Month 4, or The Long and Short of It

Dear Miriam,

You are four months old, which I totally forgot when I packed for our camping trip.  I was very good about packing pants and socks for you, in case it was colder up north.  And it was, so I thought we were doing fine.  Until I actually tried to dress you in pants and socks and realized that they were all too small for you.  So you spent a couple of days in your pajamas until we got back to the Cottage and it was warm enough for just a shirt again.  The only reason you minded was because you couldn't suck on your toes.

Everyone loved holding you and talking to you, and if I wasn't careful it was easy to lose track of who had wandered off with you.  Aunt Alice tried to use you as reason why her son and his wife should have a baby sooner rather than later; it's not your fault that it didn't work.  We were all speculating on who might be the next baby to come camping, but I think you'll likely be the youngest kid for at least another year.

You are talking a lot now, and starting to get the hang of conversational pauses.  You still do funny little yells sometimes, which always make me laugh.  You complain especially loud when I lay you down and the move out of your line of sight.  These are the sweet days when you actually want your parents to be around you.  We have to savor this time, the time before the teenage years when you'll have those days that you wish you were an orphan.

You're starting on some teething pain, I think, since you spend most of your time now chewing on whatever you can get into your mouth.  It was my finger, most of the time that we were driving to and from the UP, and your little gums felt pretty hard.  So we've got orajel back in the house, and I've got to spend some time finding the teething rings before you chew my finger off.

On a more serious note, I've been feeling intimidated by you lately.  Or rather, not by you, but by raising a girl.  I have been hearing a lot lately about women being treated badly--in video game culture, and in comic book culture, and at various conventions.  There's been controversy around the appearance of a Black female athlete in the Olympics, which is so discouraging when we should simply be celebrating her talent and hard work.  The political arena is still full of people who think that they should be able to tell you what you can and cannot do with your body and your career and your life.  It's hard to think that you'll have to face that in your life, and that I can only prepare you and not shield you forever.  I hope that you will not live your life according to someone else and their ideas of how you should be.  I hope that you are smart enough to believe in yourself, and to protect yourself from that trap.  Gather those people around you who help you see yourself clearly, in all of your beauty and all of your flaws.  A friend who sees both and loves you for both is a true friend.  Or a parent, one of the two.

Love,
Mom

 Waiting for the new tire on the camper:

With Grandpa Lam at the Cottage:

 Fun with Alligator in the car:

3.5, or Free Range Child

Dear Corbin,

I am very late writing your letter this month.  I delayed in order to include our family camping trip, because other than that, we've had an uneventful month.  It's been crazy hot.  We didn't do much except fantasize about moving somewhere with nice weather, like Siberia.

Your last set of molars are finally coming in.  They were late enough that I asked the dentist about it at my last appointment, and of course that night was the night I noticed them appearing.  They aren't giving you any trouble, but they are giving rise to conversations about what will happen when your baby teeth are replaced by your adult teeth.  I tried to convince you that other parts of your body would fall off and be replaced, too, but you weren't buying it.

You're able to write the first two letters of your name, which is kind of exciting.  So far, your penmanship is the opposite of your Uncle Alex's.  His is small and cramped and hard to read.  Yours is huge and sprawling.  Also backwards.  We'll work on that.

You began the month with a trip to Madison, over the 4th of July.  I took a couple of days off to hang out with Miriam so that you could go to, "Grandma and Grandpa's big house."  You've started playing with the Lego sets there, kicked off by the battery-powered train set, of course. You brought a little forklift home with you but I hope you'll wait to get really obsessed until after we buy a bigger house.

And you ended your month with the camping trip to the UP.  We were at Bodi Lake, by Whitefish Point, and we had a fabulous time.  The weather was great, with only one rainy day, and the beach by the lake was perfect for you and the other kids.  It was a little hard for you to play with the other kids this year.  They were all old enough to ride their bikes around the campground, which isn't a skill that you've got yet.  So there were times that you got frustrated and felt left-out.  I think you'll probably have your own bike next summer, and then we'll have to worry about you riding it off of a cliff or into a tree.  We borrowed the Ross's tent camper, which was great.  They had just bought a new 5th wheel-er and offered to loan us the pop-up.  It did manage to get a flat tire on the drive up, but other than that it worked out really well.  It was far more comfortable than a tent, and gave us lots of room to spread out our stuff.  You slept with Dad one night and with me the rest of the nights.  You are a terrible person to share a bed with right now.  You actually crawled on top of Dad in your sleep, and there was one night that I had to pick you up and move you off of my pillows.  Twice.

You had fun playing on the beach with all of your diggers and with a bunch of trucks.  You didn't swim with the other kids, but you had fun watching them jumping in and splashing.  We did s'mores around the campfire one night and omelets in a bag one morning.  Your favorite thing, though, was going fishing with my cousin Brian.  He had a little plastic container of worms, which you loved playing with, and we did actually manage to catch some fish.  It was the first fish I had caught in about 25 years.  Funny enough, the last time I caught a fish was with Brian's dad, my Uncle Steve.  So I felt very accomplished as a mom, being able to meet your expectations that of course we would catch fish.  Between us and the kids in Uncle Steve's boat, we caught enough fish for a fish fry dinner.  You got to witness the fish cleaning, and my uncles and cousins made fun of me when I was showing you all of the internal organs on one of the gutted fish.  You ate two helpings of fish for dinner that night, proving that you are a good fisherman, according to Aunt Karen.  So it was a successful camping trip, which made it really hard to come back to hot, humid weather, and to go back to work the next Monday.

You drove to Madison with Grandma and Grandpa Lam to clean up their camper and leave it in their garage.  When you drove past Oshkosh, the EAA was having their annual air show.  You saw a blimp and a bunch of helicopters.  You were very excited.  You told me on the phone later, "Someday I'm going to ride in a blimp, Mom!"  I hope you do, sweetheart.  I hope you do.

Love,
Mom


Too hot for shirts:

 

Building a mini Cornhole game:

Lego train!

Changing the flat tire on the camper:

 Kayaking with Dad on Bodi Lake:

 At the Lower Falls at Tahquamenon Falls:

Fishing with cousin Brian:

  Watching Uncle Mark gut the fish that we caught:

Playing on the beach:

Squished into Grandma and Grandpa's camper in the rain.  Why is Dad making that face?

Helping clean up Grandma and Grandpa's camper in Madison:

Month 3, or A hat trick of tricks

Dear Miriam,

You are three months old, and you've got three new achievements.  First, you have figured out how to roll over, and now you do it almost every time I lay you down.  Sometimes it's fine, and sometimes it means you end up with a mouthful of dog hair before I can move you back onto a blanket.  I've even seen you start to move your legs like you're going to crawl.  You're good at holding your head up, but you haven't figured out how to roll back over on to your back, so eventually you get tired and start complaining until we help you.

The second trick you've started doing is reaching for things.  When I hold my hand up you grab for my fingers.  You haven't grabbed any toys yet.  I'm not sure if that's because you're suspicious of them, or because you just didn't grab them when I held them out.  Your third trick is related to this one: you found your toes.  You haven't quite stuffed them all in your mouth yet, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time.

Selfishly, I was hoping your achievement for the month would be sleeping through the night, but you clearly had other plans.  You're getting bigger, of course, sometimes noticeably day by day.  Your features are becoming more defined, although you still make funny squishy expressions with your mouth.  Your eyes are still blue.  I wonder how many months I'll write something like that because I'll still be surprised that they haven't changed to brown.

You make a lot more sounds, now.  You laugh and coo and talk to us.  You get annoyed when we leave you alone for too long, and instead of crying you'll make these annoyed sounding conversation noises.  When you're tired, you make a noise kind of like a cross between a monkey and a harmonica.  It makes me laugh.

This month you managed to develop one part of your schedule.  You are napping pretty consistently between 9am and 10am.  You usually nap in the late afternoon, but that's not quite as predictable as the morning yet.  You are still waking me up around 2am and around 5am, but you're getting better at being asleep by 10pm, so that's been nice.

You have had a couple of episodes of upset tummy.  It's always hard because you can't tell us what you're feeling, and there's only so much we can do for you anyway.  Mostly, we try to keep you upright, but sometimes that has dubious results.  The other night, Dad had just finished giving me a haircut when we heard you crying.  So he went to comfort you while I jumped in the shower.  I came downstairs just in time to watch you spit up all over him.  It was a good thing he was getting in the shower next.

It's become more natural now to think that I have two kids.  It may not make sense to you, because you won't have known anything other than our family as it is now.  But for Dad and I, our family changed drastically when Corbin was born, and again now that you're here.  It takes the brain a little while to catch up with the reality of the situation some times.  But a couple of times this month I've just been overwhelmed by how glad I am that you're part of our family.

Love,
Mom



Happy Father's Day!

 You found your toes:

 You rolled over:

 Super Baby pose:

3.4, or We don't need no stinking schedule

Dear Corbin,

This month started off with the end of the regular pre-school year and Grandma Lam's birthday in the UP.  Both of those things meant that your schedule got totally thrown off, and it nearly made both of us crazy.

Grandma's birthday was on Memorial Day this year, and she turned 70, so she decided to have a big party for herself in Menominee.  She even rented the township Hall, and we had fun decorating it with lots of balloons.  Many of our relatives came, even some of her cousins that I had never met before.  The best part for us was that Uncle Alex and Aunt Lena flew in from Norfolk.  It was the first time they were meeting Miriam, so that was fun.  You and Uncle Alex ended up playing with pulleys, which you know about from one of the Charlie Brown encyclopedias and also because there are several hanging up on the Cottage roof beams. It rained a little bit every day, sometimes in the morning and sometimes in the afternoon.  Other than that, the weather was fine and you had fun with playing with your many, many diggers.

It was really nice to spend time at the Cottage.  Lena had never been there before, so we told her lots of family history.  Some day you'll have to learn all of those stories, too.  That's one of my favorite things about being at the Cottage or in Menominee.  I think that family history is so very important, and I don't think people pay enough attention to it.  Your history is what determines your present, and family history is part of that.  After all, Dad and I have our personal histories and family histories, and that all affects how we parent you.  Being able to understand that aspect of your life can give you a lot of insights.  I was a teenager when I started learning a lot about my parents' personal and family histories, and it changed both my relationships with them and also how I thought about myself.  I hope that when you learn about your history, it gives you a sense of pride, and strength, and maybe understanding.  Learning about my parents' lives has always made me feel proud of them and grateful for what their accomplishments meant for my life.  You come from some amazing people; I hope you're able to learn and appreciate their stories.

By the time we got back from the Cottage, though, your bedtime routine had crashed and burned.  Between being in a different environment and staying up late for bonfires, I think you were in bed later than 9pm most nights.  So once we were home, we had to embark on a bit of bedtime routine recovery.  We tried just going back to our previous routine first.  It worked until we tried to get you actually into bed and going to sleep, at which point you would suddenly discover that you were hungry, or had to go potty, or needed something.  My favorite conversation went like this:

You: Mama!  Mama!
Me: What do you need, Corbin?
You: I need to ask you something.
Me: What is it?
You: I don't know.

At which point I would valiantly refrain from having primal scream therapy right there in your room.  But then I had the idea to set the alarm on your alarm clock for 8pm.  When it goes off, we tell you that it's time for us to go downstairs and do chores instead of stay upstairs and talk to you.  Since we use a timer a lot otherwise, to mark bath time or dinner time or whatever, you've accepted that limit without too much complaint.  So now our nights are back to a pretty good routine.  Except for the fact that now we have time to do chores again, I guess.

You've started the summer session at preschool.  The first day, you were a little upset because it wasn't just like the regular school year.  They have you in a different classroom and your regular teacher wasn't there the first day.  You insisted on seeing your old classroom first, before you'd go into the new one. But once you got around the other kids you were fine and you've been having fun since then.

One of the interesting things that you're doing right now is changing your pronunciation of certain sounds.  You've been concentrating on getting your "sh" sound at the beginning of words as well as the end.  You will actually pause and correct yourself when you say a word wrong.  It's kind of amazing to watch your brain in action like that.  None of us have ever made a big deal about your incorrect pronunciation, but I'm happy to see you wanting to correct it yourself. You've got a couple of years now to really get good at pronouncing sounds, before you start losing your baby teeth and go back to mis-pronouncing "ash."

Love,
Mom

Playing shuffleboard at the Cottage:

 Trying to fly a kite with Uncle Alex and Aunt Lena:

Uncle Alex took these great photos of our resident bald eagle:

We went kayaking with Aunt Cele:

You, on the way home from Grandma's birthday party:

In the garage with Grandpa, waiting for the rain to stop:

Your collection of diggers:

Playing with pulleys:

We got this weird spiny melon from the grocery store:

At the Smith-Redding house:

Miriam sitting in the Bumbo chair, when you're not using it to be a turtle:

Looking for the leak in the Spiderman punching bag:

Your "scrap metal" pile:

Playing with your "electromagnet":

Month 2, or Early Firsts

Dear Miriam,

Your second month was full of firsts, as you might imagine.  Some of them were things you might expect, but a couple of them were a bit surprising.

You had your first visit with lots of different relatives.  Grandma and Grandpa Thorne came to visit.  They were happy to meet you and start getting to know you. Up until then, they had only seen you over the computer.  It is hard for us all to spend as much time together as we would like, because we live so far away, so visits are special times.  We will keep talking to them over the computer, of course.  That's certainly one way that technology has made life better.

Grandma and Grandpa Thorne were here to help Dad take care of you while I went to conference.  I left you with them one afternoon, but I took you with me the next day, so you've already been to your first professional conference.  That was one of the firsts that was a little strange.  People at the conference were amazed that you were sleeping so peacefully in your carrier.  There was one point of the afternoon where you were fussy for a while, though.  I had to stand out in a hallway until I could shush you back to sleep.  Other than that, you were just a little sleeping conversation starter.  In fact, you started conversations the next day, too, when I didn't have you and several people asked where you were.

This was my first month back at work.  You seemed to adjust to being with Grandma and Grandpa Lam pretty well.  It took you a couple of days to get used to a bottle, and then you would only take it from Grandpa.  You've gotten over that, though, so now Grandma can feed you, too.  You don't have any kind of nap schedule yet, so that makes things a little difficult.  I expect that to start changing in a few weeks.  It'll be easier when you're more predictable.

The big thing we did this month was go up to the UP for Grandma Lam's birthday party.  She turned 70, so she threw herself a big party.  Lots of friends and relatives came, which was great.  Even Uncle Alex and Aunt Lena were able to come, so it was your first chance to spend time with them.  It was nice to see them and they thought it was very nice to see you.  It was nice to spend time at the Cottage, too.  Grandma's always loved being there, and I think it's been really special for her to have her grandchildren there with her.  There is a lot of family history in that Cottage.  You'll hear a lot of stories about it as you grow up.  I hope that you value the legacy there as much as Grandma and I do.  I hope that we have many chances to make fun memories there.  You did really well in the car, too, and it makes me hope that you continue to be a good traveler.  We're a family who likes our road trips.  Grandma's already planning one for after Uncle Alex and Aunt Lena move back to San Diego.  You've only got a year, so get ready.

Otherwise, you've just continued to grow and develop this month.  You smile at us now, which is really fun.  You seem to be on an every other day schedule.  One day you sleep all day and the next day you're awake all day.  You wake up about twice a night.  The first time is usually either midnight or 2am, and you usually just nurse and go back to sleep.  That's pretty easy to deal with.  But the second time is either 4:30 or 5am, and then you're usually fussy and it's hard to get you comfortable and back to sleep.  Getting up at 5am is not my favorite schedule, so I hope that changes soon.  If not, I guess I'll just get used to reading a lot of books and not remembering a single word of them.

 Love,
Mom