Eight Month Update

Dear Lana,

You turn eight months old today. If at any point in the future you find yourself totally exasperated by a little brother or sister, you will have only yourself to blame. It is because you have been so sweet, agreeable, fun, and totally adorable in the past month that your father and I have realized that we might possibly… potentially… maybe choose to have another baby one day. There is still a lot of wiggle room in that statement, but it’s a huge change from my parting words to the delivery nurse who said, “See you next time!” as she rolled us to the hospital doors. “Don’t count on it,” I told her with a conviction that surprised even me.

In the past month you have found joy and amusement in everything from an empty plastic bowl to Rico’s spotted feet. You can now sit up independently with enough balance to lunge and retrieve anything in arm’s reach. One of your favorite activities is rummaging through your toy basket or laundry basket to retrieve, inspect, taste, and ultimately discard each object one by one. You enjoy, in particular, your board books and any type of electronic device. The remote control and our cell phones are obvious favorites, but I also caught you smiling and waving at the microwave like you were greeting an old friend. “Ha na nah da dada da,” you said to it, which I think translates into something like, “Hola, Microwave. Je m’appelle Lana.” (Thanks, Baby Einstein Language Nursery.)

You now laugh easily and often, and the tinkling sound of your giggle is music to my ears. Usually, just the sound of someone else laughing is enough to make you giggle. You recently heard a laugh track on a television sitcom and it made you chuckle. The surefire way to send you into hysterics, though, is to pretend to sneeze, hiccup, or (to my mother’s dismay) vomit. Dignified it is not, but what harm is a little body-function humor in the privacy of one’s own home?

In recent weeks you’ve also achieved a firm understanding of what the experts call “object permanence” – the notion that objects continue to exist even when they are no longer visible to you. In practice, it means that you like to throw things down and then lurch forward to see where they ended up. In a larger sense it means that you remember me – the woman who grew you in her belly, gave birth to you, fed you with her boobs, and refused to put you out in the yard even after you screamed at her constantly for the first six weeks of your life. Much to my delight, you’ve decided that you really like that woman and would prefer to have her around all the time. And as much as I hate to hear you cry when I leave, nothing gives me more pleasure than seeing your eyes light up and your arms shoot out when you see me again. I will never leave you for long, my sweet baby girl.

Love,

Mom