Benjamin Penguin

Dear Benjamin,

I scarcely know where to begin this letter because so much has changed in such a short period of time. Historically, four weeks was this passable period of time between, say, eating my Tofurkey on Thanksgiving and then pigging out on cookies on Christmas Eve. It was the length of time between tucking into my birthday cake and raiding the candy aisles at Walgreens for the discounted Halloween Candy. Now, however, four weeks is the length of time in which you transform from one baby into another. It’s remarkable to think that in the past, when I measured off time in my four week increments, not a whole lot of interesting stuff was going on to occupy my attention. I’m sure Daddy told a few funny jokes here and there and I’m positive the cats and/or dog did something really cute, but none of it was all that memorable. Your new little skills, however? Buddy, I’m typing this letter from memory.

First, let’s go ahead and talk about your hands. Why? Because they are grabbing EVERYTHING. The past four weeks are best termed the “grabby period.” Picasso had a blue period. Van Gogh had a Parisian period. And you are now living your period in which every possible thing you come into contact with finds its way into your hands (and, following suit, your mouth). This includes objects as assorted as cat tails, dog ears, office supplies, your toys, my books, our kitchen utensils, paper towels and a host of seemingly dull items that hold utter fascination for you. If I am holding something of interest in my hand, you pull it into your hands. If I am holding you in my lap and writing something down, you grab for the pen and barring that, the sheet of paper I am writing on. If I am at the computer, you grab for the keys on the keyboard. If Daddy and I are eating, you grab for our food and our cups. You grab your clothes that I lay next to you before I can even dress you in them and toss them over your face while letting out an ear-piercing squeal of amusement. You grab my hair by the handful and let go with a merciless yank until I am roughly 37 hairs less on my head. You grab your pacifier and, depending on your mood, plop it squarely in your mouth or toss it across the room. Did I mention yet that you grab?

In addition to increasingly active hands, you have decided to supplement your grabbing with all manner of verbal utterances. Like mariachi music in a Mexican restaurant, your babbling has become the background music in the daily unfolding of our lives. When I awake in the morning, I can hear you cooing and sighing next to me. (Oh, and seriously? You always wake up before me and refuse to let me sleep in. Zombies such as your Mama really should not be asked to exit the slumber of their bed before 8am, but you’ll have no part in helping to preserve Mama’s sanity through blissful, blissful sleep). When I am eating my breakfast, you make all manner of googoo and gaagaa and baabaa sounds as you sit in your high chair throwing your toys at my face. In the throes of excitement, you let go with the most piercing shrieks of joy. You do this when angry, too, so with the careful precision of an anthropologist studying a previously undiscovered tribe, I study the context of your shrieking to see if you are happy or angry. A shriek followed by a drooling grin is a unambiguous sign of happiness, while a shriek followed by any of the following is a sure sign that Mama better get her arse in gear and attend to the clearly neglected infant: shriek and then pout, shriek and then rigor mortis-like body stiffening, shriek and then thrashing, kicky legs. You’ve also said, on a number of occasions, the word dada, though I am not sure you are really associating the word with your actual Daddy. It seems to be one word in a stream of utterances that you will spill out during the course of your babbling. Daddy is convinced, however, that you are calling out to him when you make that sound, so I take full advantage of it and lay about the couch like a fair maiden while I wave my hand in your direction and declare that his son is calling him and he should really be the one to check his diaper, feed him, entertain him, etc.

This past month, we have started to give you solids, which is something of a misnomer because it is actually a variety of pureed fruits. Your very first meal was plain rice cereal. Look, buddy, we’re not too bright sometimes and it doesn’t always dawn on us that infants are tiny little adults that have preferences and likes and dislikes. So while I would never sit down with a bowl of Cream of Rice without liberal sprinkling of Sugar in the Raw, I somehow had it in my head that you would tear into your bland, tepid rice cereal with great aplomb. You proved me quite wrong, refusing to eat the slop by turning your head and clamping your mouth shut. We got a few morsels in there, which you promptly spit out. The next morning as I was eating my banana, I noticed you eying it with great enthusiasm and so I took my spoon and mashed it up into a slimy little lump and fed it to you. Success! You loved it. You could not have loved it more and ate the whole serving. From that moment on I realized that we’d probably have some success with fruit. And after a conversation with your Nana and Grandma, we even learned that you can mix rice cereal and pureed fruits and it becomes palatable for babies. So now you happily nosh away on fruits and cereal mixed together. Though we’ve switched to an oatmeal cereal because you were getting tremendously, ugh… corked… on the rice cereal. I hesitate mentioning this because it is kind of gross, so I’ll leave out most of the details and just state this: One day, you had incredible difficulty passing a stool and Daddy had to just get in there and help. Really help. I’m pretty sure he’s still a little traumatized by the whole experience. So I promise not to bring it up in front of future romantic interests if you promise to remember that there was a day, many years back, when your father did the previously (in his mind) unthinkable for you and could you please just stop with the adolescent sass and impatient sighing?

Aside from the solids, you are still nursing and taking bottles as well. Nursing you is now, as it has always been, something of a challenge. During the day, you can’t be bothered. Maybe the breast pushes milk too slow, or you like to eat while sitting up or you want to be able to watch TV while you eat. Who knows? But you still come to Mama to nurse when you are tired and it is time to take a nap, or when it is time to go to bed. There is a new sweetness in this particular style of nursing because it shows me that you look to Mama for comfort. You might be all action and adventure during your more wakeful moments, but when it’s time for the warmth and calm necessary for a good rest, Mama has just the beverage and the cuddles that you need. I think that is wonderfully charming and though I sometimes let go with a big sigh on my more exhausted days, I’m willing to hang in there with you and wind down together until you are old enough to find your own source of comfort. I’m excited to have made it to nursing six months with you and I’m genuinely curious to see how long our nursing relationship will continue. Daddy has been more active in feeding you as well since you’ve been taking in more formula as of late. I should say that Daddy is helping you to feed yourself because you’ve grown ever more interested in holding your own bottle. If Daddy sets it in front of you while he is placing you in the proper position for eating, you simply grab it off the table and jam the nipple in the general direction of your mouth hole. You hold it with him while you are drinking it and though Daddy supports most of the weight with his hands, you are quite diligent in directing it into the proper position relative to your mouth. And like a drunken cowboy of yore, when finished with the bottle, you promptly smash it to the floor and let out a gleeful hoot.

I think the most delightful change that has occurred to date has been your burgeoning excitement with the world around you. There are so many things that now grab your attention that this has really been the first period in which Daddy and I felt like we were in the presence of another person. Of course you were always here with us as your own corporal entity, but you are engaging with your world in such a way now that we are unmistakably sharing our apartment with a little person that has thoughts, responses, reactions and interests. When the cats or dog walk by you now, you reach out to grab them because they interest you and amuse you (particularly LuLu when she is playing fetch with Mama or Daddy). When Bones lies next to you on the bed or the couch, you roll over and try to hug him and rip his fur lovingly from his body. If you want something that we think you shouldn’t have and we take it away from you, you get visibly mad and let out a frustrated yelp. When you do or see something you think is pretty cool, you turn to us to make sure we are witnessing your awe of the MOST splendiferous product ever! You prefer fruits and sweets to your veggies. You get mad when it takes us too long to do something. You study people more closely now before breaking out into your little grin as if sizing them up and determining whether they are worthy of your charm. You are quite serious in your zealousness for play and amusement and somewhat lazy when it comes to moving your body to and fro, just like Mama and Daddy. Some Mamas that I know talk about how they can’t keep their little one from rolling around all over the place and fighting to sit up, to take those first, awkward stabs at learning how to crawl. You, however, are quite content to hang out with us as we all lay around the apartment babbling into the air. I try to get you to practice sitting up unsupported but you just let your body slump forward and then you let your body sort of slump to the side until you eventually fall back onto your back where you proceed to smile and remain quite supine, thank you very much. It’s very similar to the experience I have trying to get Daddy out of bed in the morning.

You are clearly your own little person and yet there are glimpses, most fleeting in nature, of a look or a head toss or a sigh that seems just like something Daddy would do. And even sometimes something I would do. This excites me to no end as I have often daydreamed of watching you grow up and observing the ways in which you are like Daddy or like me and the ways in which your personality diverges from ours to form a new element that changes our family dynamic.  We think you’ll be happy but intense. Shy but pleasant. Realistic but hopeful. Intelligent but approachable. And most of all, wonderful.

Love,

Mama