Entries Tagged 'The First Year' ↓

You just happened to learn to blow kisses for Valentine’s Day! It makes me so happy. I am very sappy this Valentine’s Day. You are so cuddly and sweet and communicative all of a sudden and it’s so fun to watch you learn how to say new things every day. You especially love to say animal noises and you said please for the first time the other day. You are eating your oatmeal every morning with a spoon all by yourself. You are climbing EVERYTHING, even trying to climb from the floor onto the dining room chair and then the table. Scary! You sing your Toys Away song with me “aaaaway” You are obsessed with Buzz Lightyear and are showing growing interest in Clifford the Big Red Dog. You still adore Yo Gabba Gabba and books, especially any book with Peek a Boo games in them. We go to the library and the park for picnics and we took you to the art museum where you made your first collage. You like to climb all over your dad and you want me to hold you all the time. And if my back could do it, I would hold you all the time. You looked over at me and just blew me a kiss this morning and it was the best Valentine’s day gift ever. We love you, Jhonen!

Hey look at that! 11 months old and trucking. Well, stumbling.

boating!, originally uploaded by bburbank.

Just got back from a trip up to Maine to hang with Chris and Leslie Stiles. We were up there celebrating their first anniversary (and belated celebrating their wedding, which we couldn’t attend as you were about to get totally borned).

On this trip we learned that you would like a pet lobster, and that you hate boating but love the water.

Jho and his blue balloon., originally uploaded by bburbank.

Yesterday Jhonen and I went to the grocery store. In line, as usual, Jhonen bewitched the grocery clerks with his big blue eyes and the clerk asked if he could have a balloon. A million Mom thoughts ran through my head. Should a ten month old have a balloon? What if he’s allergic to latex? What if it pops in his face? What if it floats away and he gets mad? He’ll just want to suck on it…is that bad? Still, I said he could have it. What Mom doesn’t want free entertainment for her kid at the grocery store, even if it only lasts for a few minutes.

The older gentleman bagger went to guest services and returned with a blue Publix balloon and Jhonen was transfixed. He stared at it floating and bobbing in the air and got a huge grin on his face. I tied the blue string to the side of the cart and he reached for it and pulled it close. To my surprise, he didn’t immediately put his mouth on it, but stared at it and held it. I got distracted by the groceries and finding the car in the parking lot, so I didn’t notice until I reached the car that he was clutching the string in his right hand with his left arm around the balloon holding it in a hug. For some reason this was one of the sweetest, most adorable thing I’d ever seen him do. It was just one of those amazing Mom moments. I realized that all my worries and fears almost stopped me from giving him this little treasure. I realized the joy of providing not just the necessities of life to a child, but the happiness and fascination of everything the world has to offer. I realized how much fun it will be to experience even the silliest of little moments with him, to see a balloon in a new way….his way.

It’s funny, because one of my best memories of Leela involved a balloon, too. Ben and I had returned home with her as a six-week-old puppy and Ben’s Mom had brought by an It’s a Girl balloon to celebrate her arrival. Leela took great interest in the balloon and was sort of excited by, yet fearful of it. The next thing I knew, she had the balloon string in her mouth and was tearing around the apartment with it swinging wildly behind her. She had arrived, all right!

It sort of illustrates their personalities, too. Leela confronted that scary balloon, then conquered it. A job well done. Leela, our determined, stubborn, obsessive, happy dog celebrated with her proud victory lap.The minute I got Jhonen in his car seat and handed him the balloon, he grabbed it and all the way home I watched him bopping it and flailing it around in the rearview mirror. His blue balloon showed him at his tenderest cuddliest clutchiest sweetest best and then at his silliest rowdiest destructive exploringest, too.

The last few weeks I swear you’ve gone from being a baby to being a kid. Every day I wonder how much of what you do and how you behave is motivated by your stage of development or by your personality. If your recent activity reflects elements of your personality then this is what I can glean about you so far:

If you want to do something then you throw your all into doing it, whether or not you should. You flail your arms excitedly, throw yourself to the floor dramatically, make wild animal sounds crazily, and laugh heartily. You don’t hold backa single emotion. You are very social and curious about others, especially other kids.  You stare at them at the park and reach out to grab any kid that comes near you. You like silliness as long as it’s not too over the top. You love playing games and being mischeivous and now enjoy playing with Leela. You like to see different places, but don’t particularly like the journey there. You love anything having to do with water - swimming, baths, sippy cups, fountains. You are daring, funny, and active.

It will be an interesting experiment to see how your personality manifests in comparison to your stages of development over time.

p.s.  I know that you’re a happy kid. I know that I help foster that in you. I know you are well tended to, but I hope I’m meeting all your physical and mental needs. I look at the bathtub I haven’t scrubbed or the floor I let you crawl around on and I feel so guilty and self-conscious, like everyone is thinking what kind of terrible mother I must be to let you do that. I have a really hard time knowing what is safe and how to protect you versus how to let you be a kid and learn things on your own. I guess that will be something I have to face as long as I am a mother. I hope I’m good enough for you. I’m definitely trying, and when I make a Mom mistake I am sorry and I take note of it so that I can continuously do better for you.

Courtesy of our new iPhone 3GSes, we can take (crappy quality) videos and just post them from wherever we are. In this video, Jho is attempting to kill his Cookie Monster, who just will not stay dead, no matter how many times you kill him.

About every two months I find myself saying, “This is my favorite age yet!” I hope that continues for the rest of your life. You are 8 1/2 months old now and you have become so much fun. People call you an old man in a baby body and say you have wise eyes. You have a sense of humor now and sometimes we have pillow fights and just laugh and laugh and act crazy. And other times, after you finish eating, you look up at me and smile a close-lipped smile and you just sit on your boppy peacefully. Those two extremes, from wild, fun, and silly to peaceful, calm and sleepy are my favorites.

You have started swim lessons with your Aunt Jenny and I’m impressed with your progress. You seem like a well-adjusted kid who can just roll with whatever is thrown your way. That’s important. I hope you continue that trend. You have spent some good time with your family lately. You really love spending time with them. You LOVE playing with your Dad, especially when he flies you through the air. Bubbie likes to sing to you and play piano with you. Nana likes to babysit you so your Dad and I can go see a movie together. Uncle Adam loves to make you laugh by scratching you with his scruffy beard or shaking his head at you. For some reason you like that. Oma was in the hospital and you really cheered her up with your visit. We also visited Granny Lori at her office and she was so happy to see you. I think your Pappy is pretty pleased with you, too.

Now that I’m not working at the gelato shop anymore it has been fun to get a little routine going for you. It is helping you to take regular naps and that has allowed me to write and make books and bake and read. When you are up we go on walks around the neighborhood with Leela, we play on the floor in your room with your toys, we give you morning baths, we swim in the pool or go on little adventures like our last one to Dinosaur World for “Uncle Jack’s” birthday party. We’ve gone to Disney World, seen the ocean, gone bowling and miniature golfing, all sorts of stuff! It is really fun to talk to your Dad about how we’re going to show you anything and everything we can. We’re planning our first big family trip coming up.

I love to watch you learn (standing up, eating new foods, sit down gracefully) and explore (try to eat the shoes on the shoe rack, chase the dogs, go from room to room) and make new sounds (ma ma ma, ba ba ba). Good work so far, kid.

sping2009_photos 031, originally uploaded by bburbank.

It was as if you posed for me so that I could capture those beautiful big blue eyes for all time. Those eyes get lots of attention everywhere we go.

Everyone told me the days would go by too fast. They told me to pay attention. They said to enjoy these days because someday I will miss them. I feel that urgency now that you are nearly eight months old. I already feel the days carelessly slipping away from me like the blue satin blanket I try, yet fail to hold on my shoulder to cover myself as I feed you. Calendar pages flutter through this year, just like they do in the movies. I record your milestones in the tiny calendar boxes like a nurse records a patient’s vitals. I mentally catalog each of your milestones with a mixture of relief and satisfaction and dismay. You ate your first solid foods. Check. Bananas are your favorite. You already try to bring the spoon to your own mouth. You learned to crawl two days ago. Check. At first you rolled, scooted, and rocked your way across the floor. Not now. Your four-legged stride is not confident yet as if you are not even aware that you have managed it. Yet you have, and it happened overnight. Today I found you standing tall in your crib. Check. Your smile told me you were proud of yourself. You knew you’d accomplished something new. We don’t need words with expressions like yours. I was proud, too. I hope you always know that. I am almost too proud of you.

I try to remember what it felt like to hold you when you were one month old. Two. Five. The months feel messy, the memories melding like a badly separated egg. I grasp for that yolk of perfect memory so hard it oozes through my fingers. And that makes me feel cracked.

Bath monster, originally uploaded by bburbank.

The six month mark hit and you became a little person! You have a fun personality and what seems to be a great sense of humor. You get silly sometimes and giggle and squeal and fling your arms up and down and huff (I call it your Hulk smash). You’re trying to crawl and, whenever you get up on all fours and I start to squeal and clap for you, you look very pleased with yourself. You roll over just fine now. You like to try to hold your hands up for patty cake games and you sit up in the grocery cart and in your high chair. You have three little teeth coming in on the bottom and you’ll walk around the room if I hold both your hands. I can’t believe what amazing progress happened all at once! My arm muscles are starting to bulge from holding you so much, especially now that you lunge and squirm and wiggle so much while I’m trying to hold you. I’m also starting to see a mischievous gleam in your eye like you’re capable of a goofy naughtiness that will keep me busy for maybe the rest of my life.