Jun
4
June 4, 2006
I try and remember to jot down some notes at the end of each month on what Riley’s doing (as if I don’t obsessively document every moment of his life as it is, right?), if you’re interested, here’s what I wrote for May:
Nine months! It’s hard to believe, but the calendar says it’s so.
During this ninth (!) month, Riley finally has the sitting-unsupported thing nailed. Well, except for when he inexplicably flings himself backwards. For that reason, we usually still stick a boppy pillow behind him to catch his fall.
He is insatiably curious and when we hand him an object he hasn’t seen before, he raises his arms and shakes all over with delight. Then he turns it over and over in his hands, whispering “Teh. Teh.”
He makes this sound when he’s sleepy, it tends to precede a nap by a half hour or so: “EEHHHHHHHHHHHH.” Sometimes he changes it slightly: “AAHHHHHHHH.” It sounds like a creaky door, sloooowly opening.
He says “dadadadadada” a lot, and “gagagagaga”. And “dorduhdeedorduh”. And “BMMMMMMTHHPLLT” (drool-loaded raspberry).
Riley loves it when we hold his hands and help him ‘walk’. His favorite foods are strained bananas (still!) and “Yobaby” yogurt. He eats about 4-5 jars of food a day. He has millions of toys, but his favorites are probably the Dora the Explorer book a daycare classmate’s parents gave him (he likes to wave it around and pound on it), the fish-on-a-stick thingie that once was attached to an activity gym, a plastic measuring cup, and anything random on its way to the trash (empty CoffeeMate bottle, Lean Cuisine box, etc). He isn’t crawling, but can move a surprising distance on the floor by rolling. He started out the month by doing something we called Chicken Peck Hand: pointing at things with his thumb and middle finger clasped and ‘pecking’ them; now he uses a pointed index finger. He loves to watch his Baby Einstein video while sprawled on his back and idly moving a toy around nearby. He is very interested in the dog and the cat, much to their dismay. He is fascinated with my hair and often trails his fingers through it with surprising gentleness.
He has three teeth: two below, and one (left) on top.
He does not like the vacuum cleaner.
Lately we’ve been bringing him in our bed in the morning after he’s eaten and taken a short nap, and it’s the happiest time imaginable: playing with him and making him laugh, watching him watching us.
At his nine-month appointment, he weighed 18.5 lb and was 29.25″ tall. He wears “Cruisers” stage 3 diapers. I put him in the seat of the grocery cart – rather than propping his carseat in there – for the first time today. He was fine. I should have done that a while ago, I suppose.
I wish I could remember every single thing he does and write it all with a magical pen that brings back noise and smell and touch so I never have to leave this month behind, like all the other months, kissed goodbye and laid to rest. It’s such delicious sorrow to always be moving on, always be moving forward through the days with Riley, for as much as we enjoy every new moment and every new stage, it breaks my heart over and over to know that at the end of this day, it’s gone, and we won’t have it back again. Even though tomorrow brings its own joy. Even though everything just keeps getting sweeter.
Jun
1
June 1, 2006
Before Riley was born, I worried – like, I think, all pregnant women do – about something going horribly wrong. I worried at every checkup, every test; the nuchal translucency screening, the ultrasounds, every poke and prod that might reveal some unthinkable problem.
I worried when I had spotting, then full-on bleeding; I worried when Riley moved a lot (is he moving too much?), I worried when he was still (is he…dead?); I worried when we did the 3-D ultrasound for fear we would peer at the glowing imagery and observe in perfect detail: three separate noses.
I became downright morbid at times, sitting propped in bed saucer-eyed reading books that told of nightmarish births where babies choked on cords or meconium or whose hearts stopped for no reason.
There were two things that happened during my pregnancy that scared me deeply, that made me afraid to relax and believe for one second that things would turn out okay. Things that, despite my usual dismissal of superstition, bothered me, kind of a whole lot.
The first thing was when I traveled to Japan last March on business. We had gone to a temple where you could exchange a coin for a tiny rolled-up paper fortune, an omikuji, and when I opened mine, it read “The person you are waiting for will not arrive.”
“I don’t like my fortune,” I said immediately, and my companions showed me how you could tie your bad fortune to a post and leave it behind you. I did that, with shaking hands, but I saw those words when I closed my eyes that night, and I never quite forgot them. The person you are waiting for will not arrive.
A few months later – well after we knew our baby’s sex and had settled on his name – JB and I were down south at his family’s cabin on the Umpqua river, and one afternoon we spent some time walking through an old cemetery in the area. Most of the people buried in this cemetery are multiple generations of families, and many rows have the same last name on each crumbling stone marker. I was lumbering my bulk around in the summer heat, looking for good photo opportunities, when I saw the family name Riley. When I looked down the row, I saw a small, plain headstone that read Baby Boy Riley.
I don’t know how long I stared at that thing. Or how many times I thought of it later. Baby Boy Riley. Baby Boy Riley.
Oh, I don’t know where I’m going with this. Just that I was so scared for his well-being, and he was okay, and he’s still okay, and I am so incredibly grateful (I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately). And the fear never goes away, does it? The worry, it will always be there.
I can’t guarantee his safety. I can’t insulate him from every possible harm in the world. There’s something necessary about truly understanding that, about taking on that burden in order to give perspective to my responsibilities. But it pinpricks my eyes, it takes my breath away, it leaves me reeling.
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