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.


pix