Dear Sabine: Month 11

Dear Sabine,

I can't even believe you are 11 months! In one regard I can't believe you're no longer a newborn. Like, how the hell did ELEVEN months go by already??? But on the other hand, you have never been a baby. You were born a person. You act more like a three year old, I'd say. And the most notable thing about you (other than not acting your age) is that you refuse to sleep. What the hell.
If there was a game or battle or something where the object was to just keep staying awake, my kids would win it. Hands down. You don't get tired. You fight sleep until it knocks the shit out of you. Today you were up around 6am and you stayed awake through all of the morning routine getting ready and out of the house stuff, you stayed awake through the car ride to gymnastics. You stayed awake all of gymnastics, whereupon I let you grab on to one of the uneven bars and I let go of you. You just stayed there, hanging, by yourself. I see a future in gymnastics for you. You also like to imitate Jacob's forward roll. You get into the down dog yoga position and just hang out there being funny, then I flip you over so that you complete the motion and you crack up.

But back to the non-sleeping - so you finally fell asleep after we left gymnastics but when we go to book club you woke right up. And then you were awake for the next four hours. Back at home you were screaming at me in this deep scream that comes from your gut and there was nothing I could do to stop you. I started thinking that I was terrified this is the kind of kid you're going to be. The kind they like to label 'difficult', and that I might have trouble connecting to you, and maybe we wouldn't be the best of friends when you're older. It's my sincere hope that when my kids are older they will like their mom and want to be friends with me. It's one of my fears that you guys won't. But then you finally fell asleep and your body shook with those post-cry tremors for ten whole minutes, after which you proceeded to take the longest nap of your life. So I don't know, maybe it was just exhaustion.

Sabine, you are such a funny, quirky little baby. I'm sure I've said that before, but I can't say it enough. You do funny shit all day long and you know it's funny. Lately you've been crawling through our legs from behind and then when you get to the front you look at us and guess what, crack up. You hang out on the couch and look out the window, then you climb up to the top of the couch and press your little face up to the window screaming baby obscenities out the window to the passing cars. There's a bunch of other stuff you've been into this month which I've been keeping track of throughout the month, so I'll just go through the list:

You toss things to see if they roll like a ball, then you scream and chase after them. You do this with anything, blocks, random toys, shoes, socks, a cup, anything.

You loves little seats, climbing into them, getting down and doing it all over again. The potty chair, the carseat that's sitting in the house, the Bumbo, the booster seat, but the baby rocker is your favorite. The other day you climbed into it, put your arms out on each arm rest and started leaning your body back and forth to set the chair into its rocking motion. You totally knew what you were doing.
You've taken a recent fascination with opening and closing doors, especially the baby gates we have around the house. You sit there on one side opening it, then closing it, then peeking your head around the side to alert us to the fact that you've just done something amazing. You say, "Eh, eh, eh" to get our attention and when we look up you give us the biggest, most proud smile.

When we're roughhousing you lunge at us and pounce on your victim. As you move through the air you shriek to warn the recipient of the incoming attack. Then you proceed to put your wet mouth all over us and wipe snot from your nose onto our clean shirts.

Lately you've taken to experimenting with objects in containers. You start with a basket and then put a block into it. You peek inside to see what it looks like, then put the block out and throw it across the room. Then you look in the basket again. You do this repeatedly, which one would think to be boring for the onlooker, but no, I am fascinated watching you do these these, learning about object permanence and getting to see the wheels turning inside your little brain.

You LOVE throwing things off of ledges or off of the staircase. You especially like having people pick them up and give them back to you so you can do it all over again. I call this the Gravity Game. Again, it's fun watching you learn about your world in this way. You'll be playing with an object upstairs, a sock, for example, and then finally you can no longer take it, you stick your bony arm through the railing and let go, then you look at me like, "Where'd it go?"

We can't keep you down, high chair, swing, stroller, you stand up in all of them. You're just too skinny to have all 16 pounds of you held down by a nylon strap. We tighten the belt, pack you in with blankets, nothing works, it's inevitable that at some point I'll turn my back on you, only to turn back around to see you standing up in the swing with it breezing back and forth through the air and I'm ten feet away. All I think then is: Acrobat.

You'll stay in the swing for a very, very long time. Actually, I don't think we've ever tested your limit but at the park the other day you were in one of those high-backed handicapped swings for 45 minutes. I kept thinking you had fallen asleep but when I would go to check you'd look at me like, "What? Did you forget I am of the non-sleeping breed?"

And oh how you LOVE your bath. Possibly your favorite thing ever. If you hear the water running, you shoot into the bathroom as fast as you can and it's all we can do to get your clothes off before you just dive right in. You splash around like your life depends on it, you shriek, put your face under the water, and come up laughing. I can only remember a couple times where you've asked to come out of the bath.

You love being outdoors . The few times I've left you with someone the last of my instructions as I'm walking out the door are, "And if that doesn't work, just carry her outside and let her be outside for a minute, watching the cars go by or something." You're clearly a nature baby, and by this fact alone we are sure you were sent to the right family.

Actually, we've never questioned that you were sent to the wrong family. I can't say that about everyone. From the moment you were layed on my chest at birth, I looked at you and the words that came into my mind were Oh, it's you. There was recognition in your eyes too and it was the most clarity I ever felt in my life. We waited for you and then you were here and pretty soon I imagine we won't be able to remember a time when you weren't with us.

Love,

Mommy