Dear MrMan,
Today you turned seven months old. You also had your first swim and loved the experience of kicking around in the pool and splashing the water with your hands. Not a big surprise. So far, you embrace with enthusiasm most of the new experiences of life. These include the experiences thrust upon you (we've yet to find a food you truly dislike), as well as the ones you create for yourself. Squealing and screeching falls into the latter category. The sounds makes me think of a pterodactyl. (That's probably not a good example, as by the time you read this letter you may be under the impression that I am old enough to have personal experience with the dinosaurs.) The sounds make you laugh with delight, and squeal and screech some more.
This month you have become more mobile, giving me signs that I really need to get on the path to babyproofing. You're not quite crawling, at least not in a coordinated fashion, but you have an ability to get from point A to point B, assuming the two points aren't too far from each other. You sort of scooch about on your belly. You've also been spending time on your hands and knees, rocking about and sometimes moving a bit forward or backward, but haven't gotten the hang of moving the hands and knees, and everything in betweeen, in a way to travel the way you seem to want to. You're always trying to mooch rides off of whoever is walking past: if one of us is walking around, we're your new best friend. If we're just standing, you have no qualms about giddy'up-ing us, and have added a hand pat to the knee nudge. You've gotten better at standing yourself, pulling yourself up on us, some of the furniture, and the sides of your crib. A few weeks ago, you would spend time sitting and playing in your crib. Recently, though, you're all about standing up in the crib. Forget those toys!
There are not too many toys you're enamored of these days. You're more interested in being in my arms. I thought we'd kind of moved away from that, but in the past couple of weeks, you've become more clingy. It's flattering that you always want to be with me, but I'm assuming and hoping it's just a phase.
The things that seem to occupy you for short bits of time are things with buttons: your computer keyboard, your little piano keyboard, your recently acquired Buzz Lightyear cellphone, the remote control to anything.... You'll sit for a little while and pound and gnaw away on those things. I guess you truly are a child of the 21st century. But you do still like "old-fashioned" things like books (especially The Runaway Bunny), songs (we've recently added Where is Thumbkin? to the repertoire), and counting (in English, Persian, Chinese, and Spanish).
Last week, Maman Jan and Papa Joon went out of town for Amu Naysan's graduation. It was an adventure for you and me, since it's never been just the two of us alone for so long. It went pretty well, but you were thrilled when we picked them up at the airport: you didn't seem to know which grandparent to gaze at adoringly first. So you went back and forth, grinning with your whole body.
Last night, looking at you asleep in my arms, I was thinking about how you've changed my life. Having you in my life makes me appreciate it more fully. The laughter, the tears, it's all better because of you. Maybe it's because I'm looking at it through fresh eyes. Maybe it's because I now want to hold on tighter to each moment in time, afraid that I'll look away and miss something. Maybe it's because knowing that you're watching closely makes me want to be a better version of myself. Regardless, I cherish your being in my life.
Love,
Mommy