Month 8

September 18, 2009 | Clark

My dearest Clark,

You are now 8 months old! You may have noticed that according to these letters you never turned 7 months. Sorry about that. I was telling your father what a bad mother I am for not writing your letter last month and he said no, it means I was a good mother because I was too busy taking care of you. Isn’t that sweet?

You are such a big boy all of a sudden. Here you are enjoying the pool with your Grandma and Grandpa. She heats it to a bazillion degrees for your precious little tootsies, nevermind the rest of us and our desires to COOL DOWN in the swimming pool.

It’s been hot this month, and you’ve spent a good deal of time just lounging about in your diaper. Here you are out on the lawn, under your tree, scooting about. You aren’t crawling yet, but you do get up on all fours and rock back and forth, and you make pretty good progress just rolling.

Speaking of rolling, this month marked your first big fall. Early one morning when your Dad was changing you, you rolled right off the changing table, about 4 feet down to the hardwoods. Oh. My. God. You were OK, but sweet baby jebus, your mouth was bloody where you bit your lip. You got blood all over both if us while I calmed you. Please never hurt yourself ever again, all right? I can’t handle it. In other changing news, you are suddenly ALL DONE with diaper changes. I find myself dreading changing your diaper because it’s become such a wrestling match. It’s really hard to diaper a thrashing baby alligator.

You’re still eating like a champ. I love making your food and I love feeding you.

We spent a week in the woods with special friends this month and you had many new adventures. You went hiking, sat around a campfire, and watched the bigger kids and their goings on with great interest. You even took a snooze under some trees while everyone else was swimming.

My dear Clarkie, you bring so much joy to my life. Sometimes I get all stressed out thinking of the things I’m NOT getting done, but actually, each moment I spend with you is so full. I’m not saying I don’t love moments like now when your grandma has you, but I enjoy myself so much with you. You’re getting so entertaining. I love watching you figure things out, the way you turn an object over and over, carefully studying it. You’re becoming such a pleasant little companion, and I’m so very proud to be your mommy.

Prune Juice and Rice Cereal. mmmMMMMMmmmm.

August 24, 2009 | Clark

Hello! I’m Clark. I’m going to tell you about Rice Cereal mixed with Prune Juice. It’s delicious and it keeps me regular.

My Dad helps me to get it all over my face. It’s important to cover it all.

If you miss any spots, you can do this:

When you’re all done, you tell them you’re finished by throwing your spoon on the floor.

That’s how you eat Prunes and Cer– HEY! Dad! What are you DOING! I put that there on purpose!

Daaa-AAAAD! Stop it!

I’m really angry!

Goddamnit, Dad.

*sniff*

I’m okay. I’m okay. Sorry about that outburst.

Actually, no. No I’m not. MOM! You’ll never believe what Dad did to me!

Month 6

June 17, 2009 | Clark

Clark! The lights are on! This month it seems like you became a whole new person. You’re so interested in everything all of a sudden. You will examine something carefully, all cross eyed, between your chubby little paws for what seems like a very long time. You will sit in your high chair in the kitchen and happily watch me make dinner, too.

You have had your 6 month appointment and all is well. You weigh 16lbs, 10oz and are 27 and 3/4 inches long. This makes you barely in the 50th percentile for weight, and the 90th for both height and head size. Apparently you’re tall and skinny? And destined to be a movie star, what with the big head? I can’t believe I have such a skinny baby. Your small size fuzzi bunz still have plenty of room.

We’re feeding you, trust me. In fact this month you started real food! So far you’ve just eaten rice cereal and bananas. Once you figured out that you should not grab the spoon and try to chew on it, nor should you eat your bib, all has gone swimmingly. We’ll try peas and avocados next.

Speaking of things in your mouth, YOUR FREAKING TEETH. I’ve had strangers in the grocery store jump back and exclaim, “Look at all those teeth!” You are some kind of tooth growing mutant, apparently. The books say you should be starting teething about now, but you have SIX teeth already. More than your little friend Maia, who is 16 months old.

You can’t tell in these pictures, but you’re also getting more hair, finally. It seems to be super blond, not so much red as we’d hoped. I’m sure you’re going to be lovely and golden as a child, destined for dishwater as an adult, like your mama. Don’t worry though, son. You can get highlights, too. (Not for the waiting room of your dental practice. – High five, HIMYM fans.)

The pictures, by the way, come from the talented ladies from the last Me Ra Koh workshop, where the two of us were asked to model. I hope that one day you will realize that it was your loving mother that took all the thousands of pictures of you, that I was there for your childhood. Thanks to Me Ra and the gals, you will at least have a few of us together. The sitting took place during your nap time, incidentally, and you were not the most cooperative subject. Mommy needed a cocktail after that one, for sure.

I seem always to round up these letters with the mooshy bits so here goes. My boy, you make my heart more full every day. It continues to amaze me how much I miss you when you are just napping or at your grandmas for a few hours, even when I’m happy to have the break, I still wish to have you in my arms, to sniff your head and nom nom nom your neck and your chubby little arms. I apologize for all the squeezing. I try not to go all Lennie on you, but it’s hard sometimes. When I’m carrying you upstairs to change your diaper, I take the opportunity to squeeze you extra tight and try to freeze the feeling of your little body in my arms. Just tonight I got all tear-y after I put you to bed, thinking about how one day you will grow up and leave me. I’m crazy, but I guess you know that by now.

Month Five

May 18, 2009 | Clark

Dear Clark,

This is the month where you became much more portable. We took you on a plane for the first time, (For the record, A- on the way there, B-/C+ on the way home) and also, you learned to love your Ergo carrier, which RULES. It’s so fun to wear you, all close and snuggly. I also feel, in general, like now we could take you almost anywhere and you’d be able to hang.

You have two teeth now, and man, those suckers are sharp. (Sidebar for those reading along in 2009, you know that video on the Youtubes with the cute brittish kids? Charlie! It huuuuhrts! We say that all the time.) There’ve been some rough days, with the teething. Only 18 more to go, kid!

You’ve become a whiz at bouncing in your doorway jumping chair thing. I have no pictures of this, because you bounce bounce bounce so much that you’re always blurry. You’ll have to take my word for it, but it’s the cutest thing ever. Especially when you tire of it and start to cry, but you can’t stop bouncing.

Hanging out on your tummy and holding your head up, is no big whoop for you now, either. It’s still not your favorite thing, though.

Clark, my boy, I can’t believe how much I love you! You may be thinking, yes, duh, of course you do, but I really feel like this month something changed. You’ve become such a nice little companion. I miss you so much when we leave you with Grandma. I ache to have your little body in my arms. People are always telling me how fast this all goes, and how much I’ll miss this time, but I have to say, I’m loving you getting bigger, older, and more alert. I want so badly to know what’s going on in there, behind that twinkle.

Love, Mama

I was so wrong.

April 22, 2009 | Clark

When you have a baby, sometimes people give you Stupid Clothes. If it’s a girl, I imagine these may take the form of shirts that say “Mommy’s Little Princess” or something like that. For Clark, there were some jammies that had a dog playing football, a sport I plan to forbid him to play. One time he was wearing them and I happened to have a Sharpie nearby so just wrote NO! on all the footballs. Much better.

Then there was this ducky onsie. I thought it was Stupid so it just kinda hung out in the botttom of the drawer. Today, after he barfed on his first cute outfit, I decided to put him in the Stupid duck onesie. Oh dear. I was wrong.

I was so wrong.

Prince Lives Here, We Got 10,000 Lakes

April 20, 2009 | Clark, Jenny Recommends

Clark’s good friend Dahli made him this sock monkey blanket and sent him this cute onesie. Both were featured in the last post, but an outfit this cute deserved further highlighting, don’t you think?

In other earth-shattering, possibly never to be repeated news, about a half an hour ago, around the time of Clark’s morning snooze, I set him in his sidecar thing while I was making the bed. He was laying there happily babbling, so I decided to see what would happen if I just walked away. So I grabbed the baby monitor and shut the door. He continued to babble for a few minutes, then he started to low level fuss. I decided to give him two minutes and see what happened. It was like, WAH! WAH!…Wah! Wah!…Wah….wah, wah, snoooore…

GET RIGHT OUT OF TOWN.

I can’t believe it! Usually, I swaddle him, put in a bink, rock him, sing, and stand on my head playing the banjo with my feet to get him to go to sleep. Who knows if this startling phenomenon will ever be repeated but holy shit, dude! I can’t believe that just happened.

__________

The title of this post comes from Atmosphere’s shout out to Minneapolis “Always Comin Back Home To You”. If you’re a midwest loving person, (and I know there are a bunch of you) you should download it right away. The first half is beautiful, haunting, hiphop, the second half is clever silliness, all praising places you can ‘drink tap water and breathe the air’.

[musical recommendation disclaimer: This is not new. I am not on any sort of cutting edge. I am aware of this.]

Month Four

April 16, 2009 | Clark

Dear Clark,

You are 4 months old! You’ve changed so amazingly in the last month. It’s nuts! You learn so much every day. In the last week, you’ve started giggling all the time, and my favorite thing ever, we can HAND you things. I love it. I say, “here, have this” and you zero in on it, slightly cross-eyed, and your starfish hands slowly uncurl and grasp whatever it is. Endlessly entertaining, that.

You can roll like crazy. You often get stuck on your side, but once you’re on your stomach, you can flip right back and start over.

We’ve also started putting you in your bed with the baby monitor when you fall asleep around 8:00pm. That’s a big change for your Mom and Dad, because now we can do whatever we want until about midnight when we go to bed. Then we change you and feed you again, and hope that you’ll sleep at least a few hours before you wake up again. The sleeping is still a challenge. There is no pattern. You usually wake up every two to three hours after that, but sometimes it’s just one hour. It’s pretty effing brutal, but it could be way worse. I know that one day you will sleep through the night. One day, you’ll also be a teenager and I’ll think it’s HILARIOUS to wake you up when you’d rather be sleeping.

You’re totally digging your Bumbo seat all of a sudden. The cuteness is almost hard to bear.

Oh! And you have a TOOTH! We just noticed it today! We are quite impressed because while you have your fussy moments and you do drool a good deal, you’re not THAT fussy or THAT drooly. Nice work, kid!

As I’ve said in each letter, you’re getting more and more delightful, but this time I really mean it. You’re pretty easy to talk out of your moods and you seem to know when your Mommy needs a break and you take a nap. I keep holding you because you seem to stay asleep longer if you’re held. While answering emails with one hand, I look down at your sleeping face and try my hardest to imprint the image on my brain, and the feel of your warm little body that still fits in my arms.

Love, Mama

Fishing

April 2, 2009 | Clark, Navel Gazing

Just because I feel like I don’t have much to say at the moment, you should not be deprived of the uber-cuterness that is my Clarkie.

Have I ever mentioned how ENORMOUS his feet are?

They’re delicious. I understand why he needs to put them in his mouth.

So, I’ve never done this before, but I need to ask a favor. Could you help me get back on my blogging horse with some topic ideas? Have any burning questions about the care and feeding of a 6 month old? I am expert! (bonus points for saying this in a Karl Hungus voice) Are you one of my few imaginary internet friends? Anything you want to know? IRL peeps, do you remember a funny story that should be recorded for posterity’s sake? (bonus points for saying that last bit in a Count Rugen voice) Whatevs!

Please help my Mama. I stole her brain cells.

I feel so rested!

April 1, 2009 | Clark

Clark is sleeping through the night!

I hope everyone is aware of the date.

I’m sorry, Clark.

March 27, 2009 | Clark

This is not staged, I promise. I took it amongst many other not that interesting shots and only learned of it’s awesomeness after uploading them all.

I welcome any caption suggestions, as this photo is literally BEGGING for one. Though, “Stop taking nekkid pictures of me, Mom, and putting them on the internets” is probably right up there.