The Word
We interrupt absolutely everything to bring you this:
The week prior he had been saying "mamamamamama" for anything food-related, and although I considered it a sort of sideways compliment (have you smelled a jar of Baby Beef Pilaf recently?), every so often we could swear he said "mama"--just "mama"--and meant it. Last night I asked Simon if he thought "mama" was Wombat's official first word, and today the proud papa (proud despite the snub) amended his earlier "yes" with a "definitely, for sure, without question." As for me, KA-POW!, with one word my baby has knocked me speechless.
Ah, but not wordless.
Wombat, you turned nine months old yesterday (40 weeks in, 40 weeks out), and you say "mama" now, so do I really need to write anything further? But yes, of course I do, because you also recognize your name and the word "no" (and it's meaning, I know you do!), and yesterday I taught you "ball" and you remembered it for a whole hour. Two days ago this minor miracle occurred: You had pinched between your thumb and forefinger the tiniest speck of dirty cardboard from the cat scratcher (yucky!), and when I held out my hand and asked you to give it over, you dropped it into my palm--wonders never cease--instead of shoving it into your mouth, way back where the sun don't shine even when you've opened it sooooo wide to issue forth the now familiar ear-bleeding shriek that, seriously, you HAVE to stop. And speaking of shrieking, you also love to chase and be chased, and you sing and shake your rattle ("maraca; can you say maraca?") to the beat of any song, even if it's just some dumb commercial jingle because I've forgotten to push fast-forward on the DVR. There's so much you can do now, and you're really starting to figure this all out, aren't you?
Here's one of my favorites: When I hold your hands and tell you to bounce! bounce! bounce!, you smile and then laugh and then pop up and down on sticky chicken legs, your knees locking and unlocking like a newly oiled tinman and oh, I'm so in love you can hear my heartbeat echo for miles, listen. Can you hear it from where you are, way out there in the future? Listen closer, it's there.
Those crick-crack knees work, though, yes they do. You climb stairs like you've been doing it your whole life, and last weekend when you'd see yourself in the mirror at the top of Gramma's staircase, you'd get so excited you'd bounce high enough on your knees to kick your dirty little feet out behind you, a barefoot bucking bronco (or perhaps a slightly tipsy donkey in a diaper?). Climbing stairs, donkey-kicking, barrelling under and over and through obstacles (toys, furniture, felines, mamas) but never ever around, all of it surely foreshadows your XXXtreme sports career, which, by the time you're old enough to sign for your own corporate sponsors, will probably be XXXXXXXXXXXtreme, thus ensuring I suffer daily heart attacks for the rest of my natural life. (Honey, can't you just be a poet?)
But is that my heart breaking or merely growing? Both hurt, and both leave me weak in my own crick-crack knees, and soon enough I'll be leaning on you to keep myself upright. Already I'm leaning on you to make sure I get up on time in the morning (you rise at 7 a.m. sharp; please feel free to start sleeping in anytime), and now I can't ever say I "forgot" to brush my own teeth before bed when we can never forget to help you brush yours (all three) because nothing makes you turn up that curl-lipped grin like when Daddy starts in with "First, we take the toothbrush and the toothpaste...," the same script, over and over, word for word, night after night, and still I think it's funny (and you do too).
We're having so much fun now still, and in the past few weeks that you've been sleep trained (hallelujah), we've been enjoying you more than ever because, what's that they say? Absence makes your parents not want to drop you off at the bus station with a suitcase and a little traveling hat?
I kid, kid, but in all seriousness, it's made such a difference to have you out of our hair every night at 7:30, even though it means I start missing you every night at 7:30. Overall, I think I do a fairly good job of living in the present and appreciating moments as they happen instead of wishing the days away only to look back wistfully, where did my baby go?, but still it's all happening so fast no wonder my photos of you are always blurry. (And many more look like this because you're into the open-mouthed "kiss" these days, and everything's a target: mama, camera, Linus's backside:)
For many reasons, I'm relieved that you won't remember these first nine months on the outside; some days I feel like there's too much "don't touch that" and "don't eat that" and "please eat this" and "a little less noise, there" and "stop it now, for the love of--," and of course that's not how I want to color your childhood. And so we try something different, wear hats that are not hats, strap your knitted dinosaur from Auntie Emily into the baby swing you never liked, read a book upside down and backward on the library floor, play fetch with your babydoll, Norm Smitwitz, who is not an architect (you can thank your father for that one).
Or maybe we taste a pickle, wash our grimy hands under the faucet, touch the Sonicare set to shimmy, or streak the hall mirror with fingerprints. Or we go outside, take a turn about the garden, look at the tiny grapes hiding under the leaves that are just starting to blush, and we talk about the birds and the planes and that damn pregnant squirrel who tore open our new patio furniture to steal batting for her nest last week.
Yes, it's a big, wide world out there, and even though I don't take you to the record store or to the library or to campus like your dad does (and I'm so glad he does), I think we're doing okay creating our own little world here, just you and me and Norm Smitwitz and the cats and the squirrels. We practice our skillz, we invent new games, and every day we try to learn a new word from each other's language. It's not always easy, and sometimes I wonder if we're even working with the same set of phonemes because I have no idea what it means when you wave your hands in the air and make a chirping noise in the back of your nose, but then, every once in a while...yes, I know exactly what you mean, even though you're not saying it the way I would say it.
Today, though, on the first day of your forty-first week, we found a word in common--mama. Say "mama." "Mama." Where's mama? "Mama." Who loves you? "..." (Mama.) "Mama!" It's the first word I taught you, but in so many ways it's also the first word you taught me. Thanks for making me a mama nine months ago, and again today.
Seriously, Leah, enough with all the cuteness! I'm going to have to go and figure out a way to get knocked up myself if you don't stop it!
Do it! All the cool kids are doing it. You want to be a cool kid, don't you?
*sniff*
Holy Adorable!! those big eyes! Another great post, Leah.
I can't believe he is 9 months already! It feels like yesterday that I was pregant and reading about your pregnancy and now your baby is TALKING! So adorable!
Man! Nine months and talking and close to walking -- who fast-tracked the last year?
Great post. I love how motherhood has been such a perfect fit for you -- just look at your beaming face in those photos!
This is so beautiful. The words AND the photos (don't you just love turning your head and seeing that little face beside you in bed? It's one of my favorite things EVER).
I am always a little relieved when bedtime arrives at 8:00, but then at precisely 8:10 I miss that baby so bad my knees buckle.
(p.s. Woo! First word is MAMA!)
You two are the coolest parents ever! Love the family photo at the mirror.
So very, very sweet. And, I love the family photo.
(I have to admit, I was PARTIALLY expecting in the video when you put the video on the cat for the cat to say, "Say Kitty!" Your cat doesn't talk? That's weird.)
I love watching you fall even more in love with your kid.
Also, feel free to adopt me. I can feed myself and everything.
This was so incredibly touching.
And your son? Your son is breathtakingly delicious.
I should have read this at home. I waited until I got to work and now I am crying at my desk.
Thank you for sharing all the photos and videos and words, all the little moments. It's been too long since we've seen you guys.
(And if I wasn't already doing my darndest to get knocked up, this surely would have put me over the edge.)
Also, my internet nephew is a genius. Talking at 9 months; he's taking after his Auntie Emily. :)
i'm teary eyed now. beautiful.
I MISS YOU GUYS.
All three of you. Come visit? Please?
Either that or I'll just invite myself over.
I love that he is blond like his mother and browneyed like his father. Gives me hope that firstborns actually can grow up to look (even if just a little) like their mothers.
(Hopefully I get the mama. If it's daddy, it's okay. If it's "isn't it lovely daddy's mama left" I am in trouble).
Ack! How awesome is that? My little dude is going to be 9 months old in 2 weeks, and it is so much fun to see another little guy doing the same things my little guy is doing. I really need to learn to take a better picture! Your photo's are so amazing - Wombat is going to have such a wonderful time looking back on his childhood :)
Oh, your child is just excruciatingly sweet and adorable! And I love the way you write about him -- your feelings for him shine through in every word (and photo) and it is both sweet and inspiring.
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