24th
5-month open letter
In the tradition of dooce.com, I share with you here my open monthly letter to Hannah.
Liebe Hannah,
You have been with us on this earth for 5 months. And I somehow find it impossible to remember what we did 6 months ago without you. Here is the Stand der Dinge:
Your talking continues. You are gabbing at me right now, laying beneath the hanging play gym loaned to us by Harry’s mom, Rachel. Your gurgles and mumbles are often spoken through the slobbery fingers in your mouth. Sometimes, though, you work hard to try out a few new vowels sounds.
The best communicative development this month, however, has been your truly emphatic laughter. You laugh when we play peek-a-boo. You laugh when I squeeze your torso while changing your diaper. You laugh when I throw something up above you and catch it repeatedly.
Your laughs are really deep and would sound like a groan to the less aware. They are a reaction to things I do and repeat and become even more joyful when I repeat that funny thing I did. And I do, because your silly gut-groaning laughter is the most beautiful music to me.
People have noticed and helped me become aware of just how much you follow me. You watch what I do and follow the sound of my voice. You have always been particularly attentive to sound. Your Papa and I have good ears, so it would stand to reason that you do, too.
We purchased cloth diapers for you and you seem fine. More work for us, but better in the long run. Your sibling will inherit them and we save money while saving the earth. Yippee.
I think more about the environment now, and not just because it happens to be the most current American marketing trend. Your Papa and I considered it a great deal before all that, but now I truly think about what kind of world we are leaving for you. I wish your Grandpa Dave would start thinking that way and begin voting Democrat.
I still feel so often like a complete amateur at this mother-thing. So much guilt that I am not giving you enough time and attention and advantages and play things. It is an incredible strain to bring you to campus with me each day, although I do not think I could give you up to day care. Not yet. I just hope that I have not cheated you by keeping you so close. It is very hard for your Papa and I to get our work done. Although I DO have time, I don’t have the KIND of time I need for my scholarly thinking. My reading and writing, especially in and for German, require lots of quiet space. That I almost never have, except after you are in bed or before you awake each morning. But then I am too exhausted to work myself.
I talked about this “guilt of the working mother” with my professor, and she was not particularly reassuring. It will always be there. I hope I have given you what you need right now, that I have engaged you enough. All my life I have watched all these mothers around the world, assuming THEY know what they are doing. Now I wonder just how many of them feel / felt just like I do every day: like an utterly clueless amateur.
But then you smile up at me as if to say, “It’s OK, Mama. We will figure this out together. You are not as stupid as you feel.” The love and joy I feel when I see your beaming face cannot be expressed here in any language. Don’t give up on me just yet, Maus.
Love,
Deine Mama
