Six Months

I can't believe that it's been six months already.  Six months since you made your circus act debut into the world, after so long of you being stuck in the same position.  You made a slight turn, I made one last push, trying to give it my all because I wanted you OUT, and you shot out like a cannonball.  You surprised everybody, not least the midwife, who had to throw the scalpel she had just picked up to catch you.  She was in the middle of turning, and had she still had her back to you, I don't know where you would've gone.

I was in shock.  I couldn't believe you were out.  This thing inside me, that I had such a hard time believing was a real-live human being, was out, laying on my chest, with those big lips and squished-up cheeks and that look of general disgruntlement on your face.  It was unbelievable how much you looked like your dad.  I just couldn't believe you were actually there, and you were mine.

You're still in our house, no one has come to claim you, you're really ours.  That's what we kept saying to each other, that someone must be coming to get you, there was no way that we had an actual baby.  We felt so unprepared.  We still feel that way.  But we haven't broken you yet.

You still look just like your dad, but you don't look anything like you did in those first few moments.  You're the happiest baby I think I've ever met or heard about or anything.  You were sleeping in four hour stretches almost right away, you rarely cried.  Even now when you really cry, I panic inside and sometimes out, because it happens so rarely, and it kills me. We moved you to your crib, and you had no qualms whatsoever about that.  You've slept through the night for months.  Sometimes it makes me sad that you can be so independent, because it makes me feel like you don't need your mommy to comfort you.  But then sometimes you do need me, and I love it.

You still let me read Goodnight Moon to you every night, without fussing much, if at all.  I hope it keeps up.

Going back to work is going to kill me.  I can't stand the thought of it.  But I have to, for you.

You roll around everywhere.  Sometimes I don't even know how you get where you are, like under the coffee table, or trying to pull up on the legs of your swing.  You sit up and play in longer and longer stretches.  I think your favorite toys are your Ikea Torva Strawberry person and your monkey Skelanimal, you always smile at them.  And of course the obnoxious loud singing cookie jar thing your Oma gave you.  You pull your legs underneath you when your sleep, and will go all night with your butt up in the air, but you refuse to do it when you're awake.  I think you don't realize you can.  But I'm not worried about it.  You'll do it when you're ready.

I can't wait to see what the next six months bring, but I'm in no hurry for it.  These months have flown by, and I realize that the rest of our lives will probably fly by even faster.

And I love you.  More than you know.