I’ve been backfilling deepsicks with old social media posts. Here’s a dozen combined. Every month of L’s first year, we did that thing parents sometimes do, and I’m so glad I did. What a kid.
One month
Real age: one month. Corrected age: minus one day (i.e., his due date is tomorrow). So far I have learned that time is meaningless, my body is amazing, and I can make up songs on the spot about absolutely anything. #numbersbybabiesareathingright #sobigandsosmall
Two months
Three months
We’re learning about sea monsters, moire, razzle dazzle and the power of a well-timed smile.
Four months
TAKING FLIGHT! at four months — but he can only go to space if he comes back. #sorrymars ~ Thanks Betsey for the cool NASA shirt and Great Aunt Helene for the airplane quilt. ❤️
Five months
RAWR! at FIVE MONTHS! L likes chewing his fists, laughing with/at Dad and activating his Kundalini. I suggested the latter is a bit advanced; he huffed and puffed and blew a slew of raspberries. It’s already too warm for this dinosaur suit but it won’t fit him for long.
Nothing bends time like a baby in quarantine. Working from home is not ideal but I’m so thankful to have [Arthur a job insurance food dogs toilet paper trusted news, no personal covid crisis trauma beyond the yoozsh] this precious time with my precious son, have I told you how much I love him?
Six months
Baby boy is SIX MONTHS! At his half birthday, L has learned to (almost) sleep through the night, chatter when he inhales so it sounds like he’s choking and turn the pages when we read board books, which he also happily eats — we can see the ghost of a tooth in his gumline (!).
He likes swimming, playing rocketman (aka airplane) and blowing raspberries into Dad’s arm. In the past week we’ve found him perpendicular or 180’d in his crib — a clear sign that faeries are nabbing him for night revels and putting him back in the wrong place. (He doesn’t want to talk about it.)
Seven months
SEVEN! SEVEN! SEVEN! Months and heaven with our hammy little guy. A colleague judges a baby’s chonky good health according to whether a witch would want to eat him. SUCCESS.
L has been pounding iron (fortified cereal) and doing squats in his jumper, a regular Zeus with those thunderous thighs. A few of his favorite things: frozen watermelon pops, Little Blue Truck, and, peak (-a-boo) pandemic for an in-these-times infant, watching YouTubes of other babies in astonishment. He is not alone. There is more than just us.
In the meantime, he can sit on his own but when he reaches for toys, more often than not he inadvertently pushes them away. This morning we told him about Tantalus. The human condition. Disappointment and rage. Then I nudged his wooden forest friends back a little closer. Try again, babe. We always gotta try.
I never thought I’d cosplay my kid as a baseball player, but here we are. 😆
Eight months
EIGHT MONTHS with my little dude. Born a month early, he’s now been on the outside the same amount of time he was growing within. Say what?! We’ve been playing peekaboo and find the skeletal seal I hide in his coffee can drum, working our way up to object permanence. He babbles mamamamamamama but I know he doesn’t mean it yet. It is a global fact that babies say with intention Dada before Mama. Not because Dad is more rad (me and Arthur run a fierce competition). But because why would you need to call for Mama? Mama is always here. In fact, you and your mom are the same person — flesh of my flesh, blood and milk of your guts.
Unconsciously after L was born, I began speaking of him in plural and myself in third person. We had a poopy diaper, didn’t we? Mama loves you so much. Eight months in, eight months out, it blurs where he ends and I begin. I have given him my body to make his body, now on the brink of mobility. He gets so adorably mad! how his desires outstrip his capabilities. Reaching, rolling, straining in reverse superman mamamama I want to get UP! I want that THING! I want you to HOLD US on your hip in the heat and tell me again everything that’ll get a drink when the rain finally comes.
The birds. The trees. The beetles. The bees.
The squirrels. The grass. The earth.
Arthur and I marvel at his ache for independence, his stubbornness and energy, and fear it a bit, too — the reality of raising this boy who is going to run us ragged. And it’s so exciting, too, this rotten mad world made new through his eyes. Whole and wholesome. Beginner’s mind. Grabbing our faces, he gives his best imitation of a kiss, his full open mouth smooshed to our cheeks while he full-body presses in, arms waving stick straight out like a stuck bug.
[BIG hearts to JConn for the gorgeous quilt. She forbade us to display it on the wall, so now it’s been barfed on galore. She was right to not try to keep it nice. The things made with love were made to be lived with, actively, energetically enjoyed.]
Nine months
NINE MONTHS. I feel like I’ve aged nine years. In the past week, L has learned to crawl, pull to standing and stop my heart a hundred times. In the past month, he bit me while nursing (not the first time, mind) and I told him gently, well, maybe with a hint of scold, ow, baby boy, that hurts Mama, and he went all quizzical then stone cold.
We’d been nursing only in the morning by then. Bottles all day, sleeping through the night in his crib (yay!), he’d spend early mornings between Mom and Dad with a snuggly drink, digging his heels in my thigh, slow motion stationary climbing me sideways. About half the time he’d fall asleep again, and I would doze too, another precious 40 minutes, maybe an hour.
After that bite, subsequent attempts to get him to the breast were met with disinterest and disdain. I never planned to nurse longer than a year but I still thought I’d call the shot — that the last time we nursed, I’d know it.
It’s not that big of a deal. It makes a funny story. But I’m crying now, too, typing this to people who have never met him.
HE IS SUCH A BIG BOY! fuck this pandemic SUCH A GOOD KID! and this president FUN AND WILD! white supremacists CUDDLY AND CURIOUS! and cognitive dissonant conspiracy theorists running this country aground.
All I want to do in the world is take my son to storytime in a time that no longer exists. But maybe will again? when he’s young enough for wonder? or is that a fantasy I need to self-wean. No one’s going to do it for me.
He sing-squeals from the other room, another new discovery or triumph of his chonky body bending to his will. I couldn’t survive quarantine with a baby without my baby. I never know whether to thank him or tell him I’m sorry. Usually I just say he makes me proud.
Ten months
TEN MONTHS. Is this a baby or a toddler? The latter section at Target doesn’t cut it, but I stand paralyzed in the toddler aisle, suspicious of the preppy little shawl collared sweaters, the jeans and the cardigans he’d only barf all over.
Is there a tween equivalent? A taby? A boddler? We got ourselves a boddler. On his rough days he yells and growls — he just cut a molar, 5 months early. But when he’s feeling fine, he’s a bonafide cuddle monster, singsong babbling his mamas and dadas.
My heart. My heart.
Eleven months
ELEVEN MONTHS! and walking strong, too busy for these photo shoots, too cute for the camera, too young to understand the sheer relief of this moment, though he’d have to be a doorknob to not intuit our stress, slipping out in speech and tone, in our frantic pacing. He’s not. He did. We model deep breathing when he melts down. If only we could remember it for ourselves.
But now, well, now, this is really something — Biden as President-Elect. Hoping against hope against delusion and derangement. Hoping against hope against death. One day we will teach him all about America. One day he will find out on his own. What will we do when we hear from his lips what we already know? Sorry, Mom and Dad, 45 was not a footnote. Our nation is a failed state.
I keep hearing about healing and reconciliation.
But I won’t be made whole with hate.
Sorry for the hijack but these feelings are really big and I love love love this kid more than anything. After the shoot Arthur flew the flag outside because it still stands for something, right? We did “it.” We “won.” Still in the morass but with better seats (maybe, we’ll see) oh baby baby baby.
He makes me want to forget everything.
He reminds me daily we have so much work to do.
Twelve months
This past year I’ve dutifully posted L monthly milestones, and at last already, here we are — TWELVE MONTHS. What an incredible year. What an amazing boy. I’ve learned so much about myself (I’m tough as a mother) and timeout, it’s fun to make grand, glowing statements, but it was also hard as hell. I will never be the same. I don’t want to be.
At one year old, L walks, squawks, mimics, I’m pretty dang sure says, “All done!” loves books, his dogs, his daddy and his mom, points at the moon and has the best laugh. An easy laugh, infectious, the kind you never mask. I will do anything to make my kid laugh.
Well done, son! I’m so proud of you.
Back to now…
Not gonna lie, reading “I couldn’t survive quarantine with a baby without my baby” just made me ugly cry, with other hard words to read a stone in my belly. Oh friends.
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