April

APRIL 29th

Though she has been entertained by the game of peekabo for the last few weeks, she just now has actually started to initiate the game herself, which is a bit of a leap in my opinion. She was lying in bed and pulled the blanket over her head, and then quickly flung it down to look up at us mischieviously.
"Peekabooo!" we screamed at her in delight.
This went on for some time.

APRIL 24th

Driving to Virginia Beach on a Friday night, about to meet up with friends from Rosetta Stone at a beach house, Sava and I are in the back seat of the car while Ros and Jamba talk up front. She is babbling, really going for it, up way past her bedtime and thrilled with the lights flashing by and the nasal syringe we use to clean the snot out of her nose (she has another cold), and after chewing on the rubber of the syringe and waving it all around
video (as we were to find out this was an exercise- a build-up to the big event) SHE WAVES at me for the first time, right in the middle of a babbling spiel. She stops babbling to look at her hand wondorously, and then back at my excited face (I had responded with perhaps an inordinate amount of enthusiasm) and then did it again. A bit more cautiously this time.
Again, the mom in joyous conniptions.
Hmmmmmmmm... (i could see the cogs turning)

p.s She waved for Jamba on my birthday, apparently, but I was not there to see it

APRIL 17th

This is hard, hard hard. I know everybody warned us that our lives would never be the same, but man oh man. I miss whole glorious chunks of time to myself (and not just at night, after she has gone down to sleep at night- because by that point I am totally dumped. you know? bone tired. able only to crawl onto the couch and drink a beer and watch a movie. HELP!! I need a nanny! At least somebody send me a goddamn robot that can pay my bills for me.

APRIL 16th.

What I do in a day. Wake up bleary and empty. Stumble around the house for an hour, go for a walk around the block in the warm spring morning, pointing out the birds and thinking about all the senses i take for granted. Do you hear that bird? Do you register what it belongs to? Try to be entertaining and coherent until Sava is ready to go down for her nap. Nurse her to sleep. Extricate myself from the bed. Pound caffeine and try to get something done... hurridly, quickly. Pick stuff up off the floor. Throw a load of laundry in. Make a call/pay a bill. and then damn! she is up again. Already???. Rinse, cycle, repeat. Many days I don't realize until the afternoon that I have completely forgotten to brush my teeth. Not just thought... oh, I will do it later, after coffee. It is like I totally let it slip from my mind that brushing teeth is an integral ceremonial part of the morning in civilized countries.

What I do do with my day: watch her squirming eyeballs dance underneath eyelids, waiting for the signs of deep sleep so that I can slip out of that dreamlike space and into the jolt of action. A bewildering spinning dance of deep state changes, and rarely immersed completely in any. That is the maddening part- the splintering, the always staying on the surface of things.

APRIL 10th

I absolutely exist right now solely and only thanks to the invigorating reviving powers of Mate.

APRIL 5

YOUR FIRST TWO TEETHS!
We were in Virginia Beach, about to leave for Richmond and Heidi’s plane flight home after a glorious bday weekend, having Sunday brunch in an old cape-cod style restaurant, and I was letting Sava chew on my fingers while she sat in her high seat after a messy meal of pureed carrots, and Ouch! It hurt when she chomped down, and we looked at her mouth and there were two sharp little nubs coming up on the bottom. The cutest thing ever. I spontaneously broke into tears, which made Heidi laugh in joy.


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March

February 28, 2009 (letter to the Birthing Group)
Also, I laughed to read your ironic relationship with "drowsy but awake!" I know! that one always kills me. Of course, the moment Sava is shifted position (especially being lowered into the crib), she startles awake into full fighting mode. That is the whole reason I slipped into the habit in the first place, of nursing her on my side, in our bed (mattress just on floor) until she falls asleep suckling, and then ever so very carefully, like a ninja cat, slip my boob out of her mouth and ease ever so slowly out of bed, making sure to leave consistent pressure on the bed until I am off of it and able to ease the mattress up slowly and controlled, inch by inch, with my arms. It is pretty ridiculous actually. "The zen of slipping out of bed undetected, while your baby continues making phantom sucking motions into thin air, and you chortle with (silent) glee at having foiled them once again!!"
I am finally like "This can't be the rest of my life."... Also, since she has started to roll, I can't really in good conscience leave her on an unsecured surface. So I will try to start establishing a "go to sleep ritual" that doesn't just involve nursing... and we are going to try for the crib! I will let you know how it goes.

March 3rd, 2009 SOLIDS!
The other day, I was looking down at your face, and it was crying, and a little salt tear had formed at the end of your lash and I put my finger to it and tasted it (yep- salty) and I was struck with the thought- that your tear, and your eyelash for that matter, had all been constructed out of my tissues, and out of my breastmilk. That that tear was really just re-constituted breastmilk, because up to that point, the only think you have ever taken in (other than the occasional gulp of bathwater), was ME.
Well, that has all changed, now, because tonight, you ate your first non-mom food group. GERBER’S ORGANIC BROWN RICE BABY CEREAL. We got it on tape. You seemed to enjoy it. (not surprising, considering the extreme interest you have had lately, in watching me eat stuff, and grabbing for my spoons, etc.) We decided to start feeding you solids for three reasons. 1) 5 months is a good age to start new experiences (you are more malleable a person than you will be in a few months) 2) I am hoping it will help you sleep through the night better 3) You seem to be very curious, and ready for new experiences.

March 12, 2009

We are going through kind of a rough patch right now, where five months of broken sleep are catching up to me, and I feel a little evil on the inside. So it is finally time to get you out of the family bed, as much as I love sleeping next to you, your warm little clingy body next to mine, I think I will be a better mother during the day if I get some solid sleep at night. See, the thing is, by this age you are supposed to be sleeping through the night, with maybe one nursing- but since you sleep right next to me, you have gotten into the habit of just snacking all through the night. You can wake up around five or six times a night to nurse. It sucks, literally. My poor breast feel like wounded soldiers, marching disconsolate and bereft behind the others, emptied of all purpose and reason. They are sad, limp, hollow things. You never give them a chance to fill up again. You are a little piggy.
So, my cherished one, I am booting you out of the bed, and into the crib which we have put right beside it. You need to learn how to go to sleep on your own, and stay asleep through the night. That is a skill everybody must learn at some point, and now is your time.
But it is hard. My heart breaks a little. It is like the first crack in the undifferentiated blob that is YouMe. Pretty soon you will be 13 years old and you will just absolutely hate everything about me and you will sneak out of the house and be caught applying mascara in the school bathrooms before class.
On a lighter note… I fed you your second different food today….. organic Sweet Potatoes out of a little baby jar. It was quite cute. You seemed to like it okay. I am feeding you while you are standing in your exersaucer, and you seem to be enjoying taking little bites, and then going back to playing with all the toys, and then looking back at me and eating a bit more, etc…

February

A poem about Sava

Sava is the single most amazing person in the universe. Really- i look at her and it takes my breath away. A whole person dropped from my body, alive and functioning, with all the capacity to grow and think and love within her already. She is almost impossibly soft- there are no sharp corners or jagged edges to be found. Ankles and wrists are opportunities for the most egregious voluptousness. Her forehead as round and polished as a seastone.

She has recently discovered her hands: that they can be agents of change, and she is constantly stretching out to the world through them. Either they are clasped in her lap and she is staring down at them in studious concentration (what marvels, these hands!) or they are flying about her in haphazard frenzied orbit. She pummels her thighs in excitement. She sticks them deep inside her mouth, chews each digit thoughtfully. She nurses and her hands are in constant balletic motion.... curving through space in wide s-curves, curling and uncurling fingers, or stroking my chest with the most heartbreakingly loving touch. I am being petted. I am being told, "there's a good mommy". A few days ago, while we were at the local pizza joint enjoying a hard-won beer after a fiercely competitive racketball match, we had our first Sava/hand/engendered accident, when she stared at his beer, calculated trajectory and swiped, knocking it effectively all over his lap. We were awed and amazed. And wet.

February 2, 2009
Your first real cold, and you smiled bravely at us through swollen eyes and a burbled throat. In the bath, a new obsession with leaning over and trying to suck on your toes. I understand completely- they look very inviting to me. In fact… I am gonna gobble them up right now! Other new interests: looking at Nico and smiling and laughing at her. Spatulas- waving them around in the air. Hitting things with them.
February 4th
Your first doctor’s visit in our new town… we met Dr. George Sproul and found out that you are 16 lbs and 25 inches long. 90% percentile for length and head size, but only 50% for weight per length. In other words, you are an immensely healthy, long and lean (okay, maybe not so lean) wonder. You got your first vaccine shots, one in each chubby thigh, and you hated it… cried and cried and I nursed you and you finally calmed down. But it felt horrible to let them poke you and cause you pain.

February 9th
In the past two weeks you have discovered your feet and now when we are in the bath, you sitting like a corpulent little buddha, one of your favorite things to do is to lean over and stick your open mouth around the big toes and chew reflectively. Your face is becoming leaner and more defined… I see the beginnings of an elegance in your nose and eyes- a refinement in the bridge of your nose, so that you are even more heartbreakingly beautiful. I love seeing glimpses of the face that is to come. We place you facing outwards in the sling now, and you really love facing the world and checking everything out. Your fat little legs just pump in excitement, like you are trying to kick the machine into gear. I just found an exersaucer online for you to use as you are just now old enough to stand in one, and you love playing with all the little twirling gadgets and spinning around. You aren’t so sure about the jumperoo thing in the middle of the doorway. Hands are almost constantly stuck fist deep into the mouth.


Feb 14th- 24th
You are 5 months old and already you have flown in a plane to the San Juans for Thanskgiving, and now- from Washington D.C to SF, and from SF to Honolulu, and from Honolulu to the Big Island, and then back again. That is a lot of plane rides for such a small munchkin. You are an amazing traveler (I had people come up to me after almost every flight, to thank me for having such a well-behaved baby). I just strap you into our baby carrier, and we stride through the airports like Amazonian villagers lugging three bags and eliciting happy awestruck expressions from the other people in the terminal. Our strategy for happy flights is 1. Nurse upon takeoff and landing (helps with the ear popping during altitude changes 2. Bring lots of toys (our favorite traveling companion is Mr. Burroughs the burrowing owl, who is a hand puppet who can fly and he followed us across the entire continent, and then over the pacific ocean, and every time you were starting to get grumpy, Mr. Burroughs would finally catch up to us and land, panting, to whoo-whoo at you in a very deep and winded voice and ask “what, my dear, seems to be the problem?” He is a bit of an armchair psychologist. You would squeal in joy and grab him with both chubby arms and do a face plant onto his nose, and start chewing away.) 3. Walk up and down the aisles looking at all the nice people faces in all the rows, and meeting all the other babies (there were at least three or four of them on the flights to and from Hawaii).

You, miss Savalu, are an absolute magnet. People see you and just swoon. I have had many people tell me that you are one of the most loveliest babies they have ever seen. And then they go “I mean, all babies are beautiful. But yours, yours is realllly beautiful. Look at those eyes…”

This is the standard dialogue.

“Oh what a beautiful baby! How old is (she? /he?)”
- She. She is (x) months...
“Really? Wow! She’s big for her age!”
-Yep. She’s a big girl.
“Oh my goodness, LOOK AT THOSE EYELASHES!!”

So we just got back from our trip to Hawaii…It was nice and warm, a welcome change from the frigid winter weather of Virginia. It wasn’t too sunny, which was good because I fretted about exposing your tender peach-olive skin to the blistering rays. It was like an overcast, warm grey bath that we got to swim in for a week and a half.

We basically just hung out with the grandparents and enjoyed being warm, in a condo right off the ocean and a pretty busy street. Graham and Joy came to visit us from the other side of the island and they took us to the cool, secret beaches. We had neighbors next door in the condo who were loud and liked to party, and I hated them because they disrupted your nap and sleep schedule. (I couldn’t believe that I was getting mad at 50 year old grownups who were partying like college students. What a strange reversal for your mother, who at one point was used to having the shoe on the other foot).

I don’t think you really understood much about the trip- you are still pretty much taking the entire world in as if it was a foreign planet, and so why would it be much different for you- to be looking at tropical foliage vs. bare winter shrubbery. To be hearing the chorus of coqui frogs vs. that of winter birds.
Although…… Sand.
Sand was a pretty amazing revelation. We had some nice times sitting on the beach, with you stuffing your face with it. You were baptized in the ocean for the first time, the great Pacific ocean that laps at the great state that your mama was born in, but I don’t think you understood the portent of the moment, but only that it was COLDER than a nice warm bathtub, or for that matter, Harbin Hot Springs.

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January

January 18, 2009
You are almost four months old. You love being tickled by your mama. I can tickle you in three places- when I have my hands on your back and tickle between your shoulder blades (your favorite place), then, under your armpits, and then, where your thighs meet your belly. Your daddy likes to tickle you with his scratchy beard. He nuzzles your neck and you chortle with glee. You are laughing all the time now. Especially in the morning, when you are at your happiest and most relaxed.

January 20, 2009
Standing is your all time favorite thing, other than the boob. If you are getting grumpy and starting to kvetch, I will stand you up so that you are sitting on my belly, and you usually immediately stop frowning and give me a leery flirty smile, and a little waggle back and forth, a fistpump or two, and then strain upward in one straight line and gaze about your domains with the satisfaction of elevation.

January 21, 2009
A new voice was unveiled for Obama’s inaugeration day. This really lovely scratchy squeal like a alleycat in heat. It can mean a variety of things… it is not unhappy though it can signify the beginning of a meltdown. Mostly it seems to be when you have something really important to say, and you want to trumpet it. Also, it seems that you are really enjoying just trying out different sounds with your mouth and throat, so it feels experimental.

January 29th, 2009
You rolled over by yourself for the first time today. 4 months and 1 week old! I lay you on your back on your play mat in the living room, and you started doing this thing you have been doing the past four days, which is to bring up both your legs to your chest and roll to your left. You just kept touching your knees to the floor, and then rolling back onto your back. You were pretty happy and calm- engaged but not overly excited. I left to go into the kitchen and when I came back, you were on your belly!!!

January 30th, 2009
The firm floors help with this- you can’t roll over on the bed yet. You did it again on the bathroom floor this morning. This time, you weren’t as happy- you seemed to get frustrated by the effort and got lodged in an uncomfortable position against the cabinet until I could rescue you. But you are going to be crawling soon. You were trying to do the crawl on the bathroom floor after you rolled over, legs kinda pushing back against the rug and your whole body arched up and straining, and I could see the wheels turning in your head.