9 months

Dear Clementine:

So you’re looking at the hole in this collection that comes between 7 months and 9. It’s true: I forgot to do an 8-month letter. Not forgot, really…I just got busy. It’s crazy hard work to enjoy you every minute I can AND hold down a job, and sometimes I have to let some things go in order to spend as much time with you as possible. This whole working mom thing is all about balance, and I can’t tell you how strange it is to make decisions these days. I don’t want to do anything but hang out with you when you’re awake, so even when I have the chance to jump ship for a few hours, I rarely do. After 9 pm it’s another story, although I’m usually too busy trying to keep up with house stuff do much more than hang out with your awesome dad. I hardly ever blog from home at night, so I missed a lot of the play-by-play of your 8^th month. Sorry—living it was way more fun.

It’s a shame I didn’t get to it, though, because these last two months have been so full of change! You went from hardly crawling to pulling yourself up to racing around the house on your hands and knees to standing on your own to, yesterday, taking your first tentative step without any support (OK, it was like half a step, but it is simply the beginning!). And all that doesn’t even get into the ways you have become more interactive with us—your sparkling and sometimes challenging personality is showing in so many neat ways. You certainly associate me with a long string of “mamamamamama” noises you make, and from time to time you aim your “dada” at your dad. You also say something that sounds an awful lot like duck when we are in the bathtub playing with them, and you say “gook” as we play with your many books (you still won’t sit still for us to read them to you, but you do like to turn the pages). You want to play with us and have us chase you around the house, you are fascinated by other people (though sometimes a little afraid and clingy, too) and always quick to smile at the world. You have the best smile ever, kid. And that’s not just because I’m your mama. You are also eating better than ever (chicken curry an Thai food—we’re so proud!) and have overcome your fear of being spoon-fed, though most of the time you’d still rather do it yourself. That’s your independence showing. You also like to flex that sweet little muscle when we won’t let you have our cell phones or the remote control. You can’t be kept from what you really want, and we’ve seen more than one temper tantrum, which has us nervous for what’s to come. The stairs also make us nervous. You’ve taken to climbing them at warp speed (and fuss if I hol you around the waist for support) and are extremely happy with yourself once you’ve made it all the way to the top. Yeah, it’s totally time to get those baby gates up. You're a busy girl.

I continue to discover things about myself that have changed because of you and your amazing presence in my life. Most recently I’ve been looking at my career and wondering how the hell I’ve ended up where I am. It has been hard for me to be back at this demanding job at a time when I feel like I should be focusing almost entirely on raising you, but I’ve been proud to find a balance between parenting and work that gives us all a lot of great things. As that has evened out, however, the writer in me has started to wonder when it’s her turn to be important. Poetry used to be the center of my life, but while I was trying to figure out how to live (and I mean literally live—like eat and clothe myself and have a place to live), I got a little sidetracked. Then you came along and I got a lot sidetracked and found myself happier than I’d ever been in my life. Some poets would roll their eyes to hear me say it, but happiness like this doesn’t necessarily breed or nurture the best poetry. I write when I’m puzzling something out, when I’m angry, confused, hurt, confident, assertive. Not when I’m blindly happy watching a baby roll around in front of me. Then, my mind just turns to mush. Happy mush, but mush nonetheless.

But I’m eager to get back to writing, to do something about which I feel passionate. I think it’s important that you see me working with passion, interest and direction so you know why I’m not there to wipe your nose every single time, or care for you every single second. I want you to see me as a vital, inquisitive, independent person, and I don’t want you to think of me trudging off to work at a job I do just to get a paycheck or to meet an end. I don’t know what all this means right now (I’m just babbling, aren’t I?), but I do want you to know that I consider my own happiness and success a big part of my job as a parent. Maybe not right now as you’re learning to walk, but as you form your idea of yourself and begin to form your goals, I want you to take risks, to seek happiness, to be reckless and go after what you want. I don’t know why I’m going on and on, but I just want you to know that from the very beginning I’ve been thinking about how every aspect of parenting is something I want to do well for you.

OK, one last story. An image, really. This morning as I was peeling myself out of bed way too early in order to get some stuff done, I looked back to see you all curled up with your dad. I’ll always regret not running to find the camera because you and he were both turned toward my side of the bed, your hands folded in the exact same way and your little mouths slightly open in your deep sleep. It made me think of this Japanese movie I once saw called After Life. I don’t remember it well, but I do recall that the movie was about people who had died and could choose one moment of their life to live in for eternity. I’ve had a lot of those moments in the last nine months, starting from the very first minute I held you in my arms. But for now, this morning is the moment I want to curl up in, the moment I want to suspend myself in forever. I want to go back and curl right up beside you both—my two favorite people in all the world—and just watch you sleep.

I love you,

Mama