion and disdain.  Still, he ate some hamburger, some hamburger bun, some peanut butter, and a small dish of ice cream.  He got to lick all the dinner bowls.  We’ve been struggling for days, trying to figure out if it was time.  I guess the thing of it is, when you have to ask if it’s time, it’s probably time. 

I was doing okay until I decided it was time to start saying goodbye.  I lay down on the floor next to him.  I stroked his bony, hollowed out face and we gave each other kisses.  I sang to him.  For a while during his life, he seemed to suffer from seizures.  Whenever he’d have an episode, I’d lay next to him, stroking his fur and singing the song.  The song is simple.  It’s basically just me telling him that his mama loves him over and over again to some nursery rhyme tune.  It likely comforted me more than it ever comforted him, but they are words I needed him to know anyway. 

His mama loves him.  She’s going to miss him so much.  He’s such a good boy.  Such a handsome boy. 

In the end, it went peacefully.  He didn’t even have to enter the building of the vet who took such amazing care of him with very little reward.  Oliver was not a fan of the vet and Oliver was not the type of dog who sucked things up and dealt with it.  He stayed in the car, and his last memories were of us snuggled up against him, stroking him and telling him how good he was.  How handsome he was.  How dumb he was.  How much we’re going to miss him. 

For the first time in 13 years, he wasn’t wagging his tail when I walked in the door tonight.  It’s okay.  We’re okay.  He’s more than okay.  He’s buried in a beautiful little spot in the back of my parents’ yard, near his best friend in the whole world who is probably already teasing him by playing keep away with his raggedy old red ball. He's up there being fun police of all the dogs in doggy heaven.  

I carry you in my heart, little buddy.

Goodbye, sweet boy.

Dear Henry - Month 8

8 month old guy

Dear Henry,

Happy 8 month birthday!

Man, it’s been 8 months since you began training us to look at the world with different eyes.  In some ways the world looks completely different than it looked in the 35 years before I met you, and in other ways it remains steady and strong the way it’s been for long before either one of us walked upon it.  We’re teaching each other things, you and I.  You are teaching me patience and fortitude and how to make rice cereal with sweet potatoes while you scream at the top of your lungs.  And I am teaching you how to blow raspberries, laugh at stupid jokes, and (with any luck) an appreciation of good music.  There’s plenty more to learn, on both ends, but I feel like we’re off to a solid start.

I haven't been able to catch this on video - but this raspberry thing you do is hilarious!

Speaking of teaching you things -- word on the street is that your brain is a sponge.  You're learning so much so quickly and we are your greatest teachers.  So, I feel like we're probably going to win heaps of parenting awards for teaching you this as one of your first things:

You're welcome!

Sometime between the 7^th and 8^th month, I stopped taking so many pictures.  The weekly pictures stopped.  This wasn’t a conscious decision and I am certain that I will have a profound regret of this someday in the near future, but the best explanation I can come up with is that – life happened.  And this is the way it goes sometimes.  Life happens and you just hop on board and roll with it and maybe snap a picture or two along the way but there’s no time for scheduled portraits or weekly growth updates.  I suspect that life will be happening a lot more often in the weeks and months to come, so my guess is that the weekly growth updates are now a thing of the past, and we’ll focus on making sure we catch the monthly ones. 

So, almost immediately after I posted the 7 month blog, wherein you were just starting to sit up on your own, you mastered sitting up on your own.  Like, it was within minutes, probably.  I pushed “publish” and then you never wanted to lay down on your back again because sitting up is way more fun and – oh hey – look at this!  I can also lean in several different directions and perform all manner of other crazy yoga poses while reaching for toys, animals, and sometimes garbage.  And so, my sweet boy, I am half afraid to hit “publish” on this blog post because here, at the end of your 7^th month, you are working very hard on crawling.  You are so close.  You easily hoist yourself up onto all fours and rock back and forth like you hope to launch yourself forward that way.  In the last couple of days you seem to have figured out that it has something to do with pulling one leg forward and so you sit with one leg out behind you, one leg tucked underneath you, rocking and concentrating.  It is without a doubt that as soon as I click “publish” on this post, you are going to finally rocket forward into crawling and once again our lives will never ever ever be the same.  And, I love you so much, but we are so not ready for that!  We find ourselves cheering you on while we watch you try to figure this out, at the same time mentally calculating what becomes of us once you are truly mobile.  The house, the animals, nothing is safe.  You are supposed to be my little baby!  This crawling stuff is for big boys!  My brain virtually explodes.  So, if mama needs a little drink after she pushes publish on this one, I think everyone will understand.

Look out Bubby!

This near mobility doesn't bode well for the animals.  You are crazy about the animals - all the animals.  You shriek with joy whenever one of them walks past your line of sight.  Daisy is the only one brave enough to approach, but the others get caught in your quick little hands from time to time.  They've all been really good sports about it.  I think they even like it - at least at first. 

My beautiful beach baby.

This past month you were a camping fool.  We must have gone camping 100 times (p.s.  your dad has this thing where he thinks I exaggerate sometimes.  Choose your side in that argument wisely.).  You got so good at it.  We spent several Friday evenings in a “turn and burn” routine wherein your dad would get home, I’d get you fed and into your pajama’s, we’d load up the car and hit the road.  Your dad and I would eat on the way to wherever we were going and you would, eventually, pass out in your car seat.  Sometimes you’d wake up when we got there and party all night long.  Other times you’d sleep peacefully while we got everything set up, then I’d get you out, give you some more food, and put you to bed.  You seem to be pretty comfortable with wherever you are and your easygoing nature makes you a wonderful camping companion.  During these trips you had your first trip to a beach, where you weren’t crazy about the water but were super excited to dig through the beach bags.  The possibility seems to exist that you will inherit your mama’s great joy in digging through other people’s stuff.  If this is the case, please know that it will eventually prove to be both a burden and a great gift.

First time in the big boy tub!

In the midst of all this camping, you got sick.

You had cold like symptoms for a few weeks and we just chalked those up to teething since you were also showing other symptoms of teething.  Then one day the cough sounded way more dramatic and chesty, so we called the nurse line and they said that because you’re still so little, we should probably bring you in.  So – off I went with you to the doctor.  You were a regular little entertainer at the doctors office.  You smiled and flirted at everyone that walked by.  When the doctor tried to look in your ears, you kicked him in the chest.  At one point they asked me if you were always in such a good mood and I had to say that yes, you pretty much are almost always in a good mood.  So they told me not to worry about you.  You are a well fed, growing, healthy looking boy with a good disposition and who is not afraid to kick the doctor in the chest when he’s doing something you don’t want him to do.  The cough may sound dramatic, but they said it was nothing more than viral bronchitis and it would work itself out in a few days. 

Daddy set your high chair up and now you eat like a big boy!

It occurred to me during those days, specifically during one of these times where you let go a mighty cough and it sprayed all over my face – that this was probably not going to end well for me.

What you might not know about me, as over time this appears to be mellowing in teeny tiny increments and is generally not something universally found in a parent child relationship, is that I’m a pretty competitive person.  It’s not the biggest thing about me.  It's something you will likely never encounter (although, I don't know, it's probably best to bring your A-game to future Chutes and Ladders matches). I think that most people would not use this as a descriptor of me (although your dad, he absolutely would), but I hate not being good enough and I strive to over-achieve.  I don’t like to play games I’m not good at and have been known to practice alone until I feel confident enough to play with others.  I don’t always have to win (this is something your dad may argue against) but I at least have to be able to hold my own.  Let me just tell you – I won at being sick.  I beat you fair and square and then some.    Whatever you had, I got times 1000 and it laid me out for several miserable days.  These were days that you were especially excited to see me, you became a little bit of a mama’s boy, which helped my spirits even if I didn’t always have the energy to play and snuggle with you like you wanted.  In a striking real life display of how God only gives you as much as you can handle, during the days I was feeling the crummiest – you decided you wanted to go to bed early.  We were dumbfounded.  Two nights in a row you wanted to go to bed an hour earlier than usual.  You didn’t want to eat.  You didn’t want to play.  You didn’t want to snuggle.  So we went through your bedtime routine and you passed out without a peep until wake up time the next morning.  You’re such a good baby in so many different ways, it’s sometimes not a challenge at all to see how God works through you.

Too cool to be impressed by things like rides and games.  Too young to know about things like cotton candy.

When we weren't busy being sickly, we had lots of fun. You got to go to your first County Fair!  It was cold (freezing for July in MN), but you took it like a champ and loved looking around at all the bright colors and different people.  

I feel like he should probably get used to this ride.

We’re becoming more adventuresome in our outings with you as you get older.  I guess we figure we can’t keep you cooped up forever (I mean, right?).  We took you to Target recently and your dad told me we <really> need to start taking you out more as you looked at everything in that store with an expression of awe and wonder.  To be fair, that is the exact same expression that I usually have on my face at Target as well, so it could just be that you have good taste.  That trip to Target was the first time we let you ride around the store like a “big boy”.  Instead of your car seat or your stroller, we just washed down the cart and strapped you in.  You did SO good!  It helps that you are more aware of your surroundings now so you watched everything going on around you with great interest – that was your entertainment.  You rewarded us for this trip with a most epic blow out.  I mean, this was the big time.  And it was a stealth blow out because neither of us caught it in time.  And by that I mean – both you and your dad needed a wardrobe change.  We also had to finally figure out how to get the liner out of your car seat so we could wash it.  It was…monumental.  Our hats off to you, little dude.  Well played.

Life as we know it.

Life continues to be an adventure with you.  I find myself excited to come home to you at the end of the day, to hear what kind of day you had (even though the days are all still kind of the same - eat, sleep, poop, squeal).  You are such a good baby.  Like, REALLY good.  Like a balm to my soul on a rough day, or a shot of sunshine to amp up the happiness when times are good.  This is not exaggeration by the way, I am utterly smitten with you and your impish personality, your shrieky little giggle, and even your inexplicably razor sharp fingernails.  There's not a piece of you that doesn't shine and I hope that if we teach you anything (besides that pretty cool mouth noise trick above) - it's how to hold on to that shine and share it with the world.  

Let's outdo ourselves in the 9th month, shall we?

Love and kisses all over,

Mama

Dear Henry - Month 7

Dear Henry,

Happy 7 month birthday!

Proof that sleeping is something that used to be "your thing."

It’s a day late this month because we spent your actual 7 month birthday camping.  We went back to Crazy Acres for the 4^th of July and you did SOOOO much better camping.  It turns out that you don’t hate nature at all!   You’re actually a pretty decent camper, despite the fact that at some point during this trip, you decided you don’t need to sleep anymore.  Like, ever (this is written as I listen to you voicing your strong disagreement about the current nap situation).  On our last night camping we set you all up at your Grandma and Grandpa’s place so you could have a sleepover.  We got home around 10:30 and were just getting ready for bed when your Grandma showed up with you wide awake and giggly in her arms saying that you wouldn’t sleep.   That was new!  You’ve always been a really good sleeper!  We are apparently suffering a setback.  Either that, or you were just having too much fun camping and didn’t want to miss a minute of it!

This trip was your first time in a baby pool.  You did pretty good!  You also got to sit in the grass and you LOVED to watch all the dogs playing.  You are a dog person for sure.  This may be the only clear way you take after me at this point.*

It looks like she is guarding you, but I'm pretty sure she's just waiting for you to make her some food.

In fact, you’re taking a much bigger interest in the animals in general these days.  Someone should probably warn them.  The cats pretty much stay far away from you, but you like to watch them as they move around you.  Daisy is the only one brave enough to get close to you and you have learned how to pay her back for all those surprise face kisses by grabbing her ears and her jowls.  Just this afternoon you were playing with her feet while she was trying to sleep.  You two must have some kind of agreement because she tolerates the manhandling and you tolerate the incessant (annoying!) licking.  In fact, when she licks your hands now, you giggle like crazy.  It’s incredibly cute to watch you two together sometimes.

 This month you got to meet your “Auntie” Margy.  She came all the way from North Carolina to meet you.  She made me sneak her into your room in the middle of the night because you were sleeping when she got there.  I think she was a little bit smitten with you.  This seems to be the way of things.  You can be pretty charming when you want to be, and we spent almost the whole time she was here doting on you. 

All that doting was well timed because just a couple short weeks later your dad and I spent our first weekend away from you.  I am happy to report that we all survived.  It was way less difficult than I thought it would be.  Mostly because I knew you were in good hands.  You stayed with Grandma Julie and Grandpa Jerry and they took you to a birthday party where you got to hang out with the whole family.  I knew you were having fun too.  It sounds like you didn’t miss us at all, and I was happy to hear that.  It would have been much harder for us to have fun if I had been worried that you were sad without us. We did miss you, but we had lots of fun on our own and came back refreshed and very excited to see you!  The feeling might have been at least a little reciprocated.  The evening we brought you home, I was sitting on the couch after laying you down on the floor to play and the next thing I knew you were rolling up against my legs grinning and giggling like crazy at me.  It’s going to be worth going away sometimes in order to come home to sweet moments like that.

We celebrated our first Father’s Day this past month.  You bought your daddy a book called “geek dad” – full of cool geeky projects for you and your dad to do someday.  I bought your dad a sewer hose for the camper.  Your daddy is a lucky guy.  I was going to make your dad do a blog post in honor of the occasion, but time got away from us.  Time seems to do that a lot these days.

You seem to be set on level 10 rapid fire learning and growing mode right now.  At your 6 month appointment you weighed almost 19 pounds and were about 26 inches long.  Somehow you seem bigger than that.  You’re getting the hang of sitting up by yourself and I can see you getting a little stronger every day.  When we first started sitting you up, you could do it only by propping your arms on your legs and leaning forward (which inevitably led to a face first tumble onto the floor).  Now you can hold yourself up unsupported for short periods of time and despite the fact that you still roll around like a weeble wobble, this seems to be your preferred way to lounge.  When you’re not learning how to sit, you’re learning how to roll over and <gasp, cry, choke> crawl!  No, you’re not crawling yet.  But you’re just one lightbulb moment away from it, you little turkey.  You’ve learned how to roll yourself completely over and have used that to maneuver yourself around a room.  The day I brought you home from your 6 month check-up, you chased the little book they gave us across the whole room by rolling and wiggling.  These days if we put you on your tummy, your arms and legs work furiously in a crawling motion.  I think once you figure out how to get yourself up on your knees, you’re going to take off like a firecracker and there will be no stopping you.  Heaven help us all.

 We officially want to freeze this moment in time.  You are so much fun right now.  Everyone comments on how good natured you are, and it’s true.  You are almost always in a good mood.  When you have rare moments of temper, your dad and I look at each other completely befuddled because they are SO outside of the norm for you.  You love to laugh and talk and shriek.  You are pretty easy to entertain and you seem to be content to hang out with just about anyone right now.  You’re starting to recognize us more – your little face lights up when you spot one of us and you seem to notice if one of us is missing.  You’re also starting to reach for us when we hold our arms out for you – let me tell you, little guy, I’ve been waiting 7 long months for THAT moment, so it’s more than a little gratifying. 

These summer days are the sweetest we have ever known and sure, the grass isn’t getting mowed and the weeds have completely taken over my flower gardens (I keep wanting to go rescue my lilies, but I try to remind myself that there will always be more lilies.  This time with you at this glorious stage  - is fleeting) and the house inexplicably and stubbornly smells like dog – but the days have never been sweeter.  We’re so lucky to be your parents.  That’s maybe not something you’ll hear us say a lot by the time you’re old enough to understand what we’re saying, so I guess I just want to make that clear now. 

Love and kisses all over,

Mama

*Henry at 6 months and me at about 6 months.  Despite the lack of resemblance, we're pretty sure he's mine.