Month 4

Dear Corbin,

You are four months old today. I keep trying to avoid writing a pile of cliches in these letters, but you keep being the cutest little baby in the whole wide world. Look at your smooshie little face and your roly-poly little body! Look how you raise your little eyebrows, and how you grab your little toesies! Woochie woochie woochie!

I know, it's hard to believe your father married me of his own free will.

This month, you had your first road trip, up to the UP for my cousin Andy's wedding. You might as well get used to that drive, if my own childhood is any measure. We were watching old 8mm footage of family parties up at the Cottage, and it made me wonder what memories you will eventually have of being there.

Your vocal range has expanded to include some funny screeching that you do when you're happy. It reminds me a little bit of Howard Dean, or maybe his impression of a velociraptor. Now your babbling tends to happen when you are more calm, like when you've just woken up or when you're hanging out with a toy. You are able to roll over from your back to your tummy now, and you do it almost every time we lay you down. Sometimes you flip yourself right over, but sometimes you squirm and roll and twist and curl until you finally make it or get frustrated and cry. Sometimes your hands land in front of you just right, and it seems like you're just about to crawl away. But sometimes your arms get caught under you and you lay on your face and cry until we rescue you. The other day, you had turned yourself over in your crib while your arms were still swaddled down, and between your crying and your drooling, it looked like someone had spilled a whole cup of water on your bed.

Your grasping skills have gotten much better, I think partly because your hands have grown bigger again. Your grip now covers almost my whole thumb, and anything that you are holding goes straight for your mouth. I would say it goes into your mouth, but your aim still isn't quite that accurate. Of course, the time I was trying to wipe off your slimey little hands with a napkin and you grabbed it, you had no trouble shoving that right into your mouth. Your expression would be been much funnier if we wouldn't have been so busy fishing pieces of disintegrating napkin out of your mouth.

You have also been getting better at sitting up by yourself, but you're really happy when you're standing. Helping you stand up never fails to get us a big smile from you. Grandma Lam was telling us all very proudly that you were six weeks early for this milestone. Six weeks early! You're a genius baby! I didn't remind her that the same book told us you were supposed to be sleeping through the night a month ago. If I weren't so sleep deprived, I'd be a genius, too. But some nights you've been waking up only twice, instead of three or four times, so I have hopes that we're slowly passing sleep milestones, too.

Being your mom so far has taught me to live in the moment in a way that I have never truly understood before. I am good at appreciating what I have, and I am good at making the most of my time, but I have never been good at paying more attention to now rather than later. My thoughts are usually taken up with planning for the next thing that I need or want to do. But you have a way of concentrating on what you're doing right now that reminds me that I should do that more often, too. Living with you means being with you where you are, when you are there. You're simply incapable of doing anything else. And I want to be where you are, when you're there, because I don't want to miss any part of your life, ever.

Love,

Mom

Happy first Father's Day, Adam!