Month three

Dear Frijole,

You are now about 10 weeks old and you are getting so much more alert and active!  You are still just a tiny thing--10 pounds, 1 ounce--but you have grown three inches longer since you were born for a grand total of 22 inches.  You have begun smiling tons and trying to giggle.  Except you are still mastering making different sounds come out voluntarily.  Sometimes your noises seem to surprise you and your eyes widen when they escape your mouth.  In the mornings when I peek into your bassinette you see me and immediately smile.  It makes my day.

You and I lay on the bed together and talk all the time.  I lay you beside me and while you gaze up at me I talk to you, tell you stories, sing you songs.  You just listen and listen and you never take your eyes off me.

The vast majority of the time you hate "tummy time" and as soon as I lay you on your tummy you either a) roll back over immediately, b) start to cry, c) make really pissed off, indignant noises, or d) all of the above.  But when I can get you to stay there you work on pushing yourself up with your tiny little arms so that you can lift your head and look all around.  My blue-eyed baby.  I don't know if your eyes will eventually change colors, but for now they are clear and blue and intent.

This month we got a Bumbo seat!  I have wanted one forever.  It is a little baby chair that helps you sit up so you can look around and be part of the action.  The first moment in the Bumbo seat was not the happiest, but soon you didn't seem to mind.

This month we also had a very scary fire at your aunt Tash's house.  You and I were the first ones out the door!  It was cold and windy outside as we huddled and waited for the firemen to arrive and put out the fire.  I wrapped my body around you to keep you as warm as I could and covered your ears from the piercing sirens.  I thought you would cry, but you did not.  You just grabbed a handful of my hair in one fist, closed your eyes, and snuggled into me.  Then you and I holed up at a neighboring house while the nasty chemicals were cleaned up and the house was aired out.  It was an exhausting, emotional Monday for all of us.

Frijole, right now as I write this to you our little family is facing some tough financial problems.  Your daddy and I are working very hard to resolve them.  You are the most important person in the world to us, and you eat before anyone else does.  You, in fact, are the only one with plenty of everything--food, clothing, diapers, love and attention--and that's the way it should be.

I never want you to experience many of the things I experienced when I was little, and one of those things was hunger.  There were some years in my childhood where my family was very, very poor.  Sometimes the only meat we had was what my stepdad hunted, be it deer, rabbits, or squirrel.  (We never ate a possum.  I would like to emphasize that now.)  When I look back at my first grade picture it brings tears to my eyes to see how skinny and gaunt I was, with big hollow eyes, and to know that I was hungry.

I remember the winter I was in 6th grade, around 1988-89, I was so embarrassed that my mom could not afford a winter coat for me.  I was mortified by the old shabby, holey, and too-small one that I had that I chose to go without one at all when I went to school.  I would stand in the snow at the bus stop trying to appear stoic in the cold and hoping no one would notice my lack of coat.  Inevitably they did and they would ask, "Why aren't you wearing a coat?  Aren't you cold?"  I lied and said that I just didn't normally get that cold--I mean, what could I say?--but, in truth, I was freezing.

I hope you never experience that brand of shame.

I am applying for jobs so that I can rejoin the world.  And while it will be good for me in many ways when I get one, the thought of leaving you for so much of each day is heart-breaking to me.  I am conscious that your babyhood is slipping away and I want so much to experience every minute of it with you.  My sweet Sophie-girl.

I love you.  So much.

Love,

Mama