Babymania

Your first four months are a bit of a blur—a cycle of eating, napping, and crying. Especially eating. I wondered why I didn’t gain much weight while pregnant with you, despite having a three-pint-a-week Ben & Jerry’s habit. Little did I know, I was incubating an incredible metabolism machine. You literally nursed 7-8 hours a day, and even then we were supplementing with formula. You logged hours of your early life in your infant swing. A swing, that if outfitted with an odometer, would have rocked you the equivalent of the distance to the moon. We also had the stereo tuned to static to soothe you. Truth be told, you were kind of kicking our butts there for a while.

Something magical happened right around month four, however. You started sleeping for longer periods and crying less. You were smiling more. Nothing escaped your attention. Right around this time, you became this happy little guy, who would just hang out with me and entertain himself with his toys.

Today, you have more energy than anyone I know. I remember when you first turned over on your own, and thought that was pretty neat. Now, you’re hitting and exceeding milestones every day. You’ve always been chatty, but now you’re babbling in full sentences. Imitating every sound you hear, particularly sirens, horns, and cars (you’re a city boy, after all). You climb on everything you can, crawl at top speed, and experiment with standing alone. You eat—and eat everything—with absolute gusto.

You are constantly experimenting in your new world. Your pattern is this: pick up toy (or sometimes not a toy), shake it, drop it, pick it up again, throw it, taste it, discard and repeat with a different toy (or not toy). You take your job as a miniature gravity tester/item taster very seriously, and when you make it through your overflowing bin of toys, you look around for something else to test. You find the tiniest speck on the floor and go after it, the slimmest corner, and crawl into it.

You are also tremendously social. I was worried about taking you to daycare, concerned that you wouldn’t get the attention you seemed to need. But you have absolutely flourished there. You actually already have friends (I recently heard one kid call you “The Finnster”) and you kick and smile and wave with both hands when you see them. You don’t even look back when I leave—you’re too busy climbing into the group of kids and commencing your very important gravity experimentation. When we walk in the neighborhood, you wave enthusiastically at anyone walking the opposite direction and say “buh-bye” in the cutest little baby voice. Andwhen you see a dog? You’re pointing and exclaiming “ooooh”, while offering your mouth for kisses. (We are discouraging you from doing this.)

For such a young guy, you really do have a great sense of humor. Your taste leans toward the slapstick right now. For instance, when Daddy pretends to fall, that is hi-larious. When we make funny faces? A hoot. Other kids make you laugh in a way that makes me wonder if you have some secret language where you babies make fun of your silly parents together.

I’m so proud to have such a smart, funny, adorable, sweet little son. I wish I could keep you at this age forever, because every day, I think “This is the best stage! I just can’t bear to watch you get any older!” But this happens almost every day. So, just imagine how much I’ll love you this time next year. Happy Birthday, my Finn.

Love,
Your Mama

Letter to baby idea thanks to Dooce.