langley at six and seven months

january 14, 2010

dear little boognish,

you might have noticed that mama did not do a letter for you at six months. the first reason is, oy, do we ever have far too much going on around here. the second, crazier, reason is that there has been some debate over when your monthly “birthdays” actually are. your daddy and i have been counting up the weeks and, every four weeks, we call that a month. your gran wants us to count the 14th of each month as your birthday because it makes more sense then when you turn one year old. my only concern with choosing any particular method is that i refuse to be one of those people who says their child is 37 months old or 142 weeks old or any of that nonsense. so here’s the deal: we will, from now on, say that you’ve turned another month older on the 14th of each month and call it good.

all that aside, you have had a spectacular couple of months, little lady. you’re becoming a real little person, and it’s absolutely incredible. recently, we got you a walker, and then gran got you one for her house too, and you love scooting around and playing with all the toys. you actually “drive” the jeep walker - hands at 10 and 2 and everything.

you almost never want to lie down anymore, and naps are mostly out of the question unless you’re treefrogging on me or daddy. all you want to do is stand up, which you can now do with very little help from us. you hold onto our hands, but you’re basically balancing and doing everything on your own. you have also started sitting up without our help for really long periods of time without toppling over. it’s amazing how much happier you are with some independence. you’re so stinkin’ proud of yourself, and i love it.

the dogs are all your best buds, and you’re checking them out almost as much as they check you out now. one day a couple of weeks ago, you were at the tail-end of a two-hour fuss that no silly mama face or noise could break you out of, and bronson came over and started nosing around at you and licking your face, and you just busted out laughing. malichai came over to join in, and you were completely cheered up. you love those damn dogs. you’ve been petting them a lot more and grabbing clumps of their fur and pulling their ears, and luckily they’ve been very understanding of these new developments. i think they’re just happy to have another human to pay attention to them since all mama and daddy do is neglect and abuse them, of course.

about a week ago, we took you to phoenix, and you took an awesome nap the whole way down, and then woke up just in time to go completely apeshit in the hotel room. you were a huge fan of all the new sights. you sat for an hour just rubbing your feet on the comforter because you liked the sound it made, and you got all wide-eyed looking out from our 16th floor windows. you went with us to a fancy dinner in a revolving restaurant, and even though everyone around us looked pretty worried that you were going to ruin their lovely evening, you did an amazing job of not fussing...even if it meant constantly being on either my or daddy’s lap, which made trying to cut our steaks really fun. when we got back to our hotel, we stopped at the bar to buy a bottle of wine, which we placed in the cup holder of your stroller, instantly making you a huge hit in the lobby. everybody saw our little alcoholic baby and laughed their asses off. we took off running before somebody called CPS.

you’re eating real foods these days, and mama’s giving the baby food maker a good workout. you’ve tried peas, carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, bananas and prunes, and guess what? you’re a foodie. you don’t care what color it is or what it smells like. if it is food, you probably really really really love it. daddy hates to feed you because you’re a giant catastrophe, always putting your fingers in your mouth and flinging food everywhere. i’m not a huge fan of that either, but you look so damn happy the whole time that i forgive you.

in two weeks, we’ll be heading to colorado to see your un-cle daaaaave in boulder and go to my friend jo’s wedding in denver. it will be your first plane ride and your first trip of more than one night, and i’m quite terrified. be nice to mama and daddy, okay? don’t decide that you hate your hotel crib like you did in phoenix, because i am not sleeping with a punching-and-kicking baby for five nights!

love,

mamadog