February is for lovers (and Great-Grandmothers)

Jack is fortunate enough to have three living great-grandmothers. We managed to see all three this month. Not pictured: my Grandma Rhodes. I miss her terribly.

From the top: G.G. Dunn (Jacksonville, FL), G.G. Brackett (Fayetteville, NC), and Memaw (Pageland, SC)

Dear Jack,

Today you are eight months old. At the beginning of this month, I was adrift in feelings of inadequacy, confusion, and a general, overwhelming fatigue. Here at the end, I still have all of those feelings at times, but I'm becoming more comfortable being your mom. I've been looking for some normalcy. It's actually been here all along, I just didn't recognize it. You are you; you are unique, and that is our normal.

When we first fall in love as young adults, it's easy to think that no one on the face of the earth has ever felt this way - that two people have never loved with a love like the one we feel in those early days. It's a glorious, fleeting isolation. As I have fallen in love with you since last June, I've had a very different feeling. When I look at you and (literally) see you learning and growing and needing me but bending toward independence, I can't help but think of the billions of people who have felt this way for eons. The way your Gram felt love for me. The way you (God willing) will feel about your child one day. It's a glorious connectedness. It's the club I didn't know I was longing to join.

This month started with a lot of sameness - a plateau (albeit brief) of cranky teethiness, rolling and scooching and frustration, and interrupted sleep. The month ends with a sprint! In the last two weeks, you have started crawling on all fours, belly off the floor. You've added more and more consonants - F, G, Z, N and sing them in a morning litany. You ate with gusto at the Superbowl party last weekend, bits of chicken and cheese. Tiny chunks of carrots and bread the next day. We moved you to your big car seat and you seem pleased to have a better view. You're still sweet and happy and silly and fully willing to turn on the charm and make folks happy. I still get a buzz from being your escort. You are gorgeous, with hair growing in thicker and bright blue eyes that rarely escape comment. Your cheeks are rosy and full. You look like (as my Grandma Katie would have said) "a picture postcard."

Just this week I passed a milestone of some note - 10 years with MS. When these anniversaries pass, I can't help but feel an overwhelming gratitude - just for life and limb, for ability, for breath. And this year, for you. What a gift you are, and what a gift I have been given to be able to mother you.

I love you. Mean it.

Mama

Hello, little Ewok

In South Carolina the seasons collide and try to edge each other out for months...today we are "iced" in, but couldn't help but give Jack a taste of his first winter storm.

It's a beautiful day

Jack is sitting up like a champ these days, though he doesn't have much patience for being stationary.

Dear Jack,

Today you are 7 months old. On the whole, these months are stacking up quickly, but the last 30 days have been, at times, so very long. You’re on the crest of three big developments: talking, crawling, and teeth. Sleep is disrupted and sometimes rare. Your moods can shift from glee to sorrow in a flash. It’s like a very long crescendo, and sometimes I feel like a third string cellist, watching for the bows to go up and down, wondering how I ever made it into this orchestra.

But that’s not the whole story.

You’re so often the happy, good-natured boy who snuggles up to me, head buried in my neck, who lights up and kicks like crazy when Daddy comes through the door. Right around Christmas you started really talking, mixing your consonant sounds and babbling on and on. Most often, it’s a sweet, cooing “dadado dado dado dadada” or a pitiful “mamamaaaaa.” My personal favorite is the morning ritual we have – I greet you with a little song, and you whisper over and over again “huh…huh…huh…tuh…sss….tuh.” You blow out your “b” sounds while you gracefully move your hands around and around like a conductor. Hmmm…there’s that metaphor again.

Your Uncle Paul gave you some rigorous training in the art of crawling, and you picked it up! Well, almost. You reach forward and drag yourself with a little help from your knees. You get impatient on all fours and lunge yourself forward, flopping your way to your destination. Very soon you will put all these elements together. I think you’re pretty swift now – I can only imagine what’s coming.

You’re still almost exclusively breastfeeding. Every now and then I’m able to sneak in a piece of fresh apple, or one of those organic puffs. For everything else you seem to have no taste. You’ll reach for, pick up, and enthusiastically bite almost anything, but you make faces of disgust all along. I’m not worried, since you are thriving. I just hope you’ll like a variety of food one day. Maybe the food thing will come along when you finally get some teeth. I’ve felt the top surface of your bottom teeth come up and down through the gum for a couple of weeks. It’s foolish, perhaps, but I keep thinking if they’ll just break through, things will calm down a bit around here.

Just typing that made me giggle. We’ve only just begun, haven’t we?

Your Tired Mama (who loves you UNconditionally)

Jack.Hates.Food - (amended)

Jack doesn't hate food after all. He just wants to be in charge. :)


editor's note: the editor took the big bites first.

2009

from the lowest low...

to such great heights.

happy new year, friends.