Dear Arlo, 6 Months

How is it possible that today you, my dimpled little babe, are 6 months old? An entire half a year has passed since the moment I pushed your body out of mine, since you were delicately placed on my exhausted bosom, since I rested my cheek on your damp head in loving relief and teary disbelief. You were so serene in that moment--a peaceful, quiet little stranger.

And in this exact moment right now you are again peaceful, quiet, snuggled in close to me. The laptop is casting a glow on your face in our dark bedroom, and I am a little worried that its light and my keystrokes will wake you from your 3:46am slumber, but that worry is trumped by another mounting worry: that I won't remember the feeling of these exquisitely tender nighttime moments between you and me--the ones where you just faintly stir from your sleep, gently wake me for a feeding, your plump little arms and legs tucked in close to my body as you quietly and methodically nurse. I worry that I will forget the sensation of these little moments when I cradle your warm, soft body to mine, and it feels like it's only you and me in the quiet of the early, early morning. This morning the worry of forgetting was suddenly so powerful, enough to wake me completely and force me out of the bed and into the kitchen to retrieve the laptop so I could write this. I am terrified of losing these memories, of forgetting the sensation of your sleepily nursing mid-night warmth.

You are a flurry of milestones right now, each one coming faster than the previous. Yesterday you crawled for the first time, wobbly shuffling on your hands and knees from your dad to me for a distance of about five feet. Wide-eyed and holding our breath we watched you in amazement, excitedly encouraging you along. And then this morning you effortlessly pulled yourself up on your bookshelf in your nursery. We stood there, both so paralyzed in astonishment that we didn't catch you when you toppled backwards and bumped your head. I scooped you up immediately, and rocked you, soothed you, nursed you. And I as I nursed you I pondered the parenting lesson that had just unfolded: Did I fail you by not foreseeing how you'd likely hurt yourself trying this new thing? Did I grant you too much independence in that moment? Did I convey to you in my response that I will be there when you are hurting, to scoop you up and let you know that everything will be okay?

I was sifting through some old photos for a friend recently, and I came across a couple of pictures from our beach vacation last May. When I look at pictures or recall certain memories, they now fall into two explicit categories: Before Arlo and After Arlo. But as I looked at these pictures I couldn't deposit them neatly into either category. It was strange. Those events occurred before your birth, sure. But I can't say they were before you. You were there. You, my sweet babe, existed. Perhaps merely as a tiny party of cells inside of me, but you were alive and in this world.

In one picture I was standing in the surf with my back to the camera. My jeans were rolled up to my knees, and I was facing the breaking waves. The ocean looked wild, immense and endless before me. I was 7 weeks pregnant, excitedly anticipating the ultrasound appointment scheduled for the following week that would confirm your existence. Looking at the photo I tried to recall what I was feeling in that moment, and what registered with me was as wild, immense and seemingly endless as the ocean crashing and receding around me: tenuousness. I don't think I ever exhaled during that week.

I spent our morning beach walks collecting the beaten conch and scallop shells abandoned on the shore by the night's high tide. I would search for the tiniest shells I could find, and I would study their tiny shapes in my palm. I quietly and longingly wondered about their size in relation to you. I brought them home from that vacation as if they were some sort of talisman that would ensure your little heart's continued flickering. They sit in a jar on my bedside table now.

Everything felt so tenuous and uncertain then, but here you are, my little Arlo. You are so interactive, so expressive, so purposeful. Earlier today I sat across from you and affectionately marveled while you played with your toys. You sat there in a onesie slightly too big for you, babbling animatedly to yourself, sitting up so perfectly and strongly, reaching with precision and purpose, investigating your toys with such intense inquiry. And as I watched you a wave of unrelenting awe crashed around me: You are a stunning little being. You are a whole new little person in this world. You exist. You are my son. My son. I am your mother.

My love for you, my sweet baby Arlo, is wild, immense and endless.

~Your mother
(Written 6/20/2011)

Blueberries for Arlo

Nick has a bad case of the Blueberry Crazies. It's true. That fiendishness is what prompted us to plant two blueberry bushes in our backyard a couple of summers ago. We managed to score about handful of blueberries from both bushes last summer before the birds and the squirrels picked them clean of every single berry, including the unripe ones! I'm sad to report that both bushes--probably due in part to our lack of knowledge in how to properly care for them--didn't survive to see another summer's picking. Was it the particularly frozen and snowy winter we had this past year? Was it our ignorance about pruning? Were they both just duds? Ugh, total blueberry heartache, man.

There is a pick-your-own farm two counties away from us that we've visited in previous summers to sate Nick's fresh blueberry hankering. Early one Sunday morning we set off to Mount Olympus to pick as many berries as Arlo's patience would permit. When Arlo grew a little restless, he and I visited the farm store, nursed on the store's long porch, spied on butterflies in the farm's greenhouse, and befriended a teddy bear of a farm dog. Nick kept on picking and picking, and by the end of our little farm visit we had picked just over 7 pounds. Is there anything more delicious than a fresh, sun-ripened, picked-by-your-own-hands blueberry? Nick will tell you very loudly and in no uncertain terms: nope!

We've put aside a small bag of berries in the freezer for Arlo. Once we begin introducing solids (sometime in the coming weeks) I'll blitz up a little blueberry puree for him. Perhaps we'll see then if we inherited his father's blueberry madness.

Is there anything more delicious than this baby? Nope!

Picking his first blueberries with Dad!

Our lil' blueberry

The Watkins Branch of the Family Tree Visits!

The Watkins branch of the family tree visited us over the long Memorial Day weekend! Well, 3/4 of the Watkins fam: Grandpa Elbe, Grandma Susan, and Auntie Sarah! Auntie Hannah (recent SEMU grad, huzzah!), sadly, wasn't able to come along this time (but, uh, that's okay because she's actually sitting right next to me as I type this, soaking up some undivided Arlo time on her solo visit!). 

Seriously, I don't think there's anything more sublime than seeing others shower your lovely little baby with genuine adoration and excited nuzzles. It's so heart-filling when other people think your sweet little baby is as lovely as you think he is. As usual, their visit felt as if it passed by way too quickly. We're stoked for Arlo's first trip to Lake Tahoe in August to spend more time with Grandpa and Grandma and meet other family members--like Great Grandma Millie and Great Grandpa Jack!!!--for the very first time!

hanging out downtown with Auntie Sarah after our HOT trolley ride

Soaking up some Grandpa snuggles

Reading the newspaper with Grandma Susan

Rocking his very own trolley sticker

Blowout!

Nobody poops up his back as masterfully as our son. That's pretty much all I need to say here.

Sitting Up + Salon Wall

About a week shy of 5 months, Arlo mastered sitting up independently! He had been sitting for short spells (although kind of floppily and often with assistance from the Boppy) for a couple of weeks before that. One day he suddenly seemed so sturdy, and he's been sittin' strong ever since. One day he's playing with the toys on his belly in the pack-n-play, and the next he's sitting erect, playing merrily with a casual expression on his face that says, This sitting thing? It's, like, simplest thing ever. I fee like I've been doing it forever, you guys, so I don't know why you're both hovering over me with such silly looks of astonished delight on your mugs. Get over it, Arlo. We're pretty much going to think everything you do is, like, THE COOLEST THING EVER. 

What? This sitting thing is a big deal?

Since Arlo began playing independently for longer stretches of time while sitting happily, it gave me an opportunity to start pulling together the professional maternity and baby pictures that Marta Locklear took for us. I scrounged around the house until I found a decent collection of frames and began organizing a draft of their arrangement on the floor. This took about a week, much to Nick's frustration, as he had to constantly step over my would-be, floor-draft salon wall arrangement for...more than a week! Finally, I mounted them on the wall:

Chillin' in the basement den

...only after putting them up did I realize that my arrangement looked better in theory than actually on the wall. I've since rearranged them to lessen the symmetry a little, and we've found some smaller frames that we'll probably mix in the middle somewhere soon. Sometimes Nick will be sitting where Arlo is in the picture above, and he'll hoist Arlo up so that he's eye-level with his one-month-old self in the center picture, and Arlo always babbles or giggles to that very cute little baby (with a full head of hair!) in the picture.

Mom's cell phone = radder than any toy I own

Oh, this poor sectional. Between the pets and the baby, it's been puked on and peed on more than I'd like to admit. Sigh.

Arlo has been a flurry of milestones lately, and just this weekend...HE CRAWLS, Y'ALL. He has added a bonafide, proper CRAWL to his repertoire of fancy new baby skills. And then, yesterday? He, um, pulled himself up on the bookshelf in his nursery. (That is, just before he toppled backwards and bumped his head as we both stood watching, paralyzed in HOLYCRAPDIDHEJUSTPULLHIMSELFUP??!! astonishment.) So, the crib mattress has now also been dropped.

SLOW DOWN, BABY!

Long Time, No see

Well, hello there! It's been a while, hasn't it? The lack of updates isn't a reflection of a lack of things to update, but rather the exact opposite. We have a verrrry busy baby here, one who loves to be on the move, one who loves to be snuggled and tickled and smooched, one who commands our very undivided and happily given attention.

We've had a flurry of fun milestones lately. Arlo began sitting up unassisted about a month ago, followed quickly by short bursts of rocking on his knees. Several weeks ago we were out in the garden, and when we came inside I deposited him in his pack-n-play so that I could wash my hands. When I came back into the room this is what I discovered:

He had pulled himself up on his knees and was leaning out of the pack-n-play. I stopped dead in my tracks and cheekily asked, "JUST WHAT do you think you're doing over there??" After a few giggles and some quick pictures, I promptly removed the bassinette feature from the pack-n-play. Holy moly.

Now Arlo has now mastered a crawl-flop of sorts. He's not quite coordinated or strong enough for a proper crawl, but he can crawl-flop his way across our king-size bed in seconds. It's adorable and frightening all at the same time.  We've been on the hunt for some foam mat flooring for our den in the basement because it's clear that he needs more real estate to practice his crawling. (And this--YIKES!--means we'll need to step up our childproofing.) We think we're going to go with these mats since they're the only ones we've found that are BPA-, phthalate-, and formamide-free.

Other recent news with pictures to come: we hosted the Watkins branch of the family tree for the long Memorial Day weekend; our garden is starting to erupt with bloomy goodness (beets, beans,basil, berries, oh my!); Arlo picked his first blueberries last weekend; and Arlo and I joined a stay-home mom playgroup.

More updates soon...