Jack Jack Jack!
Christmas with you was just wonderful. You magicked up the whole experience for us. I’ll never forget dad and I holding you in a group hug, rocking back and forth in the darkened room, singing you to sleep with Silent Night. You are not the cuddliest – you are too much of a mover and a shaker to sit still long enough for hugs and cuddles – so we take our cuddles when we can.
Today is Monday, and I’m at work, and you’re at the babysitter. Kim Wilson is her name, and she’s a lovely lady with a little prefab home on this big farm lot. Whenever I drop you off with her, you wiggle and kick your legs with excitement to see her. She always says ‘Give Mama some sugar,’ and then I kiss your cheek and leave you behind and sigh as I go. When I pick you up, you also kind of lose your mind with excitement, and then get totally ticked off when I dump you right in the carseat instead of giving you boob, which is probably what you actually want when you get happy to see me. But anyway, today is uneventful and unexciting and I’m working and so go most of my days these days. Yesterday was Sunday, and in the morning dad woke to your cries at 7ish. It was still pitch dark outside, and pouring rain. I stayed in bed (I do the overnights, because you STILL HAVE THEM DEAR GOD, and dad does the mornings.) Dad fumbled through feeding you breakfast and then brought you to bed, and I nursed you there and then we hung out, the three of us, and listened to the rain and huddled under the covers. You took turns looking from one to the other of us and smiling. You put your hands out to touch us, palm flat, then pinching or squeezing, then patting, rubbing. You’re figuring out how to feel and touch and hold and push. Last night you had a toy and I pulled on it, we played a little game of tug of war, and you found this hilarious. Completely fell over laughing at the hilarity of pulling. Anyway, so yesterday morning we were snug and warm and laying together and chatting, you joining in with your ever more articulate babble nonsense. It was one of those mornings where you should linger in bed as long as you can, and we did, and I remember being so pleased that it was a Sunday and not a Tuesday or something.
You sit unassisted now, and I’m confident enough in you that I will sit you in the middle of the hardwood floor and then leave you there. I wouldn’t sit you next to a pit of vipers or anything, but you are doing well enough to risk a knock to the noggin on our hard floor. Which, by the way, you enjoy licking. You can’t crawl – can sort of rock on hands and knees, can sort of commando crawl, and can way totally spin in place, which is what you normally do when set on your tum. But objects that we place just out of your reach in order to tempt you to crawl – they remain tantalizingly out of reach, and you’ll stretch one hand and then try stretching the other hand and furrow your brow and get mad and finally put your head down on the ground in frustration, and all of a sudden it’s ground and ooooooo, that looks tastylicious – and you’re licking the floor.
A couple of days ago I caught you gnawing on the dog’s bone, while poor Virgil gazed at you in a miserable huddle of jealousy and desire. Germ free you are not, dear boy, but here’s hoping this leads to a rough and tumble immune system.
I wish I had more time to capture more moments, but they are going so fast that I feel more the urge to enjoy them as they happen, rather than to take too too much time out to record them. Recording is important, recording lets me relive these too swift moments in my life and yours, but being present and with you is also important. Balance, always a balance, always I’m trying to keep my toes on the beam, arms spread wide, eyes on you.
I love you dearly, son of mine. I love you always.