I caught you smiling, half asleep in the dark. I leaned in a little closer to be sure and it turned into a giggle. You rolled into my arms still half asleep, still giggling, breathed lazily into my shirt, and I forgot all about how you kicked me really hard in the face twice while sleeping next to me the night before.
Your twitchy little fingers smell like buttery bread again. I reflect on the day and think about how you’re turning into a little human right before my very eyes.
I awoke to Fiona clawing her way aggressively, clumsily, up the headboard. When she’d made it to the top, she realized her mistake; she teetered unsteadily on a very narrow ledge and looked for a way down. I tried to grab her and bring her down before she had a chance to slip off and make a noisy landing or fall on Vale, and we engaged in a brief tug-of-war with me admonishing her and her meowing back at me in an unduly irritated manner. The commotion woke Vale up, and so at 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday, I resigned to the beginning of the day with a big mug of coffee.
I fed and played with Vale, and drank my coffee so slowly it was cold by the time I got to the bottom. We went for some quick sprints down the street, and headed out afterwards to meet a dear friend at a seaside park. There, we sat in the grass, under the dissipating marine layer, and illegally consumed alcohol, and ate cheese, crackers, salami, and Kyle’s homemade coconut curry hummus. We let a couple of hours slip by while we watched the distant waves. I made sure Vale was covered in sunscreen, but was so delighted to catch up with an old friend that I lost track of the sun and let myself burn.
On the way home, we stopped at Wal-Mart to pick up a few household items and Sour Patch Kids (oh, the things I eat when Kyle is away) and Vale made a big stink in the bathroom (literally and figuratively), because she had a poopy diaper and became agitated when I tried to change it. She flipped, flailed, and cried, and I decided she was definitely going to need a bath when we got home. This was the second dramatic poopy incident on the Wal-Mart bathroom changing table.
When we came home, I showered while she sat in her little tub, then I put her down for a nap, and read some of Naomi Wolf’s Vagina: A Cultural History. Now it’s early evening, the sun is setting, and through our French doors, I can barely make out our palm tree fronds shuddering in the night breeze. I could use a nap myself, but I hate naps, and she’ll be up soon.
The scariest thing about having a child is that I love her more as time passes. Some women are struck dumb and overwhelmed immediately by a newfound love for their child as soon as they lay eyes on their newborn, but I was not that way. I marveled at our tiny new human and felt an overpowering sense of responsibility, but love came gradually and incrementally; she grew and continues to grow on me like an incipient, spreading fungus, which is a foul trick I played on her father some 13 years ago. I didn’t cry when maternity leave ended and I had to be apart for her for full work days, but 5 months later, I miss her in an unexpectedly sentimental manner in the middle of the work day, from time to time.
And she is like me in this regard. She takes her time to make up her mind. She is amenable and flexible at first, until 3 weeks or 2 months later, she isn’t – whether it’s the bottle, solid foods, or sleeping through the night, and it’s frustrating to others who thought they understood, and indeed, relied upon her fleeting agreeableness. I don’t know how many times I thought I was not mad at my husband, only to decide, after some contemplation, several days or even a week later, that in fact I was very, very angry, just when he had settled back into a comfortable complacency.
Her father thinks she smells weird, but I love the way she smells, milky and soft. Her chubby hands smell like buttery buns from a Taiwanese bakery, and her scalp smells funny yet familiar.
A friend of mine once told me having a child is to experience your own obsolescence with each milestone. I understand this now, and also frequently consider that in almost no time, she may despise me, find me annoying, feel bitter about my failings as a mother, and become frustrated at how out of touch or technologically inept I am. I get lost in these thoughts and sometimes wonder what the point of this all was, but then another part of me doesn’t care.
At 7 months, Vale is scooting faster and faster, and getting up on her knees. She has the dexterity to be able to pick up small items, such as rice crackers, with her thumb and index finger, but chooses to only put non-food items in her mouth (Post-its – yum!); she picks up rice crackers with her fingers only to deliberately drop them on the ground. She has exhibited an aversion to solid foods, and you’d think we were feeding her poison, instead of avocado or carrots.
She babbles constantly, and still likes her nursery rhyme music book (her crack book), though her obsession with this toy is waning a little bit. She is not much of a cuddler, but she is very social. She loves being held by people (even strangers) at parties, and does not seem to have a sense of “stranger danger.”
She likes numbers and her ABC flash cards. She hates shoes, and will immediately rip them off her feet.
She has taken an interest in the cats. She has tried to pet Fiona on a number of occasions, much to poor Fiona’s annoyance.
She attended her first Yelp event at the Flower Fields (snuck in, even though she’s not 21), but of course, with her refusal to eat solid foods, the fare was not impressive to her.
