Sunday, October 18, 2009

10 Months

Dear Ben,

You are now ten months old. We shall not speak of how quickly this time has been passing. No we shall not. But if you could slow things down just a tiny bit, it would be greatly appreciated.

I think this month should be called The Month of Games. Your little brain (or big brain if your head size is any indication) has matured enough to understand the concept of purposeful play and you have created several games.

For posterity:

Up down up down: this game is played standing up (you, not me). You will squat down or bend your legs and look at me expectantly and I’ll say, “down.” Then you straighten up and I say, “up.” This continues until you grow bored or fall over, whichever comes first. You get a huge kick out of this game.
Hit mommy in the face with a piece of foam: The play room floor is lined with foam alphabet tiles and each of the outside tiles has a border piece that you love to pull off and carry around. Occasionally you will try to bop me on the head with the piece that you are carrying and I will faux-scream, “No no no!” while moving my head and hands back and forth. You will stop and smile and laugh at me and then start again. I hope this doesn’t mean that you like to beat other people up. I guess I’ll let this game continue until you get bigger and stronger than I. Then I might really be yelling for you to stop.
Pull the cloth diaper off of your face: this is a simple, but still very fun game. One of us throws a cloth diaper over your head and you grab it off. Whichever adult has initiated this yells, “Where’s Ben? There he is!” Up until about 2 weeks ago you couldn’t figure out how to get the diaper off of your face. This concerned me on many levels. Fortunately, you seem to have figured it all out. Good boy.
Dance dance dance: a simple game and the newest in your repertoire. Even if there is no music, I will say “dance dance dance” and occasionally you will gently bounce up and down. Adorable.

You also have started saying a few basic sort-of-words including: more (which sounds like mma, mma), kitty (which sounds like tee tee—often said in a whisper), and hi (sounds more like haaaaaaai, and I don’t think this is purposeful but we’ll still count it).

Your top teeth have mercifully broken through, bringing your grand teeth total to four. I am not looking forward to the rest of them coming in and I bet you aren’t either.

This month you developed croup, and while it was never extremely serious, you were sick enough to be quite grumpy. We were all very sad when there was not much we could do to make you feel better.

We went to our first story-time, put on by a wonderful neighborhood woman at a local coffee house. You were entranced by her for about 3 minutes, then spent an additional 2 minutes looking at the many children around you before you squirmed out of Daddy’s lap and tried to steal a banana from an unsuspecting mother. Suffice it to say that you have developed clear desires and an even clearer disdain for whatever we are asking you to do, if it is anything other than what you had in mind. It will be, shall we say, interesting to see if this pattern continues as you get older. If you’re anything like your mother, I predict some challenging times ahead.

You had your last days in child care during this month and now we are home together, every day. I am so lucky to be able to spend this time with you, and I especially enjoy going into your room after your nap so see you standing in your crib, shaking the bars, cheeks rosy, with an enormous smile on your face. That is all the fuel I ever need to keep me doing the best I can for you, every day.

So, another busy month draws to a close. Every day is an adventure, even when it looks just like the day before and the day after. These are times to be treasured, even the mundane and I often remind myself of this in the deep, dark hours of the night when I’m trying to rock you back to sleep. I hope that we trust and adore each other this much for our entire lives.

I love you my good boy.

Mom

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