Dear Jonah,
We were just sort of trucking along with life and all of the sudden I noticed that you are like a completely different person. Well, I shouldn’t say different. You still have that fantastic nose and your same fat rolls and yep, that horrible, horrible refluxy pain cry that breaks the sound barrier. Our weird neighbors upstairs who are from an unidentifiable European nation were kind enough to tell me they hear it too. At 4am nightly. They must be German with their precise-ness.
Nope, it’s not so much your appearance. Although your hair is now growing back and it appears to be a dirty blonde reddish color. You must belong to me. It’s your, for lack of a better word, personality. All of the sudden you are doing all these things: staring at me and then taking my glasses off my face, laughing more, pushing our hands away when you don’t like what those hands are trying to accomplish, holding onto books and toys and actually manipulating them, putting your pacifier/dummy back in your mouth and rolling over. Sort of. When you really feel like it. But it’s awesome and I am totally proud of you. You’re eating rice cereal and it’s so not a big deal to you. And all of the sudden the other night when your daddy and I were halfway through dinner, you grabbed a paper shopping bag and started playing with it. That blew our minds a little bit. Like, when did you realize you could do that?
We have moved beyond the part where my sole mission is to keep you alive, and now we get to try and entertain you. I see that you have a discerning taste in your humor and I view it as a personal challenge. Nothing easy like zerberts or tickling. Those things are for amateurs. Even peek-a-boo sometimes makes you yawn. That my son, means you really came from us. I look forward to the millions of laughs I know this family will share.
But I admit too that your increased awareness and expectation for an exciting world around you means sometimes I stick you in front of a Baby Einstein DVD. Jonah, some parents recently won a lawsuit against the company that makes those DVDs after it was proven they don’t actually make babies smarter. And this is a good lesson for you. People are stupid and gullible. Americans also like to sue. It’s a national pastime. And thank goodness for that, because your mama got her law degree. But unlike those crazy people, I know the videos won’t make you smarter. But they do get our bathroom clean and the laundry folded. Know what I’m saying?
Although I admired the idea of schedules and routines for a baby, we were never cut out for that, were we? Sometimes we walk all over central London, and sometimes we never leave the couch. But we got over some hurdles like not swaddling and now, if you’re in the mood- you will take a proper nap in your mini little crib/cot at the foot of our bed. You do this thing now… and by the way, it is amazing how children just develop new “things” out of nowhere… anyway, your new thing is that when you’re trying to fall asleep, you like if we hold your arms gently down. Otherwise they freak you out. Flying appendages everywhere. It’s all too much. So there we go with that new little thing and I tell you quietly in your ear that you should just go right ahead and dream about monkeys and turtles and dinosaurs and mommy and daddy. And that when you wake, I’ll be there.
But I must confess that I like it when you’re not in the mood and you rebel against sleeping there, and in a fit of exhausted desperation, and in total defiance of every “expert”, I swoop you up and lay you on our bed. And then your breathing slowly calms down and your eyelids get heavy and you wait for me to place a doggy under each hand so that you have something to hold on to. And then when you wake up, if I’m right there, you reach out and play with all the parts of my face. And the thing is Jonah- what I am really trying to say is- I don’t think there is a human being on earth whose eyes I have looked into as much as yours. So I guess that makes me one of those moms. Those totally in love, so far gone, smiley and weepy moms.
You’re the best boy.
I love you.
Mommy
