Matt and I read this poem at our wedding 4 years ago today:
I love you
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.
I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.
I love you
For the part of me
That you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can’t help
Dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out
Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find.
I love you because you
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern
But a temple;
Out of the works
Of my every day
Not a reproach
But a song.
You’ve been an early riser since the fountain of drool clicked on at 3 months. You’ve also resisted naps since then, but not quite like you do now: a full third of our days this month were no nap days. Also new this month: instead of being ready to crash at 6:30pm, you decided you also would like to play in your crib until around 8pm. So we’ve moved your bedtime back to 7:30 or 8 pm, and you now manage to at least sleep past 5am. Sleeping in until 6am makes a huge difference! We’ve come to view sleep in a new light: we no longer mourn the loss of sleep you clearly have no interest in; we’re grateful for the sleep you (and we) get.
Perhaps our new take on sleep is influenced by the yoga classes you and I started this month. When teacher says, “get your kids into tree pose”, I imagine you say to yourself, “I am going to undo my romper, rip my diaper off, and make a break for it.” Because that’s what you do. I am so proud of my budding nudist. While we’re singing songs about the itsy bitsy spider meditating on the universe, you’re making googly eyes at the girls with it all hanging out. (A touching nudie sidenote: after our swim yesterday, I took off your suit, and you walked over to the side of the deck and peed off the side. A perfect little arc… and yet another moment I wished I had my camera.)
We also started mom & baby swim lessons this month. You’re a Shrimp at the YMCA! You love to blow bubbles and splash. Your favorite trick in the little pool in the backyard is to crouch down and wait for the dog to get really, really close. Then you pop up and pull the top of the pool back into the water so that when you let go, it makes a huge splash on her and she sneezes. You do this over and over, and, yes, she lets you.
You and Riley the dog are inseparable. You’ve even started eating like she does. You take a spoonful of whatever you’re eating and shake the food off onto your tray and lick it up. This week you looked up at me with a huge drop of yogurt on your nose and I just melted. You’re also quite the social eater, and here is what that dinnertime usually looks like:
The only thing that has me a bit worried this month is that you’ve figured out how to bust out of your car-seat. It’s a little frightening to look in your rearview mirror—driving 75 up Mopac––and see that your 14-month old has freed himself of the harness and is working fast and furious on the crotch buckle. I’m not quite sure what to do about this. You’ve always hated being in the car for more than 15 minutes, but this takes it to a new level. I admire your resourcefulness, though, and mostly I just end my days so happy you picked me.
Yesterday I had my first migraine in two years. They used to be a fairly regular occurrence until I got pregnant. Those feel-good hormones took me all the way through pregnancy and almost 14 months of breastfeeding (as of June 18). Now that Henry is cutting back a bit, nursing mostly for comfort about 4 times/day, I think my superwoman powers are slowly diminishing.
I wonder if that’s why I have such crazy baby fever right now? There were so many tiny, soft, sweet little newborns in the doctor’s office this morning, and every time I saw one, my uterus exploded a little bit. Could it really be two years ago now that I first got pregnant with Henry?
Henry has all of his molars now, but these bottom two have been particularly painful for him. He’s had a low grade fever for a week. He doesn’t want to eat. He has diarrhea. He has diaper rash (extremely unusual for him). Perhaps most interestingly, he has started talking in his sleep. The other night I rocked him to sleep, and when I laid him in the crib, he turned on his side and sighed, “Tiiiitty.” No, he didn’t mean more boobie–– that’s how he says kitty, as in cat.
One night he got so loud that we thought he was completely awake. Matt went in to rock him to sleep, but nope, despite the talking, he was sound asleep. He says so many words now, and visiting all these 2-year-old Montessori classes over the past few weeks has got me thinking about how many more he’s going to learn in this second year of his life. I want to keep track of them, so here’s my list so far:
Dada, Mama, Dog, Kitty, Cat, Rooster, Duck, Green, Good, Tree, Hot, Cracker, Cup, Baby, Hi, Bye Bye, Wow, What, Light, Doh (as in window), Nana (as in grandmas and fruit)
