We’re visiting the inlaws in New Jersey, and made our way by starlight this morning down along open highways to get here around noon. Seven hours, give or take, and Bean survived.
So much to post about–perhaps tomorrow when we have leisure time and Bean’s grandparents are doting on him. Noteworthy: we purchased a new Cannon EOS 20D. It takes amazing pictures and yesterday, walking around town trying out the exquisitly rapid shutter speed and the lovely zoom lense, I was giddy beyond belief. Click on the photo below for a slideshow sampling of the pictures we took.
See his tongue?? He tries to stand now, all of the time. Munching on the edges of the coffee table, chairs, our knees. His little wobbly legs push him up frantically, his feet tipy-toed. He sways about like a drunk with a hula hoop.
Time to move everything another level up. The surface of the coffee table, no longer safe from little grabbing hands.
I put watercolor paints on a plate and let Bean play. This is what he made. Click on the picture for more photos of us in action.
My feet, bare, in flip flops all summer. Since I got pregnant last year, they’ve been unadorned—I couldn’t reach my toes, for my belly. Now, I never have the time to fuss with nail lacquer and little brushes. My feet are strong and tan. My toes, nimble. I can pick things up with them, or draw, or write my name. I climb with them, run twenty miles a week. Walk to the grocery store, the farmer’s market, the park, carrying my weight, plus the wriggling weight of this baby boy I have.
His feet, new and soft as cream, just now encountering the downward pull of gravity for the first time. He curls his toes when he nurses, thrusting his feet about in delight. He puts them up high on the handle bar of his stroller, like a lazy teenager with his feet on the dashboard of some too-cool car. And last night, at 3 a.m. he was awake in his crib for awhile, playing chortling to himself softly in the darkness. Then he made a mighty grunt, and pulled himself up into a STAND. Feet quivering, toes down first, and a grin so huge, we could see even in the dark.
The boy, he gets into mischief ALL THE TIME. Because our house is small, single storied, and mostly free of hazards, we give Bean more or less free reign of the place, as we go about daily activities. And he loves this. Going from room to room, investigating.
He crawls FAST now. FASTER when he knows we’re coming for him when he is say, elbows deep in the cat food bowl, or happily pulling CDs of the entertainment center and throwing them with glorifying crashes onto the floor.
Mostly, it’s both awesome and amusing to watch him discover his world. Incredible to observe the finely tuned sequence of brain development that led him first to do exquisite “supermans,” then rock back and forth, now crawl. And though he’s only been crawling with agility for a week or so, he is already driven to try pulling himself up into the vertical. Kneeling, balancing, and occasionally falling.
I’m filled with wonder watching his brain absorb all the information he gathers about his environment as he explores it: push and pull, gravity, depth, cause and effect, orientation. And I am happy to be able to be here to witness it each day.
But there are times when I miss the full days of teaching other people’s children. The business of accomplishing things start to finish. My days are so fragmented now. Things are left started everywhere. Half folded heaps of laundry, a half-edited section of writing for my weekly workshop, a collage partly painted.
I can’t help but feel resentment sometimes then, at the way things work out. That DH job affords him six hours of “alone” time, no matter how stressful the market is. Of course we’re both compressed at the end of the work day, and of course the “work” isn’t done. But for me the compression often doesn’t have a release. The day doesn’t end until Bean goes to sleep, far longer than even my longest days teaching.
Invariably, exhaustion catches up with him RIGHT when dinner is done. And then I try to remember that being in the moment is what I’m here for. Even when the days fragments gather under my skin like so many shards of glass, as Bean’s body curls up against mine, I let his whispered breathing and the sweet scent of his hair settle down around me. I try to allow this to be enough.
