20 weeks

Oh sweet Succotash, your mama is tired today. It's not your fault, or at least not entirely. The batteries on the blackout shades died (speak to your father, please, for details about why one needs to have battery-powered blackout shades), and so this morning you awoke ready for tambourine practice right at dawn, or rather, an hour and change earlier than usual. It meant you were more than ready for your post-second breakfast boob nap, which lasted a comfortable hour and a half on the sofa, during which your mother read the newspaper on her phone and did not sleep. So here I am, at the library, trying to work in the three hour block I have carved out, and instead I am alternately staring into space and writing to you on your secret baby blog.

On Tuesday, Mardi Gras, you turned 20 weeks old. At 20 weeks you have become very interested in toys. You like sitting in your new high chair, which props you sufficiently enough that you might as well be sitting up all by yourself, and your hands bat with ever-increasing intent and specificity at the bead tabletop toy my friend Laurie gave you. You are now able to push the beads up and down and over, and they make pleasant clacking sounds, and then you want to put them in your mouth badly enough that you sometimes get frustrated and require a hug. You also enjoy this weeble-wobble green and white ball thing that my parents gave you for Christmas, which has nice nubbies on it for gnawing. The volume of drool you are producing is nothing short of immense. I have had to emergency order two packets of drool bibs from Amazon, and you can go through one in ten minutes. I will change your bib when I change your diaper, cheerily saying "Bib! New bib!" when I fasten it around your neck, and you grin up at me and wiggle in glee.

You have the best most charming and wonderful toothless grin I have ever seen, and lately since I've been taking you into bed for snuggles and breakfast in the predawn darkness and a little more dozing for me, I get to see your toothless grin first thing when I open my eyes to begin the day in earnest. I am addicted to your grin, I think. I am thinking about it now, and how eager I am to see you again, which I will in two short hours, when my work time comes to an end.

And that is how things stand in this, your 20th week of life.

Update

Hello, non-imaginary baby, drooler of drools, my four month old mystifier. I'm in the library. I'm trying to work. Last night in the interest of sleep I caved to what I suspect is your only wish, and that was to have an all-night sleep and nursefest in bed with me and your dad. It's like being perfectly warm and cuddled while, I imagine, having a tiny drip of Nutella available at all times. You slept, some kicky baby feet notwithstanding, and I slept too, until the act of holding myself in a rigid C shape to keep you safe woke me with soreness thrumming through my hips.

You are smiley, and giggly, and curious, and you have started putting everything in your mouth. I bought two whole packets of absorbent drool bibs so that you don't soak yourself. You can go through one in about ten minutes, which I find impressive. At the moment your father is wheeling you around the city, and I will meet you both in the park behind the library in an hour.

I miss you when we are apart, even after a night of being in constant physical contact with you for eight hours.

Millenia

Hello Succotash, who sleeps in his Snoo in the bedroom while I inhale takeout from the good Chinese place that your father doesn't like.

Your father and I met twenty one years ago yesterday. That means that, as of today, he and I have now known each other longer than we have not known each other, in our entire lives. How wild is that?

Wilder still? We have only known you for four months and change. Which, in the grand scheme of things, is no time at all. We've known the dog for fifteen years. Fifteen! You're just a Johnny-come-lately.

And yet, I also feel like I have known you for my entire life.

I miss you when you are asleep in the other room.

Is it a kind of narcissism, the obsession most parents seem to have for their babies? Maybe. But instead of pathologizing it, I prefer to give myself to it completely. You are asleep in my bedroom. I have known you for mere minutes, relative to how long I have known your father, or your dog, or myself. But I miss you.

Four Months

Today we loaded you into your K'tan carrier and took you on your very first subway ride. We took the express up to Demolition Depot looking for old French doors to use to build your bedroom wall.

You fell asleep for a bit on my chest, with my hand propping up your soft sleeping cheek. Looked at light fixtures for the house you don't know you also live in. Then took the train home and decided to stop in at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central, where we had fresh, grilled, and fried oysters and you stared in wonder at your dad's martini and spent much of the meal contemplating a spoon. Your first, if I'm not mistaken.

Right now you are asleep in the bedroom, with slightly cold ears so I have turned up the heat. For some reason today was one of the first days where it felt normal, that you are here. That you are part of our everyday life.

And that is how things stand on this, your four month birthday.

Also

I'm pretty sure that this morning you waved at me. On my chest in the early light, mid-burp, you looked into my face and grinned, and I grinned, and I waved at you with my right hand and said "Hello Succotash," and you grinned bigger and waved your right fist up and down once, twice, three times.

Hello, Mama.

My Succotash.

Anniversary

One year ago today, at around 11 am, Dr. Beth called me from her car to let me know that of the two fertilized eggs we had made, one of them had stopped growing. Leaving the other, which on day 3 was only five cells big, and was grade B/C quality as far as its fragmentation goes. Dr. Beth wasn't sure it would be worth transferring, and suggested I could let it go until day 5, and if it made it that far, we could freeze it and do genetic testing which would then - maybe - tell us why none of my IVF cycles ever worked.

"You know what," I said. "I'd rather transfer it."

Up to me, said Dr. Beth. And later that afternoon, transfer it we did. I asked to be sedated while it happened, so that everything would be as smooth and comfortable as possible. A friend walked me home, which was literally around the corner. I believe I spent the rest of the afternoon on the couch, though I don't remember. This blog would probably tell me.

Today, as I think about this, and the advice I was given, and think about Succotash napping in my arms this morning, grumpy because he wants to sit up on his own but hasn't quite gotten it together yet, but almost, I find that if I dwell too closely on how narrowly we missed being robbed of Succotash at all, and how I cannot imagine how that could be so, and cannot accept it, then I will start to cry in this library carrel where I am supposed to be doing work.

Discovery

I have less clandestine time to write about you while you sleep, as you are sleeping less during the day. You are more curious and interested in the world around you, wanting to play, desperate to explore. Your dad said you crawled today, but you didn't really - more sort of wriggle-wormed an inch or two.

But one discovery you most certainly made yesterday: while in the shower with your dad before bed, you discovered the toes on your right foot. Grabbed them, toyed with them, bent them around. Today when I got you dressed I didn't use footies, so you could be barefoot and spend some time thinking about your toes, if you are so inclined.

Your friend Peter was born on Tuesday, his due date, exactly 16 weeks after you. I have been fielding questions from his mother about sleep, and diapering, and all these things that I now know about. It's weird, that I now know these things. The most recent picture of Peter showed him in a terrycloth dinosaur onesie which you wore a time or two, which was a hand me down from Burl. I like the secret underground economy among mothers. The abhorrence of waste. Peter is sleeping in your co-sleeper too. One baby after another, arriving in a poof on earth, with mothers whispering secret knowledge to each other to ease your way.