23rd
11-month Open Letter
Liebe Hannah,
On the evening of Oct 15th, Mama noticed two more biters poking through your more familiar toothless gums. These two were on top, your left front tooth and the tooth left of that. You are a bit lop-sided at the moment, but I looked more carefully to see the two right incisors just below the service. None at all and now nearly 6 at once. You are doing pretty darn well with this teething-thing, and I attribute your excellent proficiency at regular and gentle thumb-sucking for the reason I have not been chomped on during nursing.
Yeah, nursing. Still going really well. No problems whatsoever besides the stubborn dedication it requires on my part, pumping twice a day at work to produce the 5 – 6 ounces you take at daycare. My plan is to stop the day pumping when you turn one year old in a month (in a month?!), and just see how things develop. I will follow your cues on the morning and night nursing, but I am happy and proud that we will make it a year together with this.
The one complaint I have this month is your temper tantrums as we try to change your clothes or diaper. You would think we were sticking you with pins, the way you shreak. I have often commented that changing you is like changing a wild badger. Gramma Connie had you last Saturday evening while we were at a wedding and bathed you and got you ready for bed. As soon as you were taken out of the top, you threw your usual fit. Grampa reported Gramma coming up the stairs sweating and out of breath from her battle with you. As soon as you are dressed and can crawl off in your own direction again, all is forgotten and you smile back at us. How ‘bout you quit that, huh?
This month I often found you standing beside me as I sat on the living room floor. You have slowly begun to “cruise” around, supporting yourself on the furniture. Jill told me she looked up this week to see you standing all alone in the middle of the living room. Look, Hannah, this is the stuff I should be telling HER. If you dare to walk the first time at daycare, you will create ISSUES for your Mama. Do her that favor, huh, and learn to finally walk on a weekend?
We have loved the autumn walks we have taken with you in the evening. You inevitably fall asleep for your third nap of the day before we reach our house again.
Your dexterity has also amazed me: how you carefully pick up the smallest pieces of lint or other dirt and debris we could so easily pretend we did not see until you started sweeping our floor with your crawling knees or curious, tiny fingers. Along with that dexterity came your more readable facial expressions and clear effort to communicate the way the rest of we humans do. I have watched you repeat behavior you must have observed at daycare: pushing your wooden car like a car, showing me something clearly and waiting for my acknowledgement, pointing at things constantly, many of which we will never know if we mentioned the right thing.
You and I just completed two weeks of a new 4:30am “feeding,” although you ate little and snuggled lots. I have a hunch that your night waking had to do with your new teeth and being on the brink of walking. You are processing all this newness each night in your dreams, which seem to be as active as you are during the day. Papa and I often remark on how you seem to only have two settings: ON or OFF. There is almost no “quiet wind-down.” With you it is all go, go, go –then STOP. You are your mother’s daughter.
Love,
Mama
