A Painted House

Dear Edison,

And just like that, you’re seven months old.  Why does seven months seem so very much older than six months?  It’s entirely too close to that magic one year mark when people stop calling you a baby and start referring to you as a toddler.  I’ve just recently begun to accept that your brother has left the toddler stage, about the time he started making his own peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and I’m in equal denial that soon you’ll be old enough to qualify. 

So I’m living in this odd dichotomy between wanting you to stay a little guy for as long as possible and also wanting you to grow up just enough to bypass some of the more frustrating parts of infanthood.  For example I’m absolutely forbidding you to grow out of the cutey little summer overalls and onesies and plaid shorts we borrowed from Auntie Amy to get you through these warm months, but I’d also love it if you’d be ready to wear the adorable fall and winter items I have packed away.  And I’d like you to stay small and portable and stationary but I’d be thrilled if you could find it in you to eek your way back up onto the growth chart.  You know, so I can stop wondering if giving you a tub of chocolate pudding a couple of times per week would improve our situation.  And for heaven’s sake it would be great if you’d learn to sit up.  You want to see the world around you and immediately dial up the Hissy Fit Meter every time I lay you down on your play mat and attempt to walk away, but when I set you upright you last for .34 seconds before your head veers directly toward the floor.  Edison, Mommy needs to be able to use the potty at some point during the day without having to actively drown out the sounds of a angst-ridden child.  It’s a human right.  Plus you owe me, what with the giving birth to you and all.

I think you could sit a little longer if you’d simply hold still.  But the second we put you down you lunge forward or to the side, desperately reaching for anything you can shove into your mouth.  And a few things you can’t despite good attempts.  You have no concept of limits or boundaries or distance, Edison, which is why holding you has become somewhat like trying to keep a tight grip on an angry octopus.  I know for a fact that you only have two arms and two legs and yet when I’ve got you on my hip and you spot something of interest I’d swear you sprout four more limbs with which to push off and propel yourself twenty feet across the room to reach it.  You’re lucky that my reaction time has been kept in top shape, largely thanks to your brother’s hairline trigger gag reflex.  Three years of procuring and positioning a bowl under that kid’s face with only a few seconds notice of what’s coming has prepared me for you and your self-propelling ways.  When I see you reach so hard toward my nail polish bottle, a spatula, or the cell phone that is all the way across the room I can almost hear you saying, “Go, go gadget ARM!”

This month we went to visit your Grandma and Grandpa Pierce and got to spend some time with Great Grandma and Grandpa Bymers, Auntie Amy and your cousin Gavin, and Aunt Allison and Uncle Josh.  It was a lot of family in one place and you were loved on from every angle.  When I was pregnant with you I remember wondering if as our second child, and the third boy born into our extended family, you might get somehow lost in the shuffle.  I worried, would the experience of having, growing, holding the second baby be as magical as having the first?  Would our families love and dote over you as much as they did your brother, the first grandchild?  It turns out all those niggling little worries were in vain because Edison, you are so treasured.  Your little individual personality, your sweet smile and luminous eyes, your easy laugh and insatiable drive to take in the whole world one gummy mouthful at a time…..this family would be so incomplete without them.  I’m so grateful that God hand picked YOU to be the little boy I daily rescue from bodily harm as you launch yourself with abandon across the room toward the remote control.

Love, Mama

Dear Edison,

And just like that, you’re seven months old.  Why does seven months seem so very much older than six months?  It’s entirely too close to that magic one year mark when people stop calling you a baby and start referring to you as a toddler.  I’ve just recently begun to accept that your brother has left the toddler stage, about the time he started making his own peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and I’m in equal denial that soon you’ll be old enough to qualify. 

So I’m living in this odd dichotomy between wanting you to stay a little guy for as long as possible and also wanting you to grow up just enough to bypass some of the more frustrating parts of infanthood.  For example I’m absolutely forbidding you to grow out of the cutey little summer overalls and onesies and plaid shorts we borrowed from Auntie Amy to get you through these warm months, but I’d also love it if you’d be ready to wear the adorable fall and winter items I have packed away.  And I’d like you to stay small and portable and stationary but I’d be thrilled if you could find it in you to eek your way back up onto the growth chart.  You know, so I can stop wondering if giving you a tub of chocolate pudding a couple of times per week would improve our situation.  And for heaven’s sake it would be great if you’d learn to sit up.  You want to see the world around you and immediately dial up the Hissy Fit Meter every time I lay you down on your play mat and attempt to walk away, but when I set you upright you last for .34 seconds before your head veers directly toward the floor.  Edison, Mommy needs to be able to use the potty at some point during the day without having to actively drown out the sounds of a angst-ridden child.  It’s a human right.  Plus you owe me, what with the giving birth to you and all.

I think you could sit a little longer if you’d simply hold still.  But the second we put you down you lunge forward or to the side, desperately reaching for anything you can shove into your mouth.  And a few things you can’t despite good attempts.  You have no concept of limits or boundaries or distance, Edison, which is why holding you has become somewhat like trying to keep a tight grip on an angry octopus.  I know for a fact that you only have two arms and two legs and yet when I’ve got you on my hip and you spot something of interest I’d swear you sprout four more limbs with which to push off and propel yourself twenty feet across the room to reach it.  You’re lucky that my reaction time has been kept in top shape, largely thanks to your brother’s hairline trigger gag reflex.  Three years of procuring and positioning a bowl under that kid’s face with only a few seconds notice of what’s coming has prepared me for you and your self-propelling ways.  When I see you reach so hard toward my nail polish bottle, a spatula, or the cell phone that is all the way across the room I can almost hear you saying, “Go, go gadget ARM!”

This month we went to visit your Grandma and Grandpa Pierce and got to spend some time with Great Grandma and Grandpa Bymers, Auntie Amy and your cousin Gavin, and Aunt Allison and Uncle Josh.  It was a lot of family in one place and you were loved on from every angle.  When I was pregnant with you I remember wondering if as our second child, and the third boy born into our extended family, you might get somehow lost in the shuffle.  I worried, would the experience of having, growing, holding the second baby be as magical as having the first?  Would our families love and dote over you as much as they did your brother, the first grandchild?  It turns out all those niggling little worries were in vain because Edison, you are so treasured.  Your little individual personality, your sweet smile and luminous eyes, your easy laugh and insatiable drive to take in the whole world one gummy mouthful at a time…..this family would be so incomplete without them.  I’m so grateful that God hand picked YOU to be the little boy I daily rescue from bodily harm as you launch yourself with abandon across the room toward the remote control.

Love, Mama