Eight months

Dear Kyle,

You're just across the room as I write this. You're tossing your pacifier off your exersaucer and then looking at me as if to say, "Well, come on now, fetch that." I smile and say, "No, love. Mama hates that game." So you go on to something else, smiling even. I'm relishing in how easy-to-please you are this month, how quick to distract and how without-effort it is to turn your attention on a new toy or gadget or hair ball. I know one day the stubbornness that is programmed into your DNA will take over, and it won't be so easy.

Oh, but for now. For now you are the greatest delight and the most fun you've ever been. I've been saying this awhile now, yes I know, but this month, more than any month since I first met you, something has shifted in me. I've begun feeling desperate to see you, spend time with you, hold tightly to this time. When I leave you now, it hurts more than it ever has before.

Forgive me, Ky, but the fact that you're actually going to grow up and become a real person with opinions and thoughts and the ability to move away from me and never call to check in hit me like a semi-truck this month, and I find myself -- more than ever -- longing to press pause, to go back and slap that woman who wished away your newbornness because, my god, it's all over so soon, and all we have are words and pictures and memories to cling to in the wake of time. Those are lovely, don't get me wrong, but you can't snuggle with any of them. You can't take in the scent of memories. You can't get intoxicated over the belly laugh of a word. I miss you every moment I'm with you because I finally understand that just as soon as I drink that moment in, it will be gone. It's over just like that.

I left you this month, for five long-but-lovely days. I had an incredible time, and I dedicated post after post to how much fun I had with friends I hope I still have when you read this. I call it my soul-healing vacation. When I was driving home after my trip, I thought about having to work the next day and how unfair it is that I can't be with you all the time, how I sometimes hate being the kind of person who thrives when working outside the home, and who needs a circle of friends that extends past your dad and Molly. I sometimes hate I'm this person, this person with a desire to live beyond our front door. When it comes down to it, what's inside our house is all that matters, yet I leave sometimes, and I want to try to explain to you why. When I was driving home from this trip, I got stuck by a train, and I was livid! I wanted to be with you, and I was just miles from you, and how dare a TRAIN prevent me from holding you! When I finally got home, you were fast asleep, but I tiptoed into your room and began sobbing before I even saw you. I could sense you, breathing in-and-out, and it broke my heart like it always does. That gentle, natural, beautiful breathing of a sleeping baby. It's enough to fix all the world's problems. I picked you up and out of your crib while your dad shook his head from the couch because he sometimes can't believe he married someone so damn girlie. I can't ever remember a moment so perfect, me holding you after five days of only seeing you in blurry, bad cell-phone pictures. And I thought, if I had never left, I would never have known how incredible it felt to come home to you. I leave sometimes because nothing reminds me how much I love you like being apart from you, and sometimes the most beautiful moments of parenthood come from the perspective that distance brings. 

Kyle, I know it's with the help of rose-colored-parent-glasses and the ease of hindsight that I say this, but you are such a damn joy. You are an incredibly happy and delightful baby. You scream, sure, and when we don't hand you your bottles RIGHT AS WE MAKE THEM you freak out like a boy who very obviously got his love of food from his mother. You've also been on a very frustrating nap strike the last month or so. You've decided real napping sucks it big time but cat napping, well, that's really where it's at. Who cares what your mother thinks of that. (Note: she thinks it blows.) You will not stay still to save your life, and although every parent understands this, how hard it is to contain mobile babies, you are ever-so-slightly different, I suspect. You deserve to be on the cast of Nitro Circus Junior. You don't just try to get away, you try to HURL YOURSELF AWAY. You actually climbed out of your exersaucer the other day, and, ha, I wish I were exaggerating for comedic effect when I say that, but you actually worked like hell to get out of a contraption that's sole purpose is to contain and entertain babies. YOU DEFIED FISHER PRICE, CHILD. I also found you just this morning with a bloody lip. You were smiling like a fool with blood all over you, and, yeah, MAMA DOES NOT LIKE TO BE GREETED LIKE THAT FIRST THING IN THE MORNING. We think you were probably chewing on your crib and fell, your lip getting caught in the crossfire. Or, possibly a troll crawled into your crib and you got into a fist-fight. Regardless, I am seeing glimpses this month of what parenting a boy is going to be like and on the one hand, man, it's going to be a ridiculously wild adventure but on the other hand, holy shit, my heart and nerves were not made for this. But, aside from all that exhaustion and blood-pressure raising, Buds, you are the sweetest, happiest, most fun baby I could have ever hoped for. You are just amazing, kid. Simple as that.

You will hold a rock and study it for 18 straight minutes because, whoa, what the hell is THIS, I must figure it out, and then you will try to WALK WHEN YOU CANNOT WALK and you will bruise your head from that attempt, and when I think back to our first night in the hospital when your dad and I stared at each other and asked, in all seriousness, "WHO MADE THIS CHILD? HE DOES NOT LOOK LIKE EITHER OF US?" I laugh because, oh baby, you are so your dad's kid. Your dad, the man who will stand in Fry's for TWO DAMN HOURS when choosing a modem cable but who will then attempt a flip on his snowboard just to see if he can do it. You are his boy, his buddy, his buds. I'm so glad you remind me of him. It's heartwarming, it's comforting, it's all I ever wanted, but I'm starting to get a little selfish this month. I'm starting to look for anything that will remind me of, well, me. I know I had a part in making you, I REMEMBER LABOR FAIRLY VIVIDLY, but when I look deep into your eyes, I have to really search for traces of myself.

So, you can imagine my sort of selfish joy when it started to become very apparent that you don't give a damn how messy you are. Your grandma has said so many times how your dad hated getting dirty as a kid. He'd FREAK OUT whenever he got wet or messy, and would rather play cleanly and orderly thank you very much, but I was the exact opposite of this. I was a dirty, messy kid who turned into an adult who still spills food down the front of her shirt.

And look at you:

A beautiful mess. Just like your mama.

Eight months. Buds, how did this happen? How are we already here? How can such a contradiction even exist, the deep desire to see who you'll become and the deep desire to go back, for just a moment, to who you were. I don't know how it's possible, but it is. It's the one thing I'm sure of. That the gift of time is also a curse. That I long, equally, for the past and the future. You are eight months old, baby boy, and I am both stunned and humbled. I'm both terrified and ecstatic. I spend every day eager to see what lies ahead while grieving what came before. If being a mother has taught me anything it's that life is ridiculous. It's a nonsensical ride, and we do our best to hold on and enjoy ourselves while we can. We forever try to live in the moment because it really is all we have.

I had a book shower when I was pregnant, and so you have a bookcase full of books already. There is one I read you a lot because it's my favorite, and it's not even a classic or that well-illustrated, but it's a story of a busy mom, you can tell, and sometimes she's at work and sometimes she's at the grocery store and sometimes she's upset and sometimes she's in the sandbox with her baby boy, but no matter what, no matter what she's doing, she loves her son. The name of the book is "I Love You All The Time." And this is how I feel, as I sit in traffic and talk to the Terminix guy very sternly about why there are ANTS IN OUR KITCHEN and when I am in a meeting and when I am at dinner with the girls. When I am blogging and when I'm doing the dishes and when I'm feeding you your dinner -- my favorite time of my day -- and when I'm folding your little-but-so-much-bigger-than-before clothes into their drawers and when I'm cooking dinner. Whenever, wherever.

Oh, Kyle, I love you all the time.

Love,

Your Mama

Comments

[Amy --- Just A Titch]

Ohhh, the tears. THE TEARS. What a great kid, and what a great letter.

[Steph!]

You are a wonderful mama! Gah...this is beautiful and breathtaking.

[Kristie]

I'd say you and Kyle are equally lucky to have one another. He sure is a kick ass kid.

[Dani]

So so sweet! Every stage I find myself saying "this is the most fun stage" ... And so far I've been right. Such a fun journey!

[Carrie]

It goes so fast, doesn't it? My second (and last) child is 4 months old already and I can't believe it. Your son sounds like a wonderful, cute baby- great post!!!

[Rachel]

Beautiful letter!! So sweet and he is too cute! :)

[Hillary]

What a cutie!

And, p.s., The Boy has that same green shirt, just a couple sizes up. It's one of my favorites.

[Heather]

Sniff, sniff. Your letters to Kyle are always so beautiful.

[Bobbi Janay]

What a sweet post.

[La Petite Chic]

Oh, Jennie. This was my favorite letter to Kyle thus far.

[Natalie]

Very sweet! Kyle is lucky to have you for his mama.

I always say that I've wanted 4 boys! We have these rough and tumble boys at my school, and now I'm not so sure! They are always running into walls, pulling on each other, and being a disaster.

[barbetti]

Jennie, can I hire you to write posts like these, except dedicated to Dublin?

Seriously. You say everything I want to say about my own son. Beautiful post. It made me cry when I read it last night. HORMONES, much?

[Manda]

They grow up too fast it's NOT FAIR!! He is just darling Jennie!

[Karmyn]

This is my favourite monthly letter so far. SO well written.

[Leigh]

Beautiful! Happy 8 months to Kyle. I can see there's much to look forward to.