Update from Hugh

dear fans of Hue,

this is my okasional update.

now i hav THREE teeth. cownt ‘em.

i can walk if i want but if you see me krawlin’ it is cuz it’s faster way for me to reach important things such as remote kontrol, kittykat, food on flor like two-day-old potato (ha! got it in my pie hole).

I can put my hands in the air and jump on bed and clime up chiar and eat salmon but no FRUTE. Pleeeze people, keep FRUTE away from Hue. Bananna, aple, melin, pare, orang – all of it – away from Hue. Then pass the pork.

I like books but I mostlee like the page with the twucks on it. Or dawgs. I hate the page with the pengwins and also the farm aminals. BORWING.

Gotta go. Somewon left cheezy puf on the flor.

Luv,

Hue

 

In appreciation

After several weeks of Hugh waking up once or twice a night (mainly because we were on vacation in Florida, and he was in a pack ‘n play), he finally slept through the night last night. One day with his caterpillars back at day care, and he was zonkered. 6:15pm, bedtime; 6:30am, awake.

I’m feeling appreciative this morning for this life. I woke up well rested, played with the happy baby, made the teenager a sandwich in exchange for him helping me with my iTunes. Dropped the baby off at daycare (mac ‘n cheese today, he’ll love it), then stopped by the county park for a job along the marsh, sunlight beaming off the water, exhilarating, chilly air. After that, a strong iced coffee from Starbucks. Then a quick trip to the grocery store for tonight’s dinner: grilled salmon, red potatoes in the oven, and green beans.

Back home, time to sit in front of the fireplace and head to work (i.e. this laptop and my lap).

My life does not suck. At all.

My office view

 

Singing

If I was willing to pay $19.95 to upgrade my blog, I could attach the proof. But instead, I’ll describe it the said file and email it to anyone who requests it.

Yesterday, I left Hugh with his big brother, Dowell, for a few minutes and when I came back to Dowell’s room, this is what I saw:

Brotherly duet

As Dowell strummed, baby Hugh accompanied him on vocals. I grabbed my iPhone and made a quick voice recording (the thing I can’t upload, but can email you), and Hugh was really singing. Not only singing, but in tune and in syncopation! The melody goes something like this: bababa ba baaaaa, bababab ba ba, baaaaa.

Some would say I’m just being a proud mama. The same way they try to convince me that Hugh is not the only baby in the world who can hold a broom over his head. Or not the only 11 month old ever to turn the pages of a book. But I know the truth.

HE’S A MUSICAL PRODIGY!

 

This is my favorite age

When Tasha’s son, Dowell, was about 8 years old, she gushed to her mom about why this was her favorite age. “He’s so curious about everything and asks the most interesting questions. He’s big enough to do things for himself, but still likes to cuddle. We can do things together that we both enjoy.”

Her mom laughed, and said, “I’ve been meaning to tell you this, but do you realize that you’ve said this every year of his life?”

It took Dowell turning 15 for Tasha to finally say, “You know what? This is not my favorite age.”

But now that he’s 17, it’s our favorite age again. He can drive himself to school, do his own laundry, and even make dinner on occasion (hotdogs on the indoor grill pan). Yet he still delights in small things, like warm cinnamon rolls in the morning, and astounds us with profound things, like a pithy analysis of Russian-Georgia crisis that has us fervently renewing our pledge to NPR.

Now that Hugh is 10 months old, I find myself starting to say how this is my favorite age. He’s big enough to play by himself with modest supervision (perhaps a tad bit more than he had this morning when I found him with a bottle of Nyquil); he laughs out loud at things that are truly funny (not ga-ga-goo-goo, but the cat stumbling down a stair or Dowell popping out from behind the couch); but he’s still enough of a baby to clutch a soft blankie and dig his chubby legs into your lap as he falls asleep with a pacifier.

As much as I’ve loved him since the day he was born, I can’t imagine saying, “Ohhh, I wish he were eight weeks old again, just for a day!” But when he’s two or 12 or heavens forbid, 17, I can imagine yearning for my 10 month-old with the toothless grin, pudgy feet, and wispy mullet of a hairdo.

My 10 month old

 

First report card

Hugh got his report card last week. They don’t call it that, of course. It’s called a “Fall Assessment,” but you know exactly what it is when it comes in a sealed envelope of seriousness with initials on the corner. (Because make no mistake, mommy WOULD glance into the other caterpillars’ boxes; just to see, for example, what Jemma scored on “demonstrates empathy.”)

There are also no grades, per se, on this not-a-report-card, just an assessment. Instead, there is N (Not Yet Observed), D (Developing), and C (Consistently Demonstrates). Now, come on, you tell me which is A, B, and C. We’re not dummies. (C, D, N).

Hugh received top marks in 3 out of 21 areas. Those were: plays with others; learning to be a member of a group; and fine motor skills. In other words, he plays well with children while holding a pea in his hand.

He received B’s in the following areas: gross motor skills; understands how objects can be used; and sustains attention. The rest of the categories, from “manages own feelings” to “uses personal care skills” were “Not Yet Observed.”

His teacher comments included, “loves to play with a group of children!” and “Hugh hasn’t learned self soothing yet” and “learning to sit still in circle time” and “has trouble adjusting to new people.” I take issue with the last statement because from what I observe, Hugh does great with new people. On Sunday, for example, I went to see a play in Columbia and left him for three hours with total strangers (neighbors of a friend), and they said he never even made a fussy sound, just followed around their 6 year-old son like a puppy dog and smiled.

The self-soothing part I’d have to agree with – partly our fault for not letting him CIO (cry-it-out in mommy-lingo). But these folks at day care are professionals, and he’s getting there I’m sure. The doesn’t-sit-still-in-circle-time I can see as well; he hardly ever sits still, not even when he was in the womb.

Tasha refused to even look at his report card, saying you can’t assess a 10 month-old, and what does it matter anyway? (I know, she talks like a crazy woman.)

All in all, it wasn’t a bad first report card. Plenty of 40 year-olds I know can’t “Regulate own behavior” or “Use personal care skills.” Besides, the prenatal vitamins I took were recalled, so there’s no telling what we’ve got in store for us.

One caterpillar won't sit still (far right).

 

Kitty cat

No one believed me, but I swore he was trying to say the word, kitty cat. He whispers it under his breath whenever he sees one of the cats, and finally Tasha and Amy heard him.

“Keeeettteee-caat.”

So there.

Today is a Twitter in the form of a blog. Some days are like that.

 

Not again

Hugh’s started waking up in the middle of the night. Again. Just when I’d thought for sure that he was sleeping through the night, finally.

This time, I think he is waking up for comfort. How do I know? Because usually Tasha picks up in the middle of the night, sits down in the rocker with him, and promptly falls asleep. I, on the other hand, can’t fall asleep in the rocker. So last night when I went in to pick him up, he fell asleep immediately in my arms, I put him back in the crib, and he started crying. Repeat. Repeat.

Tasha came in to help, and settled into the rocker with him. And, of course, fell asleep for at least an hour. When she came back to bed, I said, “he’s playing us.”

“I think it’s his cough,” she said.

“No, he wasn’t coughing. He was asleep until I put him back down. I could hear his little raspy baby voice saying, ‘But Mama, this isn’t how we do it. See, usually Mama Tasha holds me for a loooong time until we become a big, sweaty sleep pile.’”

“I really try not to fall asleep.”

“I know,” I said. But I can’t really blame her.

Last night, when I held him, his body warm and solid, breath soft on my shoulder, I didn’t really want to put him down. Instead, I narrarated the twitches of his dreams. Little fingers twitching as he remembered grasping the Cheerios, half of them falling to the floor. Toes twitching as he recalled standing on the wheel of his car before it slipped out from under him. Belly twitching as he imagined reaching for the cat. His world is an exhausting array of stimulation and sensation, and if he needs holding now and again…well, we have a sleeping 17 year-old in the adjoining room to remind us of how fleeting this moment really is.

 

Sign language

I spent 5 days in San Diego for work, and by the end, I was miserably homesick for Hugh. When I got home, he was already asleep, and I laid awake half the night waiting for him to wake up. I finally got to look into his eyes in the morning, and when he saw me, his face lit up and he made a little squawking sound and swatted my chest. That’s a hug in Hugh-lingo.

Speaking of Hugh-lingo, I really did have every intention of learning baby sign language. I figured that by the time he was this age, he’d be communicating with me about food and sleep and cats and balls. Instead, I’ve learned his signs. Swatting the chest is a hug. Pounding his hand on the table means more. Wiggling his body back and forth means hello. Twisting his torso means, “I got my eye on something, and I want it now.”

Hugh teaches me, and I teach him. But I want the world to teach him as well. A friend I know is spending 10 months traveling the world with his family, including a 10 year-old and an 18 year-old. They’re in Bali right now. I yearn to make international travel a part of Hugh’s life as well. It will require saving money, saving vacation time, making hard choices, and lots of planning, but the payoff is a kind of aliveness that is hard to experience in any other way.

I’ll never forget the first summer I spent in Japan. I was 16 years old, riding a train with a bunch of other teenagers and a few unmemorable chaperones. I got off at my stop in Sendai and met my host family who greeted me with a red rose, a lot of giggles (which I found out later was because my chart said I was 6′2” instead of 5′2”), and not a word of English. Seven weeks later, I cried when I had to leave and knew how to say, “I’ll miss you” in Japanese.

Dowell is talking about traveling next summer after he graduates from high school, and I’m already thinking of ways to encourage him. I can imagine him with a heavy backpack, a guidebook, and a group of friends trying to figure out where to the spend the night. I can’t wait for him to experience that moment of aliveness in the adventure of the smallest details: finding a cool hostel; eating unidentifiable roadside food; hiking to a breathtaking view; buying a balloon from a child on the street.

Maybe one day we’ll get our ages and timelines in order and travel together as a family. Bali might not be a bad place to start.

 

Missing Hugh

I’m in San Diego at a conference this week. There are 9,000 ENT doctors from all over the world running around in their glasses and suits, carrying briefcases and checking their phones. It’s exotic, their world, and I’m a fly on the wall – representing a nonprofit and hosting a booth where I talk to strangers all day.

I miss Hugh, of course. And I hope he misses me. Tasha says he’s been cheerful, sleeping through the night and laughing out loud, all you could want from a baby. It makes me wonder if he really knows who I am;  if I’m just another warm face who hands him a bottle.

It’s okay with me that he’s independent, that in his 9 month-old brain, he is content to be fed and cared for by familiar hands, even if it is not this set of hands. I think of how Tasha feeds him in the middle of the night, me in the morning, his teachers during the day and Amy in the early evening. He is a man of the world, open and social, and I am already an observer.

But it’s much the same way for me as it is for Hugh. I am enjoying sleeping through the night in a giant bed with soft sheets and fluffy pillows. I run in the morning, drink coffee slowly, find a glass of wine in the evening and turn my face to the sun. Someone brings me my dinner and takes away my plate.

But I still miss him.

I think of how he presses his mouth into my shoulder and clutches my hair with his hand, babbles into my shoulder in a way that is all mine.

Maybe that’s the lesson I learn over and over – that you can be a needle in a haystack and singular at the same time; that I can enjoy my time without Hugh and yet keep him as the center of my universe.

My peaceful room

 

my Day: by hugh

today i woke up early. 5:58am. my mama tasha picked me up and gave me baba and accidentally, i fell asleep. darn! i had plans, but anyway. my day started late. 7:01am.

when i woke up the second time, it was a cat in the window! a shock went through me. i must touch it. but then it jumped and ran away. then i saw my drum! play its song. english, now spanish. haha, that spanish sounds funny. oh look, a cord! i need it. WAAAAAAAWW, why you stop me? WHY?

at school, i rode in the buggy. today, i sat next to natalie. i held her hand. i thought no one was looking but my teacher told on me. anyway. natalie likes me. so does avery. today, we were talking through our cribs, but boring four-toothed jacob was trying to sleep, so they moved me and my crib to a new place. then i barfed on my sheets. carrots.

when i got picked up from school, there was a stuffed pig in my seat! that made me feel crazy happy. then i fell asleep.

tonight we have a cookout. my shorty, covey, is coming. she’s 2. she likes me a lot.

gotta crawl -

hugh

Bench press