scrawls.

scrawls

still cheaper than therapy*

3.3.08

five months

so, in Salzburg and upon returing, it became clear: it is going to be a trial, this three week trip. You were so glad to be home, stretching out all happy on the orange IKEA blanket in your crib, relaxed and sleeping. I think we have to get some extra orange IKEA blankets and take one or two with us. You didn't hate the train, not in the slightest, and the white noise in the hall (we were lucky enough to get compartment seats each way) helped a bit, but then you got tired, and then you got overtired, and then you got angry to be overtired, and we are just going to have to really make sure that you are getting lots and lots and lots of sleep while we travel (and, so, screw whoever wants to be your friend: you need a nap, so they are just going to have to watch you sleep. Or hear you scream).

We got you one of those pyramids of multicolored plastic rings and gave it to you this morning (it says six months and up, but you are advanced, clearly) and you loved it. You laid on your belly and smacked at it for a while and i think you would have smacked at it for a while longer if we hadn't had to leave - it is on a rocking base and has bells inside, so it jingles when you hit it.

In Salzburg we did just go with the Ergo. And i wore you for most of the first day but then around midafternoon or so i made M wear you because i was getting tired. And you are big. And so while M was wearing you we hiked up a little bit of a hill, just on one end, and i was all proud of myself because i wasn't at all out of breath and it was a pretty sizeable hill to be hiking (while being, um, a very small Alp). And then the next day we hiked the other side of the hill and then i was tired and a bit out of breath, just a little really, and i think we were both fit enough to make poor T feel self-conscious, and anyway that was maybe a million and twenty stairs so enough for anybody to be honestly tired. but you were peacefully sleeping there on my chest and it clicked in my head that the day before i hadn't been tired because unstrapping you is like instantly losing fifteen pounds. We'll see Thursday how big you are then: you're up for the last round of your big six-shooter immunization. I think after this one you're done until your first year birthday, maybe, when you get an MMR. Mama got a tetanus vaccine on monday (since it had been, oh, um, fifteen years since the last one, maybe? Maybe more?) and i have a big ugly yellow bruise, but it only hurt for a day or two. (Mama is tough as nails.)

You are so big, though. Huge. Seriously. You take up so much more lap than you used to, and i can lie on my back and if i am lifting you up under your arms, i can just barely clear your feet. And you enjoy being dangled and swung about and turned upside down so much - you like dancing, with all the dips. i think M and i are getting awfully strong, as you ought to feel a lot heavier than you do. I think all your six-month-sized things are going to be too small before you hit six months. And we are going to have to start shopping here, too, at some point. Your winter coat is almost too small and i hope it starts staying warmer before it is really really too small.

Also the tagesmutter i think decided you need to be wearing shoes, because you never do (well, you can't walk, you can't crawl, you can't really roll over, so you don't go on the ground outside, plus you always always always kick them off within minutes of putting them on, so when you do wear shoes, i have to check every five minutes whether you still have them on or if we have to go back and find one) and she got us a pair, pink ones with little butterflies on them. I think purely by chance, insects are going to be big with you, with the butterfly and ladybug stickers on the changing table and the bees and dragonflies on the mobile above your crib and you have a couple of buggy books, Buzzy Bee This, Shiny Beetle That, and you have butterflies on your shoes and your clothes now, and butterflies are just so damn girly i feel like i want to steer you towards having an ant farm or a pet millipede or something. Bindi Irwin likes spiders.

And i hope to god you'll get some teeth soon. The tagesmutter even thinks you're teething. Everyone thinks you're teething. It makes you grouchy. I hope it ends. Especially because we're apparently heading dead into another hungry hungry growth spurt ... which i hope we'll weather well. So far at five months you've had about two ounces of formula, total, one day when you ate everything at the tagesmutters'. I am sending you now with sixteen ounces of expressed milk (i'm having good luck with the pump, too) and that seems to work pretty well; sometimes you finish, sometimes you don't, but anyway. Have to try out the bottles that fit the pump so that we don't have to pack extra things to go home ... it's taking weeks to prepare for this trip. I should have seen that coming, it takes ages to get things ready to leave the house for five minutes these days. But that's okay.

Also okay: this article. I want to tell New Mom, there, that it's hard and is hugely different, more different than moving to another country, more different than a new job or a new house or a new car or a new roommate or a new marriage, more different than anything. It is a leap of faith that makes jumping the Grand Canyon with rings of fire and lions and sparkly jumpsuits look like hopscotch. It is a swirl of chaos that makes a category seventy-eight hurricane almost serene. There is a rising panic like the sky is falling, falling, and the only choice you have is to zen out and watch it go as everything about your life changes down to the smallest details. It's like drowning. But then, you blink, and you realize you're still doing okay. That another day has gone by, and if the baby is screaming then she has healthy lungs, and if she's wet then she's well hydrated, that you are still alive and the baby is still alive and somehow everybody's head is still just barely above water. And you're a day closer to having a toddler, having a child, having a tween or a teenager or a college student or an adult. Closer to words, and to potty training, and to other things that will make it easier but also harder. And each day brings its own challenges, and sometimes they are similar to the day before, and sometimes they are completely new.

And just because you would betray everything you ever thought you'd loved to make her stop crying, just for a second, a heartbeat, well, i think, that just makes you normal. Um, i hope.

And you look at her sleeping and your heart explodes (but in a good way). And then she looks at you and smiles and it hits you like a truck, like a tsunami, this Tiny Force of Nature, and how is it even possible that people have been feeling like this about their daughters for all time? and you're left reeling, staggering, just barely able to contain it, to breathe, to do anything but look at her and wonder.

Labels: baby, mamadom, milestones, reflection

scrawled @ 11:17