A new chapter

From Letters to Baby*.

Sunday, May 8, 2011 { you are 11 months old }

Dearest, dearest Tooshie,

Today is Mother’s Day – my first Mother’s Day all because of you. I know it’s been awhile since I wrote you a letter but each time I thought of it, the words got caught in my throat. I have months and months of things to tell you about yourself but don’t worry, they’re filed away in the back of my mind for whenever you may want them (and not that far back either… I access them for my own gratification much more often than you’ll ever guess).

Today is Mother’s Day and it’s almost your first birthday too. Incidentally, I go back to work tomorrow. So today a chapter of our lives is ending and oh Tooshie, I am so very, very sad.

When people asked me during the first six months of your life if I could imagine going back to work, quite frankly, I could. Honey, you were not an easy baby. Those first six months were steeped in so many tears, both yours and mine, that we could have opened our own salt mine. I was so frustrated with you sometimes – why won’t you fall asleep without me? why won’t you stay asleep? why won’t you nap? why won’t you sit still like other kids? why won’t you be quiet? And I say “won’t” because even then it was clear, at least to me, that you were acting on personal preferences rather than abilities. Yes, even that early, you knew what you liked and what you wanted and Lord help the person who tried to convince you otherwise… (i.e. me).

But the second six months of your life? Or more accurately, months 7 through the present? Around then, which was Christmastime, your body started to catch up to your mind and you began to roll. The rolling turned into crouching and crouching to rocking and rocking to crawling and then, at month 9-almost-10, you were standing up using any piece of furniture or nearby pant-leg you could reach.

Life–for both of us–changed dramatically at that point.

When I put you down to try to tend to the hundred-and-one things I needed to do that didn’t involve holding you (approximately ninety-four of which never got done), instead of looking at me forlornly and whining and wailing your discontent at being left stranded in a bouncy chair in the middle of our living room carpet, you got on your knees and followed me. I’d walk to the kitchen and you’d pad along after me. Upstairs, I’d travel from washing machine to bedroom to washing machine again and you’d shuffle after me back and forth – panting, and often sweaty-headed after a couple trips – but content.

That simple ability made you so happy. And me? I am so, so happy too. Since Christmas, each month’s blissful moments have multiplied exponentially to the point where I almost forget how incredibly irritated and frustrated and despondent I was sometimes in the earlier days. (Almost, but not quite. Yet.)

Life for the last couple of months has been amazing. YOU have been amazing. I know every parent must go through this but knowing that doesn’t lessen the wonder we feel when we see you do things for the first time – like when you were able to put your soother in your mouth by yourself; when you started playing catch with us using any ball you could get your hands on; when you started to be able to pick up pieces of bread and take small, deliberate bites instead of stuffing the whole fistfull of whatever into your mouth (which you still do too, because it’s fun); when you made noise and then patted the back of your hand against your mouth to make a wa-wa-wa-wa noise (you do that a lot); when you started pointing at pictures in books and babbling to yourself; when you started to fake laugh (which will come in handy living with parents such as yours, I’m sure); when you learned how to high-five (ciocia Patti taught you), clap your hands bravo (babcia taught you) and wave bye-bye (still inconsistent but we’re working on it).  And when you lean your forehead against mine for a sweet, quiet moment or lean over with an open-mouthed kiss, I melt.

And you said your first real word. You had been making the sounds for some time but I wasn’t sure you were saying what you were saying because it was just a long string of the same syllable over and over and really, maybe you just liked the noise? But then one day in March when your babcia was visiting us for two weeks, I was in the kitchen and you were in the living room playing when you looked up and saw I wasn’t beside you anymore, so you put your head down and pad-pad-padded determinedly across the carpet and onto the tiles until you were right up next to me, and you sat up on your heels and looked up at me and said clear as a bell, “Mama”. My heart stopped and babcia and I looked at each other because finally there was no mistaking it. You now also say “dada” and “baba” (for babcia), the latter of which undoubtedly is due to the hours of coaching you received from a certain doting relative during her two weeks here in March and our recent 2.5 weeks stay at El Rancho.

I think that’s the other thing that’s made such a difference in the last few months. In addition to be able to GO where you want, you and I have been able to understand each other so much better. I get most of your babbles and gestures and shrieks and facial expressions and you get most of mine (except when I say “Setouche, NO!” when you get your paws on the dvd player and XBox buttons). We understand each other and while you’ve always been a little person to me, now your personality is so much stronger. Where I used to resent the fact you couldn’t be anywhere but right next to me 24/7, I now understand it’s because that’s just the way you are – you’re just an incredibly affectionate, cuddly, intense little guy who loves his mama and dad soooo much he can’t bear to be apart from them.

When I think of leaving you with your nanny tomorrow for the first time, my heart breaks. Truly. I’m having a hard time writing it, even. I know it will be good for me, on so many levels, and good for you too, in so many ways.

But I can’t push away the feeling that keeps fighting its way to the surface of my tears: the feeling that after having created you, carried you, nourished you, given birth to you, looked after you, comforted you, guided you, shielded you, taught you, and loved you, for almost two entire years, handing you over to someone else just feels… wrong.

I suppose that’s what being a mother is, in the end. Doing all those things and having to let go, too. I hope I get better at the letting go part one day because Tooshie, I know this is only the beginning and we have a long, long way to go.

I love you so much my heart aches but in that “good pain” kind of way. You are already someone so very different from anyone I’ve ever known, and so very, very special. I may be 33 years old and you’re only (almost) one, but I love you like I’ve known you all my life which, really, I kind of have. You’ve always been a part of me in some way none of us can put into words.

I’m already so proud of you that I’m almost frightened to see what happens next. How could you possibly be any funnier, cleverer, handsomer or sweeter??

I love you, my little Tooshie-too. I kinda wish you could stay little forever but I’m also excited to see what happens next. It’s bittersweet.

All my love,
Mama

*I have a private place where I’ve been writing letters to our baby. This is an excerpt.