practicing

happy baby

research

So this morning I was doing a little research, barking up one of the branches of Anna's family tree to see if I could gather any information about when our beautiful baldie might grow a hair or two. No rush, of course, just curious. I found this photo, taken over 34 years ago. I must be about 6 months old. In the hair department, you might call that growth pretty sparse. But I've got a full head now, which is reassuring. What strikes me is the steady way, in this picture, my skinny daddy and I look into the camera's eye. It's one of those pictures that make you feel stared at. And while the eyes of the subjects are 34 years older, the quality of the looking still seems immediate. Which sort of collapses one's sense of time and space. Which makes me think that while all of these pictures of Anna we're taking will become part of her own long, long ago, the quality of her steady gaze into the camera's eye won't age.

Four Months Old

She drools, she kicks, she rolls, she yells. She has forsaken the radiator and the fridge for the big poster of Nelson Mandela hanging in the kitchen. She grins at Nelson. She converses with Nelson. She bats, she chuckles, she gnaws on things. Four months old! She grabs our faces and holds on.

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Anna dances an Irish jig. . .

(wardrobe furnished by Meme)

work, rest.

work


rest

a good day

First we practiced for the butterflies at home.


Then we saw the real thing, a steamy room at the American Museum of Natural History filled with flapping wings. You could feel the wind when they flew by. You could hear the whir. When they landed their little weight made the leaves dip. There were many of us, many babies, many butterflies. Everyone looked around. The volunteer told us that when butterflies are in the chrysalis, "they completely liquify and rearrange." I can't stop thinking about that.


Then we said goodbye to the other babies and mommies. Anna had a full meal in the Hall of Central American Peoples while I reread the same information about ancient ocarinas. It was interesting each time. I didn't take a picture.

I didn't take a picture of our walk down Central Park West either, because both of us were so busy staring around at the birds hollering in the evergreens. We couldn't see one bird, but the trees were very loud. We talked to Anna's daddy on the phone in DC and wished he was with us and staring too at invisible birds in loud trees.

new trick

anna holds forth

love objects

I had several. A blanket I remember through a haze of thirty-plus years as white with light blue bear-creatures. I think it somehow fit into the hand with the thumb-sucking thumb, and was rubbed softly back and forth across the bridge of the nose while the other hand was busy twirling hair into knots. Ithink it disintegrated completely. After that was Bear, beloved and eyeless. And Elefante, cream colored calico with a skinny trunk, stuffed with saran wrap. And George, the red track-suit wearing monkey that I bought myself at the Ben Franklin with $11 worth of stockpiled allowance.

My little brother's first love objects were an assortment of die-cast tractors and a plastic hammer he carried around in a bag. At night he'd take each tractor out and lay it on the pillow so his head was surrounded and protected. He'd name them as he laid them down. Allis Chalmers, John Deere, and the attachable anhydrous ammonia tank. The hammer was clutched in his fist all night.

Anna's daddy had a blanket with a "special place" with a hole for the thumb to fit through and thus peg the blanket to the face whilst thumb-sucking.

As for Anna, she'll choose her own at some point.

Love object - early practice at loving something selflessly, completely, sweetly, desperately enough to pitch fits over. How about you? What love object did you carry and suck on and sleep with and rub into dust? What blanket or piggy or bunny or scrap of old shirt? Do you still have it? Do tell.

uncle willis visits

No, Willis, no! Don't eat the baby!

anna fix of the day for far-flung relations

(and yes, those are bunny slippers)

sleep:

the silver lining of the fussy cloud.

witching hour

Anna Jane's tips for fighting the evening fussies:
1. Get someone to stick you in the sling so tight you can barely move.
2. Take a tour of the (very few) rooms in your house.
3. Make several passes in front of the bookshelves. Oooooh, the books. Pretty.
4. Books not interesting. Get someone to sing. Anything. Loudly.
5. Stare at the fussy baby in the mirror. Who is she? What's she mad about, anyway?
6. Suck your thumb continuously.
7. Bounce rapidly.
8. Change positions.
9. Go outside and walk up and down by the park. Look at the streetlights.
10. Take off all of those bunchy clothes.
11. Bathe.
12. Sit in the vibrating seat. Vibrate.
13. Have someone blow raspberries on your belly.
14. Eat.
15. Listen to the vacuum cleaner.
16. Get someone to lift you up and make airplane noises.
17. Any strange noises will do, really.
18. Repeat.

snow day!

Babe in the woods. . .