So I’ve decided I like six months. It’s a good age. I’m a good mama for a six-month-old. I love watching Theo learn and playing with him—we are starting to have so much fun together! (This may be obvious by the ridiculous number of pictures I took this week!) He now really laughs at my silly jokes and antics, and it is an incredible blessing to realize that as long as he is fed and changed and it is before about 5pm, I can take him out of the house and he probably won’t blow. This is in stark contrast to his first several months ex-utero, when any trip out of the house meant wondering whether he would suddenly start shrieking and wailing uncontrollably, causing me to flee whatever place we were in and head home. There’s a school of thought that says babies are actually born too early—that they could benefit from a “fourth trimester” in the womb. And I have to say I think that might sometimes be the case. I think maybe it took Theo a few months to really adjust to life on the outside. Now that he’s more comfortable, he seems to do a lot better. Which means Chris and I do a lot better...a good thing. As a side note, you’ll see that Luna features in many of the Theo pix. The pug is never far from her little brother’s side. He fascinates her, and she is just an angel with him. Thank goodness!!

 

So as usual, it’s lots of work lately. The end of the year is always that way for me. But we work in lots of fun stuff, too. Theo and I met up with Janeane and Emma on Thursday—we went to the mall in search of corduroy pants for the wee ones, among other things. No good corduroys were to be found, but we had a nice time hanging out with Janeane and Emma. And Emma very sweetly invited “Baby Beo,” as she calls him, to go to Disneyland with her and Janeane and Jason next week.

 

Thursday night Chris and I had a grown-up date! We went out to dinner at a not-so-kid-friendly place where we wouldn’t normally get to go with Theo. It was delicious and nice to enjoy a meal without worrying that “Leon” would emerge at any moment. Although Chris and I had to laugh when we realized that we spent the majority of the evening talking about Theo and his alter ego, Leon. Specifically, we rated the Three Best Theo Poops of All Time. Now that is sad...has it really come to this?! (To redeem ourselves, I will say that we also discussed the upcoming election and the worst movies we’ve ever seen, so we’re not totally pathetic. Just half pathetic.) Alas, we got home to find that Theo had not been so kind to Grandma Diane. Leon made an appearance for much of the 2 1/2 hours we were gone, and poor Grandma looked a little exhausted and very much covered in spitup when we got back. (It was a sweet potato day—more on sweet potatoes in a moment.) Funny thing is, I think they wore each other out. Leon disappeared and Theo returned the minute we got home, and he fell asleep pretty much as soon as I sat down to nurse him, and then didn’t wake up for about 11 hours. Grandma Diane went home and slept for something like 10 hours. Ha! Lucky for us, she insists she’ll watch him again despite his crabby demeanor.

 

Friday night I had the first session of my next photography class: Documentary Photography. Next Sunday is our field trip to the Sikh Festival in Yuba City. It’s estimated that 75,000 Sikhs will be in town for the festival and parade, so I’m sure I’ll have lots of good photos to post on the blog. The event sounds really neat—it’s the second largest Sikh gathering in the entire U.S., and they even have a helicopter fly over and shower rose petals over the parade when the Holy Book comes out. Besides, I’m told the Sikhs love to share their culture and will be plying us with all the yummy free Indian food we can handle. Given that their diet is vegetarian (and often vegan), I can probably actually partake. Yum!!! And Chris will be spending nine hours on his own with Theo...his longest stretch without me around to give him a break. Let’s hope Leon doesn’t appear too much!

 

Saturday we went to a pug meetup...well, actually we sort of hosted it. I was hosting our annual Howl-o-Ween bash, but I was lucky enough to get a tip on a woman who owns a pet boutique and who likes hosting dog meetup groups. So, she did all the hard work—provided a spare room in her store, decorated it up, got local vendors to donate prizes, set up a costume contest/parade, etc. All I had to do was coordinate with our members, which was pretty easy. Anyway, when I say “we,” I mean my Mom, Theo, and I (and Luna, of course). Hordes of marauding pugs are not Chris’s idea of a good time, but my Mom loves them. So, she joined Theo and I while Chris took a much-needed several-hour break from work and fatherhood and spent some leisurely time going out to lunch and reading a good book. I’ve added a couple of the cutest pug pix to this week’s album.

 

Sunday, Chris and I took Theo up to Apple Hill, and I cheated! I had pie! And oh, did it ever taste good! I had a piece of blackberry apple, and Chris had raspberry apple. I wasn’t so bold as to get it a la mode, given that I think straight ice cream would send Theo’s poor tummy into a tizzy, but I did have a piece even though I’m quite sure the crust (and probably the crumbly topping) is made with butter. We’ll see how Theo reacts. This is my biggest cheat so far. I figured it warranted a picture or two, so it features in this week’s album. Along with several pictures of produce. I was playing with my camera settings again.

 

Also in this week’s album, I finally managed to get Miss Bits to pose. Really, she was just resting in the family room and I snuck up and took them, but hey...we’ll call that posing. Miss Bits seems relatively happy and oblivious to her illness. In fact, she’s delighting in the fact that she gets peanut butter twice a day (I hide her pills in it). I take her in on Tuesday for Xrays, so hopefully we’ll learn more then. I am just hoping my poor girl doesn’t have something that will make her suffer.

 

But on another more pleasant note, the jury is still out on sweet potatoes. Theo likes them very much, but I’m not so sure his tummy agrees. So far he’s had them twice, and both times he has spit up all over the place afterward. Our little boy is the King of Spitup anyway (it’s a way of life around here!), but it seems twice as bad with the sweet potatoes. We’ll try them one more time and see what happens. He seemed to have the same problem with bananas and doesn’t do well at all on rice cereal, so we’re wondering if his stomach just doesn’t handle starchy foods well yet. My dandy baby-food cookbook recommends zucchini, avocado, yellow squash, or one of a few fruits next. I think I’ll go with zucchini, so we get another veggie in there. Then maybe apricots....  

 

So in case anyone is wondering why I’m going to the trouble of making Theo’s food, here’s my reasoning: It’s cheap. Really, really cheap. The little containers of Gerber’s baby food seem to run about a dollar a piece. Which seemed affordable, until I realized that I could buy a butternut squash for about $3 and get 24 servings out of it. And I can get 30 servings out of $5 worth of organic apples. That’s roughly 10 to 15 cents a serving! I figure we’re saving about $30/week this way, which is nothing to sneeze at. That’ll help pay for my decidedly less healthy Starbucks habit. Besides, I have a thing against preservatives in Theo’s food, so this way I know Theo’s getting just the vegetable or fruit, without anything added to it. So there you go...it’s cheap and it’s healthy. Which makes Theo’s mama very happy. Besides, it only takes me about an hour a week to prepare enough to feed him for a week or more, so it’s really ridiculously easy. I kind of enjoy the hour a week I spend doing it, actually. It’s sort of soothing to me, since I actually do like cooking...I just don’t get much of a chance to do it.

 

Anyway, until next week, then.... Have a good one!

Many of you know my sweet old dog, Miss Bits. She rarely appears on the blog because she doesn't like to pose for pictures anymore...at almost 14 years old, she's much happier just to eat, sleep, and get the occasional cuddle time with us. Anyway, Bits has been having some incontinence issues, which is quite unlike her, so I took her to the vet yesterday. It appears she likely has liver disease. Best-case scenario is a liver infection, so we're starting her on a hefty course of antibiotics today. Worst-case scenarios are cancer or Cushing's disease. I'll be taking her in next week for some Xrays that hopefully will shed a little more light on what's going on.

 So, I ask you to think good thoughts for my girl. She is 14, and if her time to go is sooner rather than later, I can't say she hasn't had a very good life...she has lived with us since she was about 7 months old, and we have always treated her like the princess she is. But I am hoping that she has a couple good years left in her. At this point, she seems happy and comfortable, so I am not taking any drastic actions. But if she begins to suffer, I'll do the humane thing for her, even though it will break my heart.  Let's hope it doesn't come to that just yet....

Couldn’t resist a peas pun for the title of this week’s post—sorry!! Especially given that I’m still confused by the fact that my flesh and blood likes peas. Blech! But Theo seems to think they’re pretty tasty, so more power to him. The next food on his menu is sweet potatoes sometime this week, so we’ll see how he likes those. I like those, so if he doesn’t eat them, they won’t go to waste! So far he seems to be a pretty good eater. He likes some foods better than others, but he’ll eat the ones he doesn’t like...he just sneers at me and sometimes fusses as if I’m trying to poison him.

 

First and foremost, a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO AUNTIE LISA, who is now old like me!

 

This week has been work, work, and more work for me, and work, head cold, and more work for Chris. His head cold is now gone, which is nice, leaving just work in its place! Seems we’re both crazy-busy with it right now, but no complaints...we can always use the paychecks.

 

I also had the final class of my first photography workshop on Friday. I was really pleased with the course overall, and I’m looking forward to my next one, which starts next Friday. My portrait submissions were well received in class, and I felt like they were pretty average in comparison to everyone else’s, which is better than I had hoped. I was one of only two people in the class with no photography training or previous classes, so I expected to be leagues behind my classmates. But really, I was pretty average, and that made me happy! Though it’s probably because I had adorable subject matter in little Theo. Babies make for cute pictures...if you can catch them when they’re not flailing around!

 

I guess Theo was pretty fussy while I was gone, which was no great surprise as it was evening, which tends to be his fussy time. But he went to bed early, and Chris was happily cleaning the kitchen when I got home, no worse for the wear, so all was well. This next class I’m taking is Documentary Photography, and then there are two I’d like to take in the spring: Cityscape Photography and Landscape Photography (emphasis on the California coastline). These mini-classes are so much fun, and a great chance for me to get away for a couple hours every once in a while, which is very good for recharging the emotional batteries, I must say!

 

Theo is still working on crawling. He can scoot backward, he can pull his knees up under him and push up on his arms, he can roll all over the place, and he can push himself up into the “Downward Dog” yoga pose (basically on hands and feet, with bottom pushed up into the air so the body forms a sort of “triangle”). But no crawling yet!

 

Theo also managed to snag Luna’s coveted “Squeaky Ball,” and I have to brag for a minute. Luna loves that ball more than life itself, so I expected all hell to break loose if Theo ever grabbed it. Not so! Luna hovered nearby, staring at Squeaky Ball, but she stayed back and let Theo play with it, with no prompting from Chris and I. When Theo dropped it and rolled away to go get another toy, she hurried in and reclaimed Squeaky Ball. But she didn’t make a move toward it until he had already left it alone and moved onto something else. That dog never ceases to amaze me in her sweetness! She seems to instinctively know that she needs to be nice to her brother and protect him. (She was chasing my Mom’s dog away from him earlier today, and I think she was trying to “protect” him, even though Peekaboo wasn’t being at all aggressive.)

 

Anyway, our big event for the week (aside from my monitor dying, which necessitated a trip to Fry’s for a new one) was a daytrip down to San Jose on Saturday. Theo, Chris, and I got to spend the day with the extended family: Tom, Kathy, Tanya, Steve, and Nik, but also Aunt Linda and Uncle Bill, Aunt Carol and Uncle Erryl, Grandma Norma, Aunt Helen, and cousin/“Auntie” Sarah. Theo slept all the way down and all the way back in the car, which was wonderful since the monkey doesn’t want to nap anywhere but in the car (or on his mama’s lap after nursing). And, he was a happy boy for most of the day. He got a little crabby toward the end, but he had been all day without a nap, so it wasn’t the least bit unexpected.

 

Theo and Nik seem to be noticing each other a bit now...Nik more so than Theo, which makes sense since he’s a month older. I suspect at the next visit, Theo may have a much keener interest in his cousin.

 

Theo had great fun playing in Nik’s Exersaucer, which had all sorts of fun new buttons to press and songs to play. In the great world of “baby gadgets,” I have to rate Exersaucers highly. Theo loves them, and Nik seems quite enthralled with his as well.

 

Theo spent most of the day spitting up everywhere, which is nothing out of the ordinary. I don’t think Auntie Tanya was too pleased to get nailed within about two seconds of picking Theo up, but we tried to tell her that he spits up on those he loves. I, for one, get spit up on at least five times every day. At this point, I just consider spitup a lovely accessory to everything I wear. It’s inevitable. (By the way, no cause for alarm about this. We’ve talked to Theo’s pediatrician about him spitting up 15 or more times a day, and she says it’s normal...some babies just spit up a lot, and Theo is one of them. This is probably some sort of cosmic payback, given that I was the Queen of Spitup as a baby!)

 

The upcoming week should be...interesting. We delayed Theo’s 6-month shots a week just in case he had caught Chris’s cold, so he’ll be getting the first couple this week, then the rest in about another 10 to 14 days. (We split them up so he’s not overloaded with vaccines all at once; we prefer to have him just get a couple at a time.) Last time shot day was NOT fun—Theo ran a fever for about 24 hours and was very crabby. Ah well, a necessary evil that we will deal with. And this coming Saturday, Theo will be going to my pug group’s annual Howl-o-Ween party with me. I’m going to try to get him to wear the monkey costume, but if nothing else, he should have fun watching all the costumed pugs playing. Luna is going to be a bat.

 Have a wonderful week, all!

Well, the winner of the weight-guessing contest for Theo's six-month checkup is Auntie Lisa! She guessed 18.8 pounds, which is way over, but closer than any of the rest of us got! It seems Gigantor's growth has slowed way down. He is now:

 

This has been a rather quiet week in terms of events. I’m entering the “busy season” work-wise, so I’ve been working like mad. And Chris is sick (with a head cold) right now, so he has been resting a lot and working (and, inexplicably, shampooing the carpet and putting up shelving in the garage—not sure why he chose to do that while sick, but it was a nice surprise to me!). However, Theo and I did venture out a couple times—we got Theo’s six-month pictures done on Tuesday (see some proofs in this week’s album), and Theo and I got together with Janeane and Emma on Friday for a little play date, and hung out at the park with Roxann, Tico (3 months old), and Becky for a bit on Sunday. 

 

However, this week has not been quiet development-wise. Theo is changing like crazy, and it is so neat to watch (in most cases!). Here’s a little summary of recent developments:

 

• The boy is insane for apples. Pureed butternut squash was his first real food, and he seemed to quite like that...until I introduced food #2—pureed apples. He has now decided that squash is pretty much poison, and he fusses and squalls when I try to feed it to him. In contrast, he fusses when I feed him apples because he wants more, more, MORE! I can’t feed them to him quickly enough, and he throws a tantrum when his portion is gone. (As a side note, my nifty new apple peeler/corer/slicer is the best gadget ever! I’m completely impaired at peeling apples, so this thing is a godsend.)
• Sunday we got smart and thawed both some squash and some apples and alternated spoonfuls. That way, he never knew whether he was getting a yummy bite or a yucky bite. He squalled for the squash bites and devoured the apple bites...smart little cookie! The next food to introduce is pureed peas, so we’ll see how he likes those. So far he seems to have a bit of his mama’s sweet tooth, so I’m not overly optimistic about peas (which I happen to loathe), but we’ll see. He may surprise me.
• Theo has also learned how to blow raspberries, so he spends a lot of time making “farty” noises these days, which amuses me to no end. (Yes, I know...I have the sense of humor of a 13-year-old boy!) He spent yesterday morning blowing squash all over me as I tried to feed it to him, in fact. He makes a royal mess when eating because he tries to help feed himself—he grabs the spoon and helps me shove it into his mouth. You’ll see some pictures of him this week covered in squash. When he tries to “help” feed himself, he gets the food all over his hands and thus all over anything he touches. It makes for a fun, messy experience!
• Theo is interacting so much more with toys (and pretty much anything he can grab). Instead of just flailing and grabbing at anything in his path, he now focuses on one item and maneuvers to reach it. Usually this is accomplished by rolling, since he is still really only scooting backward. (He’s managed a couple tiny forward scoots, but nothing really productive yet.) You’ll see a picture this week of a “treasure” he found on the floor—a large-print romance novel, Crimson Mountain. No, I’m not claiming that masterpiece—it was my grandmother’s, and my Mom gave it to us to re-sell on Amazon when she finished it! But evidently Theo thought it looked quite interesting.
• Theo is also focusing much more in his path of destruction. He loves his Exersaucer, and one of his favorite things to do is take his rattle and smash it with all his might on the Exersaucer. Often he will just whack anything in sight on the Exersaucer, but the other day I caught him purposely bashing the Rabbit toy on it, which has been greatly annoying him of late. (He chatters angrily at Rabbit for some reason. I think Rabbit has done something to offend him.) Anyway, I turned around the other day to see him using the rattle to beat up Rabbit. He also has a grudge against Pooh in the honey pot. There’s a little pop-up Winnie-the-Pooh on the Exersaucer—you push a button, and Pooh pops out of the honey pot with a squeak. Well, every time I pop him up, Theo immediately slams him back down into the honey pot, with a look on his face as if to say, “I TOLD you to stay in there!” I have to admit, this penchant for destruction worries me a bit when he is more mobile and able to beat up other things, but at the moment, it’s kind of cute.
  
• We are also learning what an iron will our boy has. I had no idea a six-month-old could be so darn headstrong! When he is irate about something, he lets everyone know. He seems to be quite easily frustrated by his lack of mobility, and when he can’t reach a toy or something that he wants, he shrieks and squalls. Can’t say that’s my favorite part of his personality, and I shudder to think of the temper he may have as a toddler. With luck, though, maybe he’ll mellow out a bit as he gets older and can do more for himself. I think a lot of his temper is frustration. He is desperate to achieve whatever his goal is, and when he can’t do it, it infuriates him.
• I’ve also noticed something else neat over the last week. I knew Luna was very, very good with kids, but I didn’t know just how good until Janeane and Emma came over on Friday. Luna had her favorite Squeaky Ball (the bane of Chris’s existence, as it’s very loud and obnoxious and, for some reason, it just won’t die!), and she was playing with it with Janeane and Emma. When Janeane would reach for the ball, Luna would fiercely hang onto it and tug on it, as most dogs will. But when Emma would reach for it, Luna would immediately relinquish it and wait for Emma to throw it for her. (Well, at her...Emma is two, and hasn’t quite mastered the concept of throwing the ball for the dog, and not so much at the dog! But Luna didn’t mind—she was just delighted to have a playmate.) This gives me great hope that Luna will continue to be as sweet with Theo as she has been up until now. She really is a fantastic dog, despite her disgusting penchant for “helping” me clean up spit up.
• And speaking of spit up (how’s that for a charming segue?!), hurray for baby signs! As some of you know, I’ve been working on baby sign language with Theo for about two months now. I started with just the “milk” sign, because Theo tends to just suddenly shriek out of the blue when he’s hungry, instead of giving a little forewarning. So I decided a well-placed “milk” sign would be a nice alternative to an unearthly scream designed to rouse the dead. Anyway, the “milk” sign is opening and closing a fist, as if squeezing a cow’s udder. So for the last two months, when it’s time for Theo to eat, I say, “Do you want milk?” and I make the “milk” sign with my hand. Yesterday, he made it back! He was laying on my lap, getting ready to nurse, and I said, “Do you want milk?” and made the sign. He had one fist wrapped around my other thumb, and I felt him squeezing it. I looked down to find him making the “milk” sign and smiling! I was so excited!!! We shall keep working on that one, and I’m also starting to introduce the “food” and “more” signs.
• And last but not least...the Great Crib Saga continues. In this week’s album, you’ll see a picture of cute, chubby little feet sticking out of the side of the crib. I took that early in the week, when I had Theo in there for a few minutes during the day. (I put him in there when I need to get something done and I need him in a safe, contained place. He likes to play in there.) Inevitably, he wiggles and gets his feet stuck out through the rails. So we haven’t yet moved him into his crib in part because we figured he’d be doing that all night. Um, yes...we were right. Last night I put Theo in his crib by default. Chris was asleep, Theo wet through his PJs and all over the sheet in his Pack and Play, and I had no way to change the sheet without him squalling and waking up Chris when I put him down to do the changing. So, I decided on the spur of the moment that last night would be the Great Crib Night. Ugh...bad idea! Theo slept fine in the crib, but just as we suspected, he flailed and moved so much that he kept waking me up all night long because he’d get his legs stuck in the rails, and he’d start fussing. After freeing him several times, I decided that the crib is currently for the birds. I’m going back to the Pack and Play...at least I usually get a decent night of sleep when he’s in that. (In theory, anyway....)

Anyway, another week in the life of Theo and his weary but excited parents. His six-month checkup is this coming Thursday, so stay tuned for a midweek blog post about Gigantor’s weight, height, and all that good stuff. We’re accepting bets on the weight. My guess is 19 lbs 3 oz, although a little voice in my head says I should be guessing more like 18 lbs 7 oz. Chris has guessed 19 lbs on the nose. The winner gets...well, nothing but glory and the joy of proclaiming himself or herself the winner.

It seems we have acquired the wrong kid somewhere in the past week or so. Maybe some switched him on us at the park or something. The baby we have now has been happy for four straight days, with minimal fussing, and has taken naps for two days in a row. No way this is our Theo! I've been trying for literally months to get him to nap, to no avail! And suddenly, he took two naps yesterday and is on his first nap of the day today (noon on Tuesday). And he went to bed at 8:15 last night, a full hour early, and slept until 7:45 this morning!

 

Not that I'm complaining, mind you. But I swear, it's like he misunderstood the concept of a birthday and somehow thinks he's supposed to give us a gift. But a lovely gift it is!!!

First and foremost, I want to say HAPPY SIX-MONTH BIRTHDAY, THEO!!! He turns the big six months today (Sunday, 10/5).

 

The early part of this week was spent getting settled after our Portland trip and catching up on work. It has been crazy-busy for both Chris and I. Luckily, Theo has been mostly relatively cheerful. We also paid a short visit to Grandma Ruth one day when Theo was in a particularly mellow mood.

 

We also made another attempt at rice cereal this week, now that Theo is six months old and can theoretically eat solids now. I can’t say it went overly well. After two days of having a cheery little mellow fellow around, Leon returned with a vengeance a couple hours after the rice cereal experiment. We couldn’t tell for sure whether it was the cereal that bugged him, but it didn’t seem promising. Leon finally took leave about six hours after he arrived, and we breathed a sigh of relief and decided that rice cereal would no longer be on the menu, since it’s really not a nutritional powerhouse anyway. (We’ve now tried it twice, and neither time has yielded particularly positive results.)

 

So, we’re onto bigger and better foods now. After giving his system several days to get back to normal, we attempted pureed squash on Sunday. I bought a butternut squash, steamed it, and pureed it, then froze it in ice-cube trays, which make perfect single-serving amounts. I did the same with apples, so if the squash goes well for an entire week, we’ll then try apples and see how those go. I’m hoping the solids go well, as Theo isn’t nursing particularly well these days. We had a good run of it for a while, and now he’s constantly delatching and fussing again. I’m not sure whether it’s teething or what, but he’s just not nursing very well. I was trying to make it at least until the end of the year with him, but he may be self-weaning early, for all I know. We’ll keep at it for a while and see how it goes, but in the meantime, I’d like to at least get him started on solids, in case he is indeed wanting to wean.

 

Anyway, the good news is that my feeding worries today were squashed. (Get it? Squash...squashed?! Ha ha, I kill me!) We fed Theo his squash around lunchtime today, and he suffered no ill effects at all. He ate maybe half of one cube (we thawed it and warmed it to room temperature), so we were happy with that. And he had much fun demonstrating his new talent of blowing raspberries while eating said squash, so that was amusing for Chris (who did the feeding).

 

Our other celebration for Theo’s half-birthday was a trip to a local park. The one near our house has no shade (because it’s brand-new), so we drove over to one in Rocklin that has a nice, shady playground. As always, Theo had a blast on the swings. I swear, he loves nothing more in life than going on the swings. It’s very cute!

 

Sunday wasn’t our only big day, though. Saturday we took Theo to San Francisco for the first time. A few people I work with were in town for an audio engineering convention, so we drove down to meet them for dinner, along with our friend, Kim. But, because it’s a two-hour drive each way, we decided to make a day of it and attempt the drive around when Theo might theoretically nap. (Not that the kid naps very often, but we always like to try, even though it rarely yields results!) So, we left at 11am, had lunch on the way, and spent a couple hours at the San Francisco Zoo. I wish we’d had a little more time at the zoo; it was a gorgeous day, and the zoo is very nice (and quite uncrowded that day). Afterward, we drove back into the city proper via the Great Highway (which runs along the coast), which was gorgeous. We stopped at the Sutro Baths/Cliff House so Kim and I could walk down to the beach and take some pictures. Unfortunately, the sun was shining directly at us, so most of my pictures didn’t turn out, but it was still beautiful to see. Best of all, dinner went well, and Theo was a very good boy all long. Chris and I breathed a huge sigh of relief! I think Theo charmed my coworkers instead of scaring them by being fussy Leon, which was a good thing.

 

In honor of Theo’s six-month birthday, I thought I’d keep the blog relatively short and instead include a letter I wrote to him, since it really sums up his little self for those of you who haven’t yet met him. I have this rather morbid “tradition” that I’m starting of writing Theo letters on certain occasions, so that if I’m ever not around someday, he can look back at those letters and know how much I loved him. I wrote him one about his birth, and I wrote him one on Mother’s Day (and plan to do one every Mother’s Day and every birthday). So, here’s his six-month letter, so you all can get to know our little guy just a little bit better:

 

October 5, 2008

 

Dear Theo,

 

You are now six months old, little man! And you are nothing—nothing—like I imagined you’d be. Before you were born, I envisioned a quiet, calm baby, perhaps rather reserved, like your Dad and I can be sometimes. But no—you are the furthest thing from that possible. In fact, you are just like you were in the womb—a constant whirlwind of energy and motion. In retrospect, I should’ve known you’d have a lot of energy...you kicked me all the time, and your tiny fists pummeled my bladder those last few weeks of pregnancy. Even now, you kick me when I nurse you, and you slam your fists down on the keyboard when I try to work while feeding you.

 

You, my boy, have a passion I didn’t know existed in babies. You are middle-of-the-road in nothing. You have a fiery temper and scream like an angry pterodactyl when you’re mad—in fact, I think we can safely say that your first word was, “MMMMMAAAAAADDDDD!” even if you didn’t know what it meant when you were screaming it at us. You cry with gusto when you’re hungry...there is rarely any “mildly fussy” time with you. If you’re fussy, you’re generally wailing. But, you also laugh in absolute glee when you find something funny, like the dogs barking or when you’re playing on the swings. You have a radiant smile that lights up a room when you’re happy, and you can go from angry squalling to a devilishly handsome grin in a matter of a moment. I’ve taught you that I need a “Theo smile” to let you out of your swing, and you can be hollering up a storm at me in there, and then turn on that absolutely glowing smile if you think it’ll earn you a release from your prison. You’re a charmer, little one.

 

You have learned to blow raspberries, and you delight in going, “Phhhhbbbbllllltttt” at me whenever possible. You’re obsessed with your hands and feet, looking at them every day as if they’re the most fascinating things ever. You have an ardent affection for your caterpillar toy (the giraffe that you once loved has now been relegated to mere friend status) and your seahorse toy. You love your bath, and you splash in it with great merriment. With equal enchantment, you slam your rattle down on your Exersaucer, smashing everything in sight.

 

Somehow, Theo, just when I think I’m going to fall over from the sheer exhaustion of keeping up with you and a full-time job and a husband and two dogs, you flash that beautiful smile at me or giggle when I push you in the swing, and I completely melt.

 

One day, I hope you’ll learn to control that wild temper of yours...but at the same time, I hope you’ll always keep that incredible joy that you have. Hopefully, you can learn from your Dad and I to calm your temper, and we can learn from you how to live life with a passion and joy as intense as yours. Theo, you live life to the fullest like no one I’ve ever known. It sounds silly to say about a baby, but it’s true—you don’t do anything halfway. And I can’t help but admire the heck out of you for that, even when you are screaming at me. J

 

Love very much and always,

Your mama