6 months, 1 day

Dear Clementine:

This morning after I dropped you off at daycare and was on my way back to my car, a woman stopped me and asked “Are you Clementine’s mom?” I know it sounds strange, but I think even after 6 whole months this is the first time anyone ever asked me that, and I stopped for a second with mixed feelings. It was so cool to be able to say, “Yeah, I’m Clementine’s mom.” Just like that—I’m someone’s mom. I’m your mom. But it was bittersweet, too, because it reinforced this creeping realization that you and I are separate entities, separate lives who will continue to grow away from one another with every passing day. You started out as a part of me, and I don’t know that I’ll ever begin to think of you as anything but that. I know it’s healthy to grow, that we need our own space and lives, but I didn’t want to start thinking about that until you were driving. Or maybe when you’re two. I can handle you knowing people I don’t when you’re two, but six months is just a little too young.

I caught myself the other day obsessively tracing the shape of your face while I fed you your bottle. Your cheeks are so plump and full, spilling over the tiniest chin and little bow mouth. What I like best, though, is the shape of your forehead, the way your hairline dips down and gives your face a soft little heart shape. I’m trying hard to memorize it in the same way that I’ve been memorizing certain moments with you: walking down the street with you in a sling while you sing and pat my shoulder to the beat of my steps or watching you resist sleep in the car by rubbing your head back and forth vigorously. This memorizing thing doesn’t really work, though, and I find your early months blending together more and more the farther away they get.

Because I see you every day, change in you seems incremental most of the time. I don’t notice the extra chub (that delicious new chin), the length or your hair is turning blonder the way people who haven’t seen you for a while do. But even I can’t ignore your transformation over just the last month. You’ve gone from a little immobile butterball to a pretty mobile baby in just a few weeks. It started slowly with your yoga-like cobra position, straight arms lifting your torso and head right off the ground. That progressed into getting up on your hands and knees and rocking back and forth like one of those toy cars you rev up before letting loose across the carpet. Now, you can pull your legs right up under your arms and then move each arm forward, sometimes dropping your hips in order to cover the distance even faster. It’s like an inchworm’s crawl, but it amazes me how well you make it work. You can’t quite put it all together just yet into the standard baby crawl, but you have no trouble getting where you want to go.

You have a lot of toys, but you are interested in our telephones, remote controls and anything paper. I like to think your interest in the electric gadgets is because you are hungry for the real world: “None of this toy shit, guys, let me at the real stuff!” Your obsession with paper, though, is a little puzzling. You can have all the toys in the universe at your feet, even the remotes, and you’d rather have the cable bill from over on the dusty stairs. I’ve all but given up on reading the newspaper in the same room with you; you’re lightning fast and have an iron grip. If I’m even a little off my game, you have half the Travel section in your gums and a dusting of ink on your fingers.

I still cannot speak of your sleep. I secretly wonder if you hate us and are trying to torture us into insanity with your irregular bouts of happy awake time in the middle of the night or, worse, the shrieking when you are dead asleep. We tried to let you sleep in your crib (notice the word “let” instead of “make”—it’s an important part of my failing approach), but I just can’t stumble down the hall in the middle of the night without causing myself bodily harm, and if I’m being truly honest, I love having you next to me all night long. Your infancy is fleeting if nothing else, and since I miss you all day, it seems right to have you with me all night. And I wouldn’t trade those first few sweet moments of the morning for anything. You roll back and forth between me and your dad, patting our faces and ginning, cooing and making all your baby sounds as if you’re telling us about your dreams and just reassuring yourself that we’re there with you and real. It is just the loveliest part of my day.

The other new development in your world this month is food. We gave you your very first taste of something other than breastmilk (an avocado) a few days ago and then sat around with our friends and laughed our asses off at your reaction. You shivered, you gagged, you twitched and you kept coming back for more. I gave you chunks at first, then the odd little feed bag to gum and squish some out of and finally a little thinned out with milk on a spoon (which of course didn’t work because you couldn’t keep from grabbing the spoon). It was a riot, and you seemed so pleased after eating. Your Auntie Belle thinks you have been hungry for months, that we’ve been depriving you your one true desire, and although I think she’s full of crap, you did react with a lot more fervor than I expected. When we tried again with the avocado last night, you didn’t make such funny faces. And just like that you’re an eater. Tonight we’ll try some banana.

While I have chilled out about a lot of things over the 6 months you’ve been in my life, I must confess that I returned to high hysteria and paranoia last week when it came time to pick out your high chair. I won’t bore you with the hand-wringing, but I will tell you about the moment when I was in the store finally buying one that was probably too much money but seemed worth it because you liked to sit in it in the store (it also isn’t hideous plastic and will fit in with our décor, such as it is). As always in a store like that, I was tempted to put everything I could see in the cart—all the special spoons and cups, the special food preparation kits, the right pacifiers, the babyproofing kit, all the books, the developmentally appropriate toys, the germ shield for the shopping cart, all of it. I don’t know why, but in retail environments, I fall apart and think the only way I will be a good mom is to buy all the products to support mothering—like I can make up for my lack of knowledge and experience by buying the right stuff. It’s foolish, but I wanted to tell you about it because however the next few years go, know that I always have you in mind first. So much so it turns me into a doubtful, quivering mess of a woman with a charge card and all the best intentions. I agonize over stupid decisions like the high chair because I want the best for you. I want to help you find your way in the world, to question things, to go after what you want and not to settle for anything just because it’s what everyone tells you to do. Yes, I realize I’m taking the high chair to unreal metaphoric heights, but I’m working with what I have here. Don’t settle, Clementine.

So you’re half a year old now. I didn’t think it would take so little time for me to forget a world you aren’t a part of, a world that existed before you did. Yes, I know there was one, and I loved it. But in the last 6 months, I’ve come to realize that I was waiting for you all this time without knowing it. I may joke about the ways my life has changed, the upending of order, the lack of sleep, the lack of rock concerts and babysitters, etc., but in my truest moments I know none of it matters. My life makes so much sense with you in it, and that has been the greatest gift. It’s not that you give me purpose—I had plenty of that before you were born. You just give me hope and life and a reason to get out of bed every day. You give me joy and pleasure, and you help me forget anything that interferes with that. You have helped me get my shit together, to see the world for what it is and to leave it all behind. I know I’m the parent and all, but I think the lessons you’ve taught me thus far outweigh the little bit about the world I’ve been able to teach you. I’ll return the favor someday, though. I know lots about…well…I’m not sure yet, but I know I have a lesson or two for you up my sleeve.

Love you,

Mom