Monday, October 15, 2007

daddy works nights

so, here are a few things I don’t think you know about that are so cute. First, he loves his little Ikea star lamp on the wall. It has these little pinholes, you know, that let the light out and make bird V patterns on the wall and ceiling. As soon as I turn it on he starts laughing and hopping up and down in my arms and reaching for it. Tonight, I wanted to distract him, so I put him on the other side of his bedroom and turned it on and he crawled over as close as he could get and tried to climb up the drawers on his dresser/changing table. God it was cute.

Today we tried Cheerios again. On Saturday, I gave him some bits of apple because you were taking a while smashing his avocado and he was getting really fussy. I just had the apple in his little mesh bag “lollipop” and I cut it up right there at the table in your restaurant. I was excited because he was picking up the pieces and eating them on his own, and I even said, “Cool. Now, I don’t have to feed you anymore,” and that’s when he started choking. But tonight, I decided to give Cheerios another go anyhow. So far, he hasn’t been that interested, but tonight he dove right in and smushed them all up in his little gums and swallowed them almost without incident (he coughed once) and I could barely get his yams in. I was like, wow, the first time he actually eats them and he KILLS em – I had to get him a second handful! – but then I went to take off his bib and I realized most of them had ended up in a little cereal pool in his lap. Ok, so he’s not ready for a pie eating contest, but still, good show!

We met a Mexican family in the playground today. I used my rusty, barely existent Spanish to chat with the mom about her younger child, a baby just two weeks younger than Dylan. His name was Jhon – she pronounced it “Yan” and I kept trying to ask if it was Swedish or something, but apparently they don’t call Sweden Sweden in Spanish and I don’t know the Spanish word for that country. Also, I couldn’t remember the Spanish for love or like or anything, because I wanted to explain that Dylan loves other babies. He pulled himself up on Jhon’s stroller – he even climbed onto the footrest!- and was smiling and laughing and jumping up and down, grapping for the other baby’s head and hand. At one point, when he was pulling himself up, he grabbed Jhan’s little foot in its little red leather shoe and tried to eat it. I was laughing so hard!

Then he crawled all around and turned the knees of his baby blue pants black and was following around some big kids. First, they were on the swings so crawled right over and sat below them. They were about 9 or 10 and were so good about not hitting him or stepping on him. They were getting up a game of tag and I said to him to make them laugh, “What, do you think you’re going to play tag, too?” Then they went and stood in a little circle a bit away from the swings and don’t you know, Dylan crawled right up to them and sat down right next to their feet as if he really was ready to join the game. I had to swoop him up to keep him from being trampled. He’s quite the social baby. Remind you of his mommy?

I love your body

Consider this an open letter. Consider this my heart. Consider this the smooth round cheek of my baby son when he's concentrating hard on picking something up and his lips stick out like little pickles and his eyes are cast downward upon his work. Consider this the wart on my husband's middle finger where it joins his hand and I love when I feel it tickling the inner pad of my hand, my breast, the hard line of my aging jaw. Consider this the smell of shampoo in the thick hair of my stepson, tousled so it shows that little streak of premature gray. Consider this the hot stars shooting out from my hips and buttocks after a hard, uphill bike ride, the raw cavity of my throat, glowing red, a heat wave around my head, the world still and solid once again below my feet. Consider this real.