Sweet Pea, You Drive Me Crazy

I often joke that having my fourth child was promoting myself to incompetence. I could handle three. The fourth one made me hurried. Less graceful.

Sometimes she gets blamed. Dubbed more difficult than she likely deserves. In truth, she is heartbreakingly wonderful.

Her neck hugs. The way she waves her hand just twisting her wrist.  Her heavy head on my shoulder when she's sleepy.

Sometimes I look forward to when things get easier. When she doesn't cry "mame, mame, mame" in response to every need, wish or whim. But one day, when things get easier, you and I both know I'm going to miss that gap toothed, tan baby who beckoned me for her every need.

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The Story of an Afternoon

Alamae James found a bright pink bike basket, left of our lawn for the duration of an afternoon while its owner traversed the neighborhood by foot. 

The basket went with her up the back porch stairs. Through the house. Down the front porch stairs. 

Sometimes she stopped. Examined the plastic coated metal frame. Got her meaty fingers stuck underneath the handle and begged for my assistance. 

Mostly though, she didn't want my help. Mostly, she fought for her independence.

She spoke to me in long tangles of sounds bearing little resemblance to words. And sometimes she spoke to the basket. Then she would revert to silence, circling the house on our uneven yard, maintaining her precarious balance will she navigated the dips and branches. 

For thirty minutes I followed her and the basket. I watched her movements. Heard her sounds. Fell more in love with my sweetest pea. 

And then, without warning. She let go.  Left the object of her attention and set off in a new direction. 

You are your mother's child, Alamae James. You are made of me.

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Twelfth Month With You

One year ago today, I met you. I saw your face. I held you. I fed you from my own body. I slept with you on my chest.

That year stretches for all of eternity.

That year feels like the blink of your brown eyes.

I have had you for no time at all.

I have had you for forever.

Maybe it is the wisdom of other children. The knowledge that most of my assumptions have been wrong. That everything is a phase. Nothing stays the same. I know better than to label you, though I desperately try to. I know better than to think that I have figured you out.

You are my sweet mystery. It will take your whole lifetime for me to learn you.

But I am your willing student, my dear Alamae James.

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Eleventh Month With You

Your bow legged walk.

Your embarrassed smile when you're told no as you try to start up the stairs or dig in a plant.

Your chirps and your growls.

The way you pat your cousin's head.

Eleven month old you is my favorite you yet.

You are serious and sweet. Determined and tough. You  pick yourself up from your falls. Your tears are easily kissed away.

When I hold Arlo or Jettie Blythe, you push them into someone else's arms, and then return to your play, leaving my lap bare for the moment you want to return to it.

In the mornings, you pull at my clothes, forcing me to greet the day with you perched atop my amble hips.

You beg to be tickled over and over again. You plead to be taken outside when you know your siblings have left you.

You want the whole wide world to pay attention to you. A fourth child who makes certain she will get her due.

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Tenth Month With You

You climb the stairs, quickly, merrily, confidently. I wait behind you. Ready to catch your fall. Remember this always. I am behind you. I will catch your fall.

Were it not for your Oma, you would be mistaken for a boy even more often. The black sweater and brown moccasins I usually put you in throw off the masses.  Although it doesn't bother me in the least, it's amazing how embarrassed strangers get when they assume you are a he. Yesterday, on the first day of your tenth month, you were donned in all of the spoils of your grandmother: flowers, pinks, and corals.

You are independent. Quietly so. You don't buck to be put down. You are usually happy to sit straddled on a left hip, always the left. But when you are set down, you happily find your own adventures. You make your way around the house. Play with toys you find along the way. Go in search of siblings. Enthusiastically destroy whatever they are working on.

You have taken approximately two dozen steps, stretched across the past month.  Although you are now able, you seem disinterested in walking and prefer to crawl. The crawling stage is all too short in my opinion, so I am happy that you have not yet abandoned it. I will miss seeing you meaty tush angled high as you make your way across our home.

As I write, you are sitting at my feet, babbling away, softly swatting at my calf. I will pick you up and place you on my lap, but in a moment's time, you will want back down to see what the cat is doing. This is how our mornings go, at least the good ones. The slow mornings. The ones that just the two of us share. You let me drink coffee and type. I hide the cat food from your greedy little fingers. This is our routine for a time. It will pass soon enough. Replaced by a new routine. And new way of doing things. But I hope we always find quiet moments with just the two of us, amidst all these people we both love so much. I hope that you, my youngest child, and I find time for each other always. Time to simply be.

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Ninth Month With You

Alamae James, you came into my world during a busy season. Or rather, your arrival created a busy season, made even more full by the arrival of your best friend and only cousin (so far), Jettie Blythe. I still don't quite know how things shifted so dramatically, so quickly. Even though I only work part-time now, I feel far busier than I have ever felt before. The hectic nature of our mundane days can leave me wanting for time, or maybe just more energy.

You are healthy, beautiful, and smart as a whip, and still I worry. Are you getting enough time? Are people--am I-- paying enough attention to you? I wonder what it would have been like to raise children in an age before parenting, in a era when no one would have thought twice about whether or not you were being cooed at a sufficient amount.

For three days this month you said the word cat. You would crane your neck around looking for her, smile in anticipation. And then you stopped. You haven't successfully managed language again since.

Your crawling has become more balanced; you no longer drag your left leg as you scoot forward with your right.

You still light up when your dad walks into the room, but you give almost nothing to strangers who try to make friends with you while at the grocery store or church.

This month you burst teeth. You fought a cold. You caught that stomach bug that briefly plagued half the house. And yet, most days you remain your understated, pleasant self. Crawling around in search of some forgotten chockable object, trying to balance your weight in a first attempt to take steps, patting away on the head of your cousin.

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Eighth Month With You

Alamae James, with your four half teeth, your selective smiles, your determined crawl. Today you climbed two stairs when my back was turned.  

You clap on command. You prefer to perch on my left hip, prefer your father even more still. You pull yourself up. You fall down. You bruise your sweet cheeks, and immediately seek new adventures. You make my world better and brighter and far more exhausting. 

 You are loved beyond compare.

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Seventh Month With You

These tiny savory details of your days and doings. Your feats and accomplishments, your heartbreakingly beautiful failures. I want to put words to them, as most mothers do, knowing though, that said words are maybe, just slightly, embarrassing. You are likely not as amazing and precocious and beautiful as I believe you to be. The way you bob to music is probably perfectly normal and not an indication that you are a musical prodigy with a happy-go-lucky spirit, because I well know that if every baby who pleased his mother to no end with his dancing had grown to be a rock star, there would be no one to teach our children arithmetic, no one to rebuild transmissions or diagnosis our illnesses.  But these facts mean little when I watch you throw your substantial weight around in time to the beat.

I suppose you might just be average. I suppose that what I determine to be signs of early verbal development might just be the cooing of a seven month old. And the way you pull yourself up on furniture and crawl with steadfast determination most likely does not mean you will be more athletic or able than all the other babies born late last winter.

But my mother's heart does not accept what my mother's head tries to suggest in the gentlest, most subtle of ways. My mother's heart loves you mightily but fears that maybe it wouldn't if you weren't so special. But how would I ever know? All my babies have been extraordinary, just like everyone else's.

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Sixth Month With You

You can't get comfortable. We suspect teeth are making their way through, an oddly wishful sort of thinking. You find refugee in your father's arms. You seek his voice, stay momentarily peaceful against his chest.

At first I enjoy the reprieve, the lightness of limbs only responsible for their own weight, but quickly, so quickly, I begin to worry. You will come back to me, won't you? You will be all mine again once more?

Your father offers you bits of food: spinach, sweet potatoes, forbidden yogurt. He is already representing a larger world, one beyond my arms, beyond my breast. This is where six months will bring you. Half way around the sun, your own arms stripped tan. Old ladies ask to hold you, at libraries, in the church lobby. They tire in moments from the weight of your perfect density. I feel that I still do not know you, that you are full of secrets. I want your mysteries to be revealed. I want nothing to change. Meanwhile, you make time race. Meanwhile, you make the days stretch on and on and on. 

 Arlo at around the same age. 

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The Fifth Month With You

You, dear sweet child, with your beautiful round head and overly tanned arms and legs, are difficult. I thought that as the fourth child you would be forced to be laid back and easy going, that you would take what was given to you with a sigh and a smile, understand that your world is chaotic and full, and therefore, not easy to bend to your demands. But this has not been the case.

Because you are the fourth, you have been surrounded with so many faces, dragged along on so many trips and errands. As a result, you expect constant stimulation. Earlier this month we had three days to ourselves, just you and me. I was so looking forward to uninterrupted hours spent gazing into your eyes. I anticipated lots of time spent lazing on the couch, long naps that gave me ample time to get chores done. The reality involved a lot more pacing around the house with you on my hip, trying to keep you entertained while not yet ready to give up on my dream of rest sprinkled with productivity. I would have been better leaving and taking you on some sort of outing to see the world. When you are out and about, you are happy and content, eager to flashy your gummy smile at anyone who wants to look at your cubby cheeks and button nose. Inside these four walls, you are exhausting.

The exhaustion, however,  doesn't even begin to compare to the love. Because you are the fourth, I know how my love for you only keeps getting bigger and stronger and more beautiful, so these days of teething and round-the-clock nursing are all the easier to get through.

And here's a little "outtake" of your big brother loving up all over you. Yesterday you laughed as hard as you ever had at him, and he worked hard to keep you amused. Arlo can be quite the grump, but he is all soft, squishy heart when it comes to you. He likes to make sure you are included, and he's always telling you that you're funny and cute. Plus, he refers to you exclusively as "Alamae James" and that is adorable.

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The Fourth Month With You

Alamae James, you have a happy soul, one that bursts forth with so much goodness, it infects those around you. You are not the cuddliest of babies, preferring to look out on the big, bright world rather than cozy into the chests of the people who love you most. But you offer up your smiles and your babbles, assuring us all of your contentedness. 

I think you are smart, as most mothers credit their children with being. I also think that one day your happiness might confuse other smart types who mistakingly believe that intelligence breeds a degree of misery. But you will know your soul and your mind, both of which I believe to be extraordinary. You will know that joy can live alongside understanding. You will make this world a better place. You already have. 

This month you met your best friend and became a cousin in one fell swoop. You have already started to borrow her toys, which you have shown great interest in, even if you have yet to master the ability to grasp them the way you desire. 

Yesterday you reveled in the sweetness of cherries served to you in mesh bags, sucking furiously at their goodness, occasionally squealing with delight. I thought of all the wonderful things this world has to offer you, and all the delight you will find in experiencing them each in turn. 

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