Tired

I'm sorry for missing a few days, Succotash, but I am pretty tired. You, being a precocious sort, have entered your four month sleep regression a couple of weeks early. Combine that with Mama's rearing anxiety over Manamana's return to Florida on Wednesday, making Mama an insomniac for the past three or four days, mean that Mama is a zombie. But I still love you.

You are smiley and have already blown past the 9 month size onesies I bought for you last week. I love feeling your body relax against mine when I take you from someone and you are crying. There are some times when I can't soothe you, but it's very rare.

When you are asleep, I miss you and look at pictures of you on my phone.

Recently you have seemed to be growing so big and so fast that I paged through photos the doula took of you being born, and reflected on how tiny and new you were, and how amazed I was that you were there, at last, after all those years of waiting to meet you. And now, getting to know your personality so far - good natured, watchful and quiet at parties and gatherings, affectionate, easygoing with the dog, less easy going with new people than you were, curious, fascinated with light and movement and books. A real person.

Tomorrow you are 16 weeks old.

100 Days

In some cultures - none of which we belong to, and cooptation being generally frowned upon, but we nevertheless feel compelled to take note - the first 100 days marks an important milestone in a baby's life. At this moment the baby is named, or thrown a party. It is partly because this is the moment when a baby isn't a fragile newborn anymore, and you are robust enough now that I can see that. You have stolid little legs, muscles in your shoulders, you are looking around at the world, you are waving your arms. I can see you being curious. Your legs kick when you are agitated or excited or happy to be awake. You are coming into your personhood.

I must have sensed it, too, because I had trouble sleeping last night, and found myself awake at one in the morning, thumbing through pictures of you and me in the first minutes and days that you were born. What's amazing is that you are yourself, clearly - your face is your face, your yawns, your expressions - but you are still so nascent. Tiny, slim little legs, hands swallowed by newborn-sized shirt sleeves. So small that when I first tried to nurse you, in the hospital, I feared my nipple was too big for your mouth.

So here we are, your first hundred days. We spent today at home as we usually do, reading books with Manamana, napping on my lap on the sofa, riding around the house on Daddy's chest. You watched Daddy vacuum dog hair off the blue carpet, and then I put you in a sweater knitted by our next door neighbor and heaped you with baby blankets and we went to your first music class. You stared in wonder at all the toddlers, many of whom smiled and clapped and cooed at you, because babies love other babies, especially little ones like you. You didn't cry, which amazed me. Just took it all in, watching, wide eyed, and by the end waving your arms a bit, seeming to get into the spirit of things. This getting into the spirit of things is your main purpose, and I am loving watching it unfold.

And loving watching you.

Back To Work

I'm at the New York Public Library, and you are home with your Manamana and Daddy, and I know you are fine.

There is milk in the fridge.

You were napping when I left.

You are fine.

I, however, am not fine. My job is stupid and I'd rather be home napping with you.

So there.

Hoo Boy

Look, Succotash. I get it.

The world is interesting. And for someone who has literally never seen any of it ever before, it must be doubly so. Maybe more than doubly! It's possible I cannot appreciate your interest in your surroundings because I have not experienced that degree of wonder and bafflement and existential glee and despair since I myself was three months old.

But! Here's the thing about the world.

It will be there.

You do not need to resist sleep to absorb more of it. You can sleep. You can nap in the morning, and nap in the afternoon, and you can go to bed at night. After each instance, you will wake up. When you wake up, you will find us here, waiting for you, in the world. There will be sunlight and air, carpets and dog fur, blankets and footies. fresh diapers and foul ones, warm mothers and strong dads, Ella Fitzgerald, stuffed giraffes, and a silver rattle, all exactly where you left them (more or less).

It's okay. I understand why you are worried. I know that this is a moment in which you are learning that things fit together, that things progress and change, that days dawn and drag on and set and then night comes. It's all overwhelming. It can feel like you have to manage all of these changes all at once, take them in, understand them, even oversee them - but you don't. Not right now. Right now you are very tired, its a Sunday afternoon and you are in a fresh diaper and romper and you have your pacifier and your light blanket and you are nestled safe in your baby pouf, and as I watch your eyelids gradually lower, then fly open, then drift lower, then fly open again, then drift down until they are open only the merest slit but I can tell that you are looking at me through that slit, making sure I'm still here, I haven't gone anywhere, I wish I could tell you in a way that you would understand that you don't have to worry. You don't have to cry.

You can trust me.

I'll be here.

Solo

You are asleep in the next room. It's 8 pm, and you started to get very sleepy around 6, after a sink bath wherein I learned that you love having a bath before bed, but your legs are too long for the sink bath insert anymore, and so your chubby feet were sticking up awkwardly at one end while you looked wide-eyed out the window at the Chrysler building. At 6:15 you were up again, wanting just one more ounce of milk. Then down. Then another ounce at 7. And now down, maybe for the count.

Your father is at a conference in Las Vegas. He had suggested us going with him, and I did consider it, but I wasn't sure how ready I would be to travel with you at three months of age, and now that we are just about established with your sleep routine I'm just as glad we didn't risk it. Also, they still let people smoke in casinos, and there is nowhere to go but casinos. My irrational SIDS fear would have burst back to life with a fierce vengeance. Where's the fun in that?

The challenge is, with both your dad and soon your grandmother out of town, how to let out the dog for his walk before bedtime. I had somehow failed to take this into account until today. With any luck, tonight the neighbor teenager is going to come downstairs and sit on our couch for ten minutes while I take him out to pee. I hope that you just stay asleep. Please, just stay asleep. Ten minutes. Out, pee, back up. Then I will fall asleep next to you, and try very hard not to be overly responsive to your goblin noises when you are dreaming.

Tomorrow we will spend the day puttering at home, which I imagine will involve nursing and napping and floor time and bed, and maybe the teenager will come back, or maybe a friend of a friend who has offered to stop by will stop by. Tuesday we have a play date at the Met with another babyfriend, and in theory a friend is coming over at night to watch you while I let out the dog. This is a very noisy and talkative friend, however, so I'm beginning to have second thoughts. I don't know. We shall see. So far, our time alone just the two of us feels good.

I tiptoe in to pump and watch you sleeping. You are a couple of inches away from outgrowing your bassinet. Your dad is in denial, I think, about how soon you will need a crib. I think it's soon. A month. Call it a month.

My tiny baby growing bigger, who looked at me the other day and gave me a gummy smile with your fists drawn up under you chin in delight, a movement that I did, and still do today. My son. My little baby soon.

Tuesday, it's 13 weeks.