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Five months old

Dear MrMan,

Today you turned five months old. Five months old! Your transformations continue, at breakneck speed. In the past week alone, you have started speaking (after a period of more silence than chatter) with a new precision – you have greater intonation and a wider range of sounds, seemingly more control of what comes out. I still can’t understand you, but you are saying a lot. Also in the past week, you’ve started giving kisses. Just thinking about how you put your mouth to our cheeks brings a tear to my eye. Yours, too, apparently, as just as I was writing that sentence, your cries summoned me to our room. You have become more clingy (and sleep averse), especially at night. I’m flattered that no one else will do, but hope that this aspect of your personality continues to evolve.

Your bed time routine includes “Good Night Moon.” I would say this is your favorite book – it makes you smile and, amazingly, you’re more interested in looking at it than eating it. You try to eat pretty much everything these days. If it’s within reach, it’s in your mouth. When I give you a bath, you inevitably end up, at some point, with your mouth gumming the side of your tub. This results in my singing “The Lady with the Alligator Purse.” Your favorite song is Miss Mary Mack – you hold out your hands, and sometimes your feet, for us to clap. Your enjoying this song ties in with your increased attraction to clapping in general.

This month, you’ve started touching people’s faces more – always exploring them with your hands, sometimes with your mouth. You have a lot more hand control now: a couple of weeks ago, it hit me that the scratches on your face (due to flailing hands) have virtually ceased to appear. It came up the night that you got to meet another little boy, two months younger than you. It was a meeting of the minds, with the two of you gazing at one another. If you’d had your way, I think you would have liked to gum him.

You like the TV remote control. And the computer keyboard. When you’re sitting in front of the latter, you like to bang away at it with your hands. You’re also inclined to shove the keyboard tray in with your feet. Your legs continue to be the strongest part of your body. But today you seemed to actually enjoy time on your tummy. A new development? A fluke? It remains to be seen. I can’t really tell what your favorite toy is of late. Most of them hold your interest for a while and then eventually become a source of frustration somehow. But you do spend more time playing with them – batting them, gnawing them, gripping them – on your own.

You also spend alone time staring at and talking to the posters on the wall. You’re particularly taken with one of Walt Disney’s face, surrounded by several of his characters. You’re not opposed to the poster next to it either – crowded with multitudes of his characters. It’s so interesting to me how much you like those, as you have no cultural context for them. Our room is layered with the past of Mommy, Amu, and Dayi*, as it belonged to each of us at some point.

You’ve now been teething for about two months. The drool, oh, the drool. Sometimes it’s a trickle, sometimes a spurt, but if you’re awake, it’s there. The process seems to cause you some discomfort, but it doesn’t seem out of control – I’m hoping it doesn’t get too bad as we get closer to Tooth 1. Still no concrete sign of it. But that’s not stopping you from wanting to eat. You try, and sometimes succeed at, grabbing my food. A few weeks ago, we got you a highchair, so you could feel a part of mealtimes. That seemed to cause you more torture. But in the past week or so, it seems to have gotten better, maybe because I started attaching your tray. You spend meals gumming a plastic bowl and spoon, and your “veggie burger,” as I like to call your green teething ring. And tonight, the night you’ve been waiting for: you ate something other than my milk. Yes, you had a bit of rice cereal. And asked for more. But you’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

MrMan, to borrow a phrase from a character you are not yet familiar with, as he appeared after the poster on the wall, I love you to infinity and beyond.

Love,
Mommy

*In Persian, Amu is your paternal uncle, Dayi is your maternal one. Growing up, we had Amus, but no Dayis – at least in name: my father is Persian so we used Persian names for his brothers, and my mother is Black American so we called her brothers Uncles. For MrMan, we decided that my immediate family will have Persian titles. However, Naysan didn’t want to be a Dayi, he wanted to be an Amu, because that’s what he’s familiar with. Anis didn’t care so much, so is a Dayi. Just to add to my child’s confusion, Meisa, who’s my cousin, decided she will be his Ameh (the title for paternal aunt). It’ll work.

Posted by Shokufeh at April 18, 2006 11:23 PM