Dear Jack,
Thbbbt to you, too!
Love,
Mom
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Six Months Old
Dear Jack,
Today is your six month birthday. We are halfway to that magical one-year mark.
A lot of things about this time aren't quite how I pictured them to be.
I thought I would still be nursing you, but over the last month, your nursing sessions got shorter and shorter and your formula intake got bigger and bigger until it was time to just be done. I'm sorry I didn't make it to a year with you, or even six months, but I will say that the pressure of pumping at work and not being able to share the joy of feeding you with your dad were intense and five months of wonderful breastmilk will just have to be enough.
I also thought you would be sleeping through the night by now. Everyone says not to compare siblings and I should have listened to them. Your sister sleeping through the night at four months has about as much to do with you as the migratory patterns of African swallows.
I had no idea you would be this mobile... you can roll across a room, roll back to front and front to back at will, get up on all fours and inch forward with your legs (which results in a face plant as your hands and arms don't really know what to do, yet). In short, you may be crawling any day now.
Your take on solid food has also surprised me. As hungry as you get (and as angry as you get about being hungry), I would have thought solid food would have been very exciting for you. Instead, you have my sensitive gag reflex and make the most horrid faces as the solid food hits the back of your tongue. You absolutely, positively, without a doubt HATE rice cereal. They say you have to introduce foods up to a dozen times in order for a child to take to that food. After try number fourteen, we realized it just wasn't going to happen. I had no idea little babies could purse their lips so tightly closed. On a related note, we are on try number four with the dreaded green beans, but on try two with peas, you thought they might be okay and just this evening, we tried oatmeal which you refused to eat in your highchair, but took to just fine if your daddy was holding you.
Your dad and I are as enamored of you as I had imagined we would be, but your sister is far more your friend and champion than I would have thought this early on. Just this evening, I had you up at my school for the Kindergarten play and all the students were touching your hands and arms and your sister came over and lowered the shade on your stroller, saying, "That's my brother!"
Six months. Was it only six months ago that I was eating lunch at Mama Fu's all in a tither over the impending c-section?
I can hardly remember all that upset. I expected that a c-section would be just terrible, but like so many of my other experiences, the expectation and the reality were far removed from each other. But I will say this: if none of my other exceptions for your first year are met, could I at least have the one where you start sleeping through the night?
At least a few times a week?
Love,
Mom
Today is your six month birthday. We are halfway to that magical one-year mark.
A lot of things about this time aren't quite how I pictured them to be.
I thought I would still be nursing you, but over the last month, your nursing sessions got shorter and shorter and your formula intake got bigger and bigger until it was time to just be done. I'm sorry I didn't make it to a year with you, or even six months, but I will say that the pressure of pumping at work and not being able to share the joy of feeding you with your dad were intense and five months of wonderful breastmilk will just have to be enough.
I also thought you would be sleeping through the night by now. Everyone says not to compare siblings and I should have listened to them. Your sister sleeping through the night at four months has about as much to do with you as the migratory patterns of African swallows.
I had no idea you would be this mobile... you can roll across a room, roll back to front and front to back at will, get up on all fours and inch forward with your legs (which results in a face plant as your hands and arms don't really know what to do, yet). In short, you may be crawling any day now.
Your take on solid food has also surprised me. As hungry as you get (and as angry as you get about being hungry), I would have thought solid food would have been very exciting for you. Instead, you have my sensitive gag reflex and make the most horrid faces as the solid food hits the back of your tongue. You absolutely, positively, without a doubt HATE rice cereal. They say you have to introduce foods up to a dozen times in order for a child to take to that food. After try number fourteen, we realized it just wasn't going to happen. I had no idea little babies could purse their lips so tightly closed. On a related note, we are on try number four with the dreaded green beans, but on try two with peas, you thought they might be okay and just this evening, we tried oatmeal which you refused to eat in your highchair, but took to just fine if your daddy was holding you.
Your dad and I are as enamored of you as I had imagined we would be, but your sister is far more your friend and champion than I would have thought this early on. Just this evening, I had you up at my school for the Kindergarten play and all the students were touching your hands and arms and your sister came over and lowered the shade on your stroller, saying, "That's my brother!"
Six months. Was it only six months ago that I was eating lunch at Mama Fu's all in a tither over the impending c-section?
I can hardly remember all that upset. I expected that a c-section would be just terrible, but like so many of my other experiences, the expectation and the reality were far removed from each other. But I will say this: if none of my other exceptions for your first year are met, could I at least have the one where you start sleeping through the night?
At least a few times a week?
Love,
Mom
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Dormez-vous?
Dear Jack,
You are, right now, asleep in your very own crib.
Not the pack and play.
Not my bed.
Not my arms.
In your crib.
For the first time ever.
Sigh.
What's that I see? Is it a light? At the end of a very long, very rewarding tunnel?
I think maybe it is.
Love,
Mom
You are, right now, asleep in your very own crib.
Not the pack and play.
Not my bed.
Not my arms.
In your crib.
For the first time ever.
Sigh.
What's that I see? Is it a light? At the end of a very long, very rewarding tunnel?
I think maybe it is.
Love,
Mom
Saturday, October 31, 2009
A Little Bit of History
Dear Jack,
As a historian, I am fascinated by the idea that we are living through what will become your history. What will look back on as significant moments? What shared experiences will define your generation?
Will you heard people asking, for example, if you were alive during the H1N1 influenza outbreak of aught nine?
You were, of course. And we recently had your H1N1 "scare." Of course, by "scare" I mean a very overly cautious nurse practitioner calling your 102.4 degree fever a sign of flu (among other things) and giving you a flu test (which cost $35) and then reading a barely (if at all) visible red line as a positive test result.
Out of respect (and maybe concern) for all the other babies and older folks in our lives, we kept you from daycare for three days and didn't take you up to church.
A quarantine, really, is what I am describing.
After 24 hours, your fever broke, to be followed by a reduction in appetite and copious amounts of drool.
Last night, I thought I felt a little bump in your lower gum.
So there you have it. Your H1N1 story.
Or possibly, the story of how you started cutting your first tooth.
Love,
Mom
As a historian, I am fascinated by the idea that we are living through what will become your history. What will look back on as significant moments? What shared experiences will define your generation?
Will you heard people asking, for example, if you were alive during the H1N1 influenza outbreak of aught nine?
You were, of course. And we recently had your H1N1 "scare." Of course, by "scare" I mean a very overly cautious nurse practitioner calling your 102.4 degree fever a sign of flu (among other things) and giving you a flu test (which cost $35) and then reading a barely (if at all) visible red line as a positive test result.
Out of respect (and maybe concern) for all the other babies and older folks in our lives, we kept you from daycare for three days and didn't take you up to church.
A quarantine, really, is what I am describing.
After 24 hours, your fever broke, to be followed by a reduction in appetite and copious amounts of drool.
Last night, I thought I felt a little bump in your lower gum.
So there you have it. Your H1N1 story.
Or possibly, the story of how you started cutting your first tooth.
Love,
Mom
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Aunt Jennie Sue
Dear Jack,
Living as far away as we do, you won't get to see a lot of your Aunt Jennie Sue and that's a shame. Aunt Jennie has eight boys of her own and that makes her more than an expert on little boys.
I think about this because a couple of years ago, Aunt Jennie Sue gave your sister a Glow Worm as a gift... a Christmas present, I believe. Your sister didn't really think much of it at the time and so now it is yours.
You love it. A lot.
I mean, you really, really, really love that Glow Worm.
You hug it. You kiss it. You look at it. It is, in fact, the only thing in this world that can get you to go to sleep in your crib. You will actually stop in the middle of a screaming fit to look at its glowy face and listen to its pleasant lullabies. One night, when you were particularly sleep resistant, I pressed that Glow Worm's tummy at least forty times. And you slept because of it.
I didn't get the Glow Worm with your sister. I guess maybe it's a boy thing.
Aunt Jennie Sue would know.
And that's why even though you won't see her very often, I think the two of you will get along pretty well.
Love,
Mom
Living as far away as we do, you won't get to see a lot of your Aunt Jennie Sue and that's a shame. Aunt Jennie has eight boys of her own and that makes her more than an expert on little boys.
I think about this because a couple of years ago, Aunt Jennie Sue gave your sister a Glow Worm as a gift... a Christmas present, I believe. Your sister didn't really think much of it at the time and so now it is yours.
You love it. A lot.
I mean, you really, really, really love that Glow Worm. You hug it. You kiss it. You look at it. It is, in fact, the only thing in this world that can get you to go to sleep in your crib. You will actually stop in the middle of a screaming fit to look at its glowy face and listen to its pleasant lullabies. One night, when you were particularly sleep resistant, I pressed that Glow Worm's tummy at least forty times. And you slept because of it.
I didn't get the Glow Worm with your sister. I guess maybe it's a boy thing.
Aunt Jennie Sue would know.
And that's why even though you won't see her very often, I think the two of you will get along pretty well.
Love,
Mom
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Sweet Berry Farm
Dear Jack,
As a teacher and a mother, I find it so very easy to take time in the summers to do whatever you and your sister want to do, to find interesting places to go and neat things to do.
It's much more difficult during the school year.
That's why I was so grateful that your dad and I took the time to take you and your sister out to Sweet Berry Farm this weekend. It was your five month birthday and it was nice to just spent the day doing something out of the ordinary.
My favorite moment was when your dad and sister had left to go on a hayride (your sister's favorite part, by the way). You and I were somewhat stuck with nothing to do. You were fussy and in the end, the only thing to do was settle down under a shade tree and discretely nurse you. Sitting there, holding you, looking around at all of those other families, spending time together warmed my heart.
Isn't it funny that it takes leaving the house to go somewhere off in the middle of the hill country to take the time to really enjoy the simple moments. Taking time to relish the mother-son bond. Taking time to sit and and marvel at God's handiwork... in the fall colors, in the warm sun, in your face and in your sister's.
Taking time to smell the pumpkins, if you will.
Love,
Mom
As a teacher and a mother, I find it so very easy to take time in the summers to do whatever you and your sister want to do, to find interesting places to go and neat things to do.
It's much more difficult during the school year.
That's why I was so grateful that your dad and I took the time to take you and your sister out to Sweet Berry Farm this weekend. It was your five month birthday and it was nice to just spent the day doing something out of the ordinary.
My favorite moment was when your dad and sister had left to go on a hayride (your sister's favorite part, by the way). You and I were somewhat stuck with nothing to do. You were fussy and in the end, the only thing to do was settle down under a shade tree and discretely nurse you. Sitting there, holding you, looking around at all of those other families, spending time together warmed my heart.
Isn't it funny that it takes leaving the house to go somewhere off in the middle of the hill country to take the time to really enjoy the simple moments. Taking time to relish the mother-son bond. Taking time to sit and and marvel at God's handiwork... in the fall colors, in the warm sun, in your face and in your sister's.
Taking time to smell the pumpkins, if you will.Love,
Mom
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