February 19, 2009
8 months.
dear jude.
i'm not quite sure how it possible that you are already 8 months old, but here you are. mama h & i ask ourselves daily, "where did our tiny baby go?" and then we look at you and realize that you must have eaten her. i don't mean to give you a size complex, but guess what? you're still really a whole lot bigger than all the other babies. at your last doctor appointment, you weight 26 lbs 15 oz (with clothes on, thank you), and the other day, when we measured your height while you were standing (more on that in a moment), you were 29 inches tall. all you need to do is grow 13 more inches, my love, and you'll be tall enough to ride just about any roller coaster.
yes. so. standing. you do that now. your fingers are grapple hooks and we are cliffs. you climb. you clamber. and you stand, triumphant. sometimes you let go of what or whomever you're holding onto, and there is a brief, wiley coyote kind of suspended moment, when you are on your own: you are a free-stander. your pupils dilate, we hold our breath, and then you plop yourself down onto your very padded behind, at which point you crawl.
crawling. you do a lot of that now. you're still working out your methods, and mostly move like a car with one oblong tire, but you are faster and faster every day. the pets are on high alert, and both your moms feel more like spotters than parents. i suppose we're actually just growing into our parenting roles. you are danger baby: fearless. we'll be spotting you for years to come. now is the time to start shopping for helmets and kneepads, i think.
the other milestone this month is the semblance of a nighttime routine. it goes a little like this: i come home from work at about 7:30, and you squawk with joy. you soon begin to rub your eyes with the sleepiness, and so we head upstairs for bathtime, which is, incidentally, your favorite time of day. after your bath, you have a little naked baby crawling time before loudly protesting about having to wear pajamas. i can usually distract you with a plastic shapey thing. you prefer the blue circle.
soon, i swaddle you (though, as of about 2 days ago, you began making it known that you are so totally over the swaddle), and we turn on the waterfall album. (the sound of constant falling water has a profound effect on you, jude. you go absolutely limp when you hear it.) it's just you and me and the waterfalls in a darkened room, and i nurse you to sleep. i hum a little sometimes, or kiss your perfect head. i tell you it's my favorite time of day, and that you are my beloved. when you're asleep, i lay you in your crib, and slip out of your room.
i then pour myself a drink.
basically, that ideal setup lasted 13 days. on the fourteenth day, you began to teethe hardcore again. and to put it mildly, your sleep schedule went to shit. we still snuggle, still nurse, still listen to intoxicating waterfalls. however, when i lay you in your crib, you wail angrily. we repeat the process over and over again, and most nights you fall asleep after an hour or so. and anywhere from 1 to 4 hours later, mama h is roused from slumber to crawl into bed with you in your room for the remainder of the night. because once you wake up, my darling angel, you will not go back to sleep in your crib, and who has the coherence to "sleep train" you at 3 am? not us. so, you two sleep together for a few hours, and i'm told you wake up every hour demanding milk. or tylenol. usually, you are both back in bed with me by 6 am, and you nurse until i wake up to get ready for work.
i know things could be a lot worse, but jude? my love? will you work toward sleeping through the night again someday soon? i know your teeth are hurting a whole lot, and snuggling makes it better, so i'm being patient here. but if you could work on cutting them already, that would be great. thanks. i'm glad we had this talk.
i love you,
mama
