02.16.08
Whizzed on
Turn down the suck! (Getting whizzed on.)
Turn up the good! (Ash has been mastering turning the pages of books for the past couple of weeks. Excuse my voice.)
02.09.08
Dear Ashden: Month Five
Dear Ashden,
This month you giggled for the first time. I was snorting you on your neck, and suddenly you giggled and I’d never heard a sound more beautiful. You’ve been limiting the giggles ever since, and what works one minute won’t even make you smile the next. Sometimes when I’m making you giggle I call up your Nanny or your Auntie and put the phone near your head so they can hear you. But it never works. Instead, they hear me snort and exaggerate my laugh and make noises that end up scratching my throat. I sound like an idiot, but it’s worth it to hear you. I’m looking forward to the future because I know the laughs will come easier, and they will make each day better than the last.
It’s been a month all about your mouth, actually- because when you were four months and two weeks old, TWO teeth broke through. You’d been drooling for months, and you had a diaper rash for a few days prior to the teeth, but neither of those two (blatantly obvious) signs actually made me clue in until after the fact. Your auntie and I were sitting in a restaurant at lunch time and you started gnawing on my hand like you often do, when suddenly! I felt something sharp! There hadn’t been SHARP before! I stuck my fingers in your mouth and felt around on your bottom gums and there they were. I literally had to hold back my tears. Since when do I have a baby WITH TEETH? Teeth are for BIG babies, not small babies like you!
You’ve become extremely vocal this month as well. Though by the time you read this the movie “Forrest Gump” will be realllllly old, there’s a part of the movie where Forest is waiting outside, on his front porch steps, while his mom and the principal of a school are having sex (in order to have him enrolled in the school), and when the principal comes out of the house, Forrest mimics his sex noises, “huhh huhh huhh huhh huhh huhh” and the principal says something along the lines of, “Your mama sure cares about your eduction, son.” Anyway, you sound like Forest. Tonight during dinner you “huhh huhh huhh”‘d for nearly two hours. It was a tad annoying, but cute because you’re cute.
You’re really getting control of your hands, and you love grabbing at my hair, scratching things and you’re constantly grabbing at things (plants, food, and basically anything that you can). I have to watch everything that you come close to. It’s hard to get used to because you have been such a bump on a log for your whole life up until this point. It’s only going to get harder, of course, with you a couple of months (if we’re lucky) away from you starting to crawl. Our house is not baby proofed at all, but we’re working on it. We bought a new microwave and stand and have to buy a couch and two desks within the next couple of months, and then all the cupboard locks and whatever else comes along with making our home safe for you.
You started drinking water a couple of weeks ago. You LOOOOOVE it. I think it’s cool on your gums and it’s something different than your regular old breast milk. You grabbed for my glass one day, so I let you have a sip, and instantly fell in love. I can’t take a drink from my glass without you grabbing for it. Tonight at dinner you grabbed my glass and spilled it all over both of our laps. You know what the word “water” means and I’ve started signing it to you too. Sometimes you drink it like a big person, and sometimes you lap it up like a dog, it’s hilarious to watch you grab the glass with both hands and bring it to your mouth with such force that I can’t stop you.
You want everything and anything in your mouth. My hair, your toys, blankets and clothes and everything you can grab- it goes directly into your mouth. And oh man, do you ever love the jolly jumper now.
You’re becoming more and more amazing every day. You absorb everything you see, continuing to get “He’s so alert!” comments every single time we go out. You’re so strong, so curious and so smart. You turn the pages of the books we read without assistance from me, you love your exersaucer while I’m cleaning up, you love the jolly jumper as long as I stay beside you cheering you on. You love the sling and going for walks. We went to a baby massage class for the first time this month and you quickly grew bored of the massage because there were other babies! in the room! You couldn’t stop staring at them.
When I was pregnant I had a friend who had her first baby, and she said to me, “Every single day I think to myself, ‘THIS was the best day! It can’t get better than this!’ But then the next day after that I think the same thing because THAT was the best day.” I think about what she said a lot lately because it’s absolutely the truth. Every day is better than the one before, and I can’t wait until tomorrow.
Love,
Mama