Letters to Liam - Months 5 + 6

Dear Beany-Weenie,



It's taken a long time to put this letter to you together. So much time, in fact, that I completely missed the target for your fifth month letter. And if I don't get this posted, you'll soon see your seventh month. I feel really bad about missing a month in these letters, but I'm still going to plead that we are so busy living life with you that there's small time left to write about it. And in two months, you have changed so much. Where to begin?



Well, let's get the big stuff over with first. On June 27th, you underwent another surgery to correct the saggital synostosis. Dr. Durham, the neurosurgeon warned us that this surgery would make the other one look like warm-up practice. And she was right. Although the surgery was a success, your recovery was hands down the worst time of my life. Daddy and I sat by your side and just prayed that you'd feel better soon. Your poor little noggin swelled up, and you couldn't see for three days, and you were hurting.





It made my heart hurt to see you in so much pain. The nurses left me get rid of your crib again and we put you in a hospital bed that I could get into too, and that's where I spent the next four days. You seemed to be calmer when you were held, and because the IVs were in your feet, you at least had the use of your hands this time. You spent a lot of time patting my face. I read to you a lot, and we rocked and rocked and rocked and rocked.



On Saturday, right around dawn, you pried one little eye open from sheer force of will, and then things really began to pick up speed. The minute you could see again, even just a little, you became much more like your old self. And by lunchtime, I got a smile out of you.



Babies bounce back with the most amazing speed. Friday night saw the height of your swelling, with your poor little eyelids all tight and shiny, and by dinnertime Saturday, I was packing you into the car to take you home. Remarkable. You were ecstatic to see again, and you were the happiest child to ever come out of major surgery a few days before. That in itself made your Daddy and I feel like we had come through everything all right.



So now you're a normal, healthy baby whose been making up for lost time. And you have the most spectacular scar--it looks exactly like the stripe on Charlie Brown's tee shirt.



Of course, you've already got a lot more hair than in this picture, and just like they promised, once it grows in, I don't think anyone will know about that scar unless you tell them.

You know what else you've got? Teeth! Two of them. You worked hard for that first tooth, and you made sure we all knew it. You chewed on everything. And you whinged. A lot. But then one weekend in August I took you to Boston to Aunt Lulu's house, and we met Mama's old friend Megan and her two boys in her beautiful beach town. We went to lunch, and then you went to the beach for the first time.



When we got home, you had another tooth! And you had been so busy, you didn't even notice! That's my guy!

You have a new way of soothing yourself:



And you needed a lot of soothing after your traumatic first foray into the world of fruits and vegetables. BANANAS!



That expression was short-lived. Like the rest of your family, you're a good eater. So far, you're eating sweet potatoes, peas, carrots, avocados, pears and yes, even bananas.

Lulu is teaching you the art of taking avant-garde photos:



I think she loves you. But she CAN'T have you!



You are a-movin'. You're all over the place on your belly and rolling back and forth. You're up on all fours, bouncing back and forth, getting ready to crawl. I love how happy this makes you, though I don't think my life will ever be the same after you get moving. I can't keep you still on the changing table...you're like a bendy straw. And when you bounce on all fours, you remind me of a toy car that you roll backwards, then let go to watch it shoot forward across the floor.



I'm pretty sure that my time as your favorite person is numbered. I think you might like that man in your life.





This month, we found out that your Grandpa is sick with cancer. He's got to have treatment, and it's making him pretty sick. But YOU are the best medicine for him, and it really cheers him up to see you. It cheers us all up, really. He's going to get better, and he'll be done with his medicine right around your first birthday. We'll have a big party. We just want him to get better real fast, so he can take you to your first Yankees game real soon.



So that's what's going on with you. I'm sure I've forgotten a bunch. Tomorrow, we leave on an airplane for North Carolina! Yay. At least, I hope yay. You're a pretty chill little guy. That whole thing about crying on airplanes, that's not a requirement.

You've got floaty toys and bathing suits, sunglasses, a ridiculously expensive pack and play that
comes to the beach. You are SET. I can't wait to watch you be the beach baby you know you are.



Fall is almost here. Keep blowing those raspberries. We're loving you, as always.

Love,

Mama

his newest thing

I took Liam swimming for the first time this weekend. He loved it. It's going to be difficult to raise a beach baby is a state with no beach, but I'll manage it somehow.

One of the more unfortunate results of our swimming adventure is that Liam has apparently swallowed a live baby dolphin who is now living inside him and making a LOT of noise. The kind that shatters glass. If he is by himself, my lovely sweet baby now makes an unending series of shrieks and squeals as if to say, "This voice is mine, you say? And I control the volume knob? And it goes up to eleven?? Right on!!"

Sigh. It's a good thing he's cute.

nostalgia 101

FOR CB

Tell me do you think it'd be all right
If I could just crash here tonight
You can see I'm in no shape for driving
And anyway I've got no place to go
And you know it might not be that bad
You were the best I'd ever had
If I hadn't blown the whole thing years ago
I might not be alone
Tomorrow we can drive around this town
And let the cops chase us around
The past is gone but something might be found
To take its place...hey jealousy
And you can trust me not to think
And not to sleep around
If you don't expect too much from me
You might not be let down
Cause all I really want is to be with you
Feeling like I matter too
If I hadn't blown the whole thing years ago
I might be here with you
Tomorrow we can drive around this town
And let the cops chase us around
The past is gone but something might be found
To take its place...hey jealousy

summertime

At 8:51pm, I've just returned inside from the most delicious summer night out on the porch. The bebe is sleeping (!) and I've finished a couple glasses of wine and a few pages of "An American Romance".

They say the grass is greener, and sometimes it definitely is. I often miss the places of my youth, the beach, the garden state, and all the hassles and crush that go with it. I miss Manasquan and I miss stores devoted entirely to one thing. Baked goods. Books. Vegetables. Shoes. Surfing gear. Ice cream. Party supplies. I miss Maryland. Crabs caught with chicken necks. Sweltering heat. Drunken swimming in the river. Moths the size of small aircraft. God help me, even cramming a dozen deep into a dorm room for bong hits and Bob Dylan. Computer games and Dungeons and Dragons in 110-degree heat in a mouldering house. Playing barmaid to rednecks in an actual bar-wench costume.

Despite all these things, tonight I am glad to be here in Vermont. Quiet Vermont. Buggy Vermont. Tonight, out on the porch, I've been reminded why this place is glorious, if only for 2 and a half months out of the year. The sun setting on the hills, the drone of a lawnmower competing with the cows grazing in the field below. Cars, louder than you would expect going by. Peace and grass smells and a kitty on your lap. And a book.




Since there's only one other person (darling BLB & Co.) who also gets to enjoy summer in Vermont, I thought it might be well to mention that we have extra beds, and there is nothing so pleasant as company, when it's people you haven't seen in Forever, or when they're kindred spirits. I have nothing going on until the last week in August (Hilton Head, yay!!!). Need a long weekend? A break from the city? A breath of fresh, if somewhat cow-ish air? There are airports. We're not far off the interstate. Drop a line. Take a day off work, and come visit!


xoxo,

melinda, Glenn, & Liam

fun at home

Despite spending my days with a rather cross and cranky baby, I have really enjoyed this week off from work, getting Liam all better. He's tons better, but you would be cranky too, if someone had taken out chunks of your skull.

The past week has been like a return to early newborn-dom. Liam is up every hour and a half to two hours. But he's beginning to need less and less painkillers, and last night he slept for regular hours, so things are looking up.

I am seriously going to go crazy if I don't knit something. Soon. But I have no exciting yarn, and no inspirations. I could repeat my legwarmers (as I accidentally felted them. Again.). Except that K1P1 in the round might not be the best relief from tedium I could imagine. Or I could make another nifty sampler blanket, like the one I made for the Knitting Olympics (again, accidentally felted). I wish inspiration would bolt out of the sky, preferably with a big, fat bag of new wool.

Is anyone else as ridiculously excited about the last Harry Potter? Anyone?