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Dear Robbie,

I had a bit of a rude awakening this morning.  I babysat a one-year-old for a friend, and that boy was perfectly capable of walking right over to the coffee table – otherwise known as The Place I Store Tiny Things So You Can’t Choke On Them – and popping things into his mouth.  I suddenly realized that we have a long way to go before our house is actually baby-proofed.  No matter, though, because you’re a long way from being really mobile, right?  Oh wait!  The other thing that happened today was that you decided to sit up and crawl for the first time.  Honest to god, I caught you crawling right across the living room floor.  On one hand: Yay, congrats, kid!  On the other hand: Shit.

When I was pregnant with you, I often wondered how you’d be different from your sister once you were here.  Would you be harder to please?  Happier?  More likely to claw and bite my face?  (The answers to those questions are no, about the same, and oh my god, my face hurts.)  One arena in which I was convinced you’d have her beat was in food consumption.  Because, come on, your sister can survive a day on half a chicken nugget and a Cheerio.  Surely, surely, you would be a voracious eater.  The joke, of course, is on me.  Not only do you not eat voraciously, but you are worse than your sister.  How is that even possible?  All this month, whenever we’d put baby food in your mouth, you would make faces suggesting we were trying to feed you carrot-infused dog poo.  I even emailed Awesome Doctor to ask for advice, which I never do because I don’t want to bug her outside of her work hours, and all of her suggestions were ones I’d already tried.  (Except for saying, “[Awesome Doctor] says you must eat this.”  But that didn’t work either.)

So, here I was, at my wit’s end, thinking you were going to have to survive on formula for the rest of your life – which would be WAY expensive in the teenage years, oh my god – and then we had a breakthrough.  I never would have guessed the thing to get you interested in food would be miso soup.  I’d only tried it myself once before.  We were sitting in a sushi restaurant, and you were again refusing your pureed bananas when we decided to give the soup a shot.  For the first time, you were desperate for me to return that spoon to your mouth, and you started fussing when I didn’t do it fast enough.

Last week, Gram, Papa and I took you, Kaylee and your cousins to the zoo, and paused for lunch to eat sandwiches.  Gram held you in her lap while she tried to eat her lunch – with limited success, because every time she raised her sandwich to her mouth, there would be an infant attached to the other end of it.  You got it into your head that you wanted to eat that sandwich, and nothing was going to stop you.  Since then, you’ve also tried soft pretzels, freeze dried apples and icing off a birthday cake, and thought they were all several kinds of awesome.  I guess the lesson here is that you’re not against food – you’re just against that flavorless shit that comes in baby food jars.  So I’ve been adding a little salt and pepper to your meals, and now I can get you to swallow a couple of spoonfuls at each meal.  It’s not much, but it’s progress.  I’m just hoping that, by the time you’re three, you’ll be able to pack away two chicken nuggets in the same day.

You’ve sprouted two cute little teeth since last month, which means your penchant for shoving other people’s digits in your mouth has taken a turn for the painful.  But those teeth add so much character to your smile.  Now, when I come back from the kitchen to find you’ve figured out how to crawl across the living room, and I see you grinning that open-mouthed smile loaded with pride, I can’t help but set aside the panic for my future sanity and smile right back.

I love you, buddy.  I once worried about how our family dynamic would change once you entered the world, but now I can safely say I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Love,

Mommy

Dear Robbie,

Just last night, your dad and I had a conversation about how you’ve suddenly hit that point in your babyhood when the changes are going to speed up.  A couple of months from now, we’ll look back on pictures of you and marvel that you’ve come so far, so fast that you no longer seem like the same baby.

In the past couple of weeks, you’ve suddenly started babbling.  You seem like you want to tell us something, and you’d really let us have it if you could get the right words out.  Among the random syllables that come out of your mouth are two that make me smile every time: “Mama.”  I really don’t know for sure that you’re saying it on purpose, or whether you are talking about me, but I’ve decided to pretend you’re saying my name each and every time.  You should probably play along, because you’re going to need this credit to your name a couple of years from now when you’ve colored on the walls and I’m contemplating whether to sell you off to the lowest bidder.

This birthday is a big one for you, because it means I finally have the green light to start giving you food that doesn’t taste like total crap.  (We know for sure it tastes terrible, because even your sister won’t eat it.  She’s become a jealous little monkey when it comes to you, and she wants everything you’re having all the time.  Except for the rice cereal.)  When I go grocery shopping later today, I’m going to buy you some baby food and then we’re going to have a little party.  At the end of that party, I’m pretty sure your whole head is going to be covered in pureed peas.  I hope you love it.  I hope you’re not disappointed in the general blandness of the food I’ll be offering you, because I know you have your heart set on eating the things the rest of us have at dinner every night.  When I put you in your high chair in the evenings, you usually fuss until I get you out and put you on my lap.  This is exactly what you’ve been waiting for, because the moment you’re within reach of my plate, you open your mouth like a largemouth bass and dive for my plate.  Your aim is terrible, though, so you haven’t managed to snag a bite of pork chop yet.  Give it time, buddy.  You’ll get there.

You’ve also become the squirmiest little shit I’ve ever met.  Now that you know how to roll over, you won’t stop for anything.  Getting you dressed in the morning is like trying to put a onesie on a toothless, rabid, slippery basset hound puppy.  I’ve tried to get you to understand that you’d be free much faster if you just let me button up your outfit, but you fight me every time.  You’d much rather roll over and stare at the bear on the bumper pad of your crib than hold still for the six seconds I need to get you dressed.  If I were smarter, I’d remember to turn on your mobile, which for some reason captivates you like nothing else (except maybe ceiling fans).  Your dad has referred to your teddy bear mobile as the “Jonas Brothers for babies,” which seems about right.  You do sometimes scream like a preteen girl when we wind it up and it starts playing music.

You’re trying so hard to sit up, but your progress impeded by the fact that what you really want to do is stand.  When I offer you my fingers, you pull yourself up into a seated position, but before you get a chance to practice balancing on your butt for a minute, you pull yourself up onto your feet.  You watch your sister running around the house and jumping off of furniture every day, and I can see you’re aching to join her.  You’ll get there, little buddy, I promise.

We’re having so much fun with you, kiddo.  We can’t wait to see what you do next.

Love,

Mama

Dear Robbie,

Someone asked me how old you were the other day, and her jaw dropped when I said you’ve been around for five whole months.  I really, truly feel like I just woke up the other day and had a baby.  Not a newborn anymore, but one of those kicking, squirming, trying-to-sit-up babies that actually does stuff other than stare at the ceiling fans and cry.

Where have I been?  How did I not notice you’re becoming such a big boy?  I’ve been giving you baths in an infant bathtub since you were born, and just the other night I realized you’re much too long for it now.  When I pour water over your head, it cascades out the sides of the tub.  You’ve love to splash, and you spend your whole bath flailing your legs so much that I end up soaked in bathwater (and pee, because you always go in the bathtub) from the waist down.  It took getting drenched to make me realize that you’ve outgrown this thing.

When Kaylee was a baby, we bought her a jumperoo to help her work off her insane amounts of energy in a confined space.  (Do you know how long I have to wait to go to the bathroom sometimes because I’m too busy entertaining children?  Yes, the jumperoo falls under the category of toys my friend calls “the circle of neglect,” but sometimes your mother needs to pee.)  I’d been thinking you were still too small for it, but once I realized how blind I’ve been about the bathtub, I decided to break out the jumper for you.  I put you in it for the first time the other day, and your face immediately lit up.  The look of wonder in your eyes made me feel like a jerk for having deprived you of the jumper for the past five months, for you were immediately, deeply in love.

At your four-month checkup, Awesome Doctor gave the go-ahead to start giving you rice cereal.  The first time I gave it to you, you were intrigued.  What is this new substance in my mouth? you seemed to wonder. Should I swallow it?  Should I spit it all over my clothes? You settled on swallowing it, and were so caught up in the excitement of the new experience that you didn’t immediately notice rice cereal tastes like ass.  Well, you’ve noticed since then.  You’re reaction nowadays is more like, Why are you torturing me, woman?  Now I shall commence screaming. I’m supposed to start giving it to you twice a day, but I’m not sure I want to.  I’d hate to turn you off eating altogether, right when it’s about to get good.  (Oh, and don’t tell your doctor this, but I did give you a taste of beef broth once, and you thought it was pure awesome.)  Don’t you worry, kid, there’s better food in your future.

We’ve gotten out the high chair and you now sit at the table with us during dinner, and you are captivated by the things we eat.  I’m hopinghopinghoping that means you’ll be a voracious eater, unlike your sister, but I’m pretty sure she tried to steal my French fries when she was your age, too.  Last week I made the mistake of letting you try to drink from my water glass, and now you’re a little ice-water addict.  Except you haven’t figured out you’re supposed to, you know, swallow the water, so both of us end up soaked.  Now I can’t drink anything in front of you or you’ll open your mouth and start flailing your arms in a desperate attempt to will my beverage into your gaping maw.

This month, you’ve also discovered that your sister is super entertaining.  All she has to do is look your way and you start laughing.  I love that the two of you are enjoying each other so much.  And here’s a secret: Your dad and I are enjoying you, too.

Love,

Mommy

Dear Robbie,

Seeing as how you’re still in the first year of your life, you’ll probably be hearing this from me a lot:  You have changed so much this month.  Holy cow, you seem huge.  You’re expressive, you laugh all the time, and your clothes are almost always see-through because of all the drool leaking out of your mouth.  (Seriously, kid, it’s a wonder you’re not dehydrated.  I hold you for forty seconds and I end up with a line of drool running all the way from my wrist to my elbow.)

You discovered your voice this month, and good god, do you ever exercise it.  Screaming is one of your new favorite pastimes, and you do it as often as possible.  You scream when you’re happy, when you’re sad, when you’re wrestling with a blanket, when your sister does something funny, when your mother isn’t quick enough making you a bottle, when Edward looks at you the wrong way, and when you’d like your diaper changed.  And if you’re wondering why I let a four-month-old play with a blanket, it’s because you freaking love it.  If there’s a blanket within your grasp, you’ll snatch it, hug it to your face and scream in what can only be described as pure bliss.  If I take it away, you grab any other cloth that you can get your hands on and immediately soak it in slobber.  That cloth is usually my shirt.

Speaking of grabbing things, you’ve discovered your hands this month.  Sometimes you just sit and stare at them in awe.  If you happen to catch sight of a toy, you’ll experiment with those newfangled gadgets at the ends of your arms to see if you can finagle that toy into your mouth.  You usually can.  Unfortunately you also grab anything else that happens to touch your palm, and you now have Kaylee terrified of getting her hair too close to your hands.  (It took her a long time to grow hair, and she understandably wants to keep it.)  I’m being careful to keep you away from the dogs – although after discovering a pile of dog vomit in your room the other day, I’m tempted to let you yank out just a little of Kody’s hair.  A smidgen, that’s all, to enact my your revenge.

I took you and Kaylee to Gram and Papa’s apartment yesterday, and while we were there you came so close to rolling over.  You keep getting almost there, and then neglecting to pull your arm out of the way or kick your leg all the way over, and choosing to give up and stare at the ceiling for a while.  Or it’s possible you get distracted by all the adults yelling “You can do it, buddy!” and forget what your goal was.  Don’t worry, your attention span will improve some day.

I love you so much, little man.  Every day I snuggle my face into your neck and breath you in, feeling your warmth and your softness and your life, and I feel so grateful to have you here.  I love your smile, your beautiful laugh, your wide eyes as you stare in wonderment as this odd new world you’ve found yourself inhabiting.  I look forward to being your tour guide as you find your place in it.

Love,

Mommy

Dear Robbie,

I mean this in the nicest, most motherly way possible, but for those first couple of months you were kind of just a lump that wiggled a little, pooped a lot, and occasionally fired pee across the room.  But in this third month, you’ve officially outgrown your lump status and gotten a lot more interesting.  And let me tell you something, kiddo, you have the best smile.

Whenever Daddy or I go into your room first thing in the morning, your whole face lights up with a huge, open-mouthed grin as if we’ve just made you the happiest child in the whole world.  And then you do it again and again, all day long.  At least once every couple of hours, you make me feel like the best mother ever because you’re so happy to see me.  That helps make up for those moments when you’re so tired you can’t stop screaming long enough to close your eyes and, you know, take a nap.

Lately you’ve been paying more and more attention to your big sister, watching her run around the living room, baking pretend cookies and falling off the couch.  You watch her with an expression of naked awe on your face, like, “Look at all the amazing things that girl is doing!  She’s magical!”  There’s no doubt in my mind that, in a few months or years, you’ll willingly subject yourself to being dressed up like a princess just to play with your big sister. And the resulting photos will undoubtedly end up as part of future letters to you, sure to resurface and embarrass you in your teenage years.  Oh boy, are you going to hate me.  All I can say to that is, “Bwahahahaaaaa.”

When you’re not grinning from ear to ear, you’re often staring off into space looking thoughtful, and I can’t help wondering what’s going on in your adorable head.  Are you solving calculus problems?  Pondering the works of Shakespeare?  Filling your diaper?  In these moments you seem so serious, and I wonder if this is a peek into your future personality.  Are you going to be a calm person with a goofy streak?  Will you roll your eyes at your dad’s silly jokes?  Or will you inherit his ability to mess with me, with the ability to say something completely ridiculous with such deadpan sincerity that I can’t tell whether he’s joking.  If you pick up on that one, I am so screwed.

We’re having a really good time with you, sweetheart.  In the short time you’ve been here, you’ve won us all over.  I can’t wait to see the person you’ll become.

Love,

Mommy

Dear Robbie,

Whenever I take you out in public and a stranger notices you sitting snug in your car seat, without fail that person will comment on how tiny you are.  I’m always a little surprised at first, because to me you’re huge.  You’ve gained about four pounds since you were born, which means you’re at 154% of your birth weight.  It seems like the time is just flying by, and before we know it you’ll be eating solid foods, sitting up on your own, crawling, walking and demanding more chicken nuggets.  I know you’re going to change a lot in this first year, and I have to keep reminding myself to pay close attention, because all those milestones are going to creep up on me and I don’t want to miss them.

You’ve started smiling and laughing at us this month, causing us to coo and babble and make all these nonsensical little noises to try to make you happy.  It doesn’t matter what it takes – we’ll do it, because the sound of your laughter is so addictive.  I wish I could bottle your laughter and give it out to everyone I meet who is having a bad day, because surely it would make them feel better.

The biggest milestone for you this month is that you’ve started sleeping in your own bed instead of ours.  (Hallelujah.  You have no idea how happy this makes me.)  You now give your mother at least a couple of hours to herself every night, which is good for the whole family.  Nowadays I’m a lot less likely to have little breakdowns because of how desperately I need a break from children, which has got to be better for your self esteem.

The one thing I worry about is whether you’re getting enough attention from me.  When Kaylee was your age, we waited on her hand and foot, and picked her up at the slightest sound of distress.  (This made it very hard to cook dinner and tie our shoes.)  But with you, I just can’t do that.  I have to let you go it alone in your crib sometimes while I do something for your sister or use the bathroom or whatever, and sometimes it takes long enough that you end up crying for a few minutes before I can return my attention to you.  And so I worry sometimes whether you’re getting enough Mommy Time, whether you’re going to grow up feeling neglected, and how much all the therapy is going to cost.  Other times I think this will make you better adjusted, as you’re learning from the start that you can’t expect everyone to drop what they’re doing just because you’re bored.

I think we’re doing pretty well so far, buddy.  You’ve managed to capture all of our hearts – even Kaylee’s – and we’re so glad you’re here.

Love,
Mommy

Dear Sir Grunts-A-Lot,

I think that’s going to be my new nickname for you, because while Robbie-Bear is cute, Sir Grunts-A-Lot is more accurate, and last night you kept me awake for a long, long time with all the grunting you did in your sleep.  Maybe I shouldn’t be writing your first letter while I’m still tired and bitter, but I get precious few opportunities to sit down at my computer by myself, so you’ll have to take what you can get.

I can’t believe you’ve been in our lives for a month already, but at the same time it’s hard to believe you’ve only been here for a month.  You still seem so brand-new, but you’ve become so ingrained in the daily routine that I can no longer imagine life without you in it.  And in it, you are.  I’d almost forgotten what it’s like to have a newborn in the house – all the crying and diaper changes and dirty bottles littering the counter tops.  But somehow, in my head, I was expecting much worse.  When your sister was your age, I didn’t understand how people ever survived raising newborns because good god little kids are needy.  But I guess it’s kind of like going to see “Twilight: New Moon” after everyone tells you it’s the worst movie ever – when you’re expecting a truly awful experience, you’re pleasantly surprised when it’s just mediocre.  Um, maybe I should change that, because I believe I’ve just implied that your infancy has been mediocre.  What I meant to say is that you’re not driving your mother crazy, and I’m really happy about that.  Yay for you!

I can’t wait for the days when your personality really starts to show, because I’m desperately curious to know what kind of person you will be.  For now I just have some guesses, based on the little things you do (or don’t) from day to day.  I suspect that you won’t be as dramatic as your big sister.  About two weeks after you were born, I had to take you to an outpatient lab to have blood drawn from your heel for a test, and I was so, so, so not looking forward to it. I remembered taking Kaylee in for the same test, and it was a truly traumatic experience for me as a new mom.  The moment the nurse jabbed Kaylee’s heel, she reacted like her foot was being forcibly removed.  I was in tears by the time we left.  So when I took you in for the test, I had to steel myself for the inevitable horror.  I laid you down on a table in the torture chamber, I held your little hands and I waited for the screaming to begin.  And then … then … nothing happened.  The nurse jabbed you in the foot, and you stared off into space.  She worked enough blood out of you to fill all the little spots on the test paper, and you concentrated on pooping.  You didn’t even whimper.

I’m not sure if it’s because you still have some of those little newborn wrinkles that make you look a bit like a little old man, but sometimes I think you might be wise beyond your weeks.  Once in a while, Kaylee will be throwing a tantrum about something completely random, and I’ll look down to see you watching me with your eyebrows raised, a knowing look in your eyes.  In my head, you’re saying, “Well, this is slightly ridiculous, don’t you think?” and I feel like, in that moment, you’re my ally.  But then there are times when you choose one of your sister’s meltdown moments to throw your own little fit, and I know you’re not on my side at all.  When your uncle Jamie and I were younger, we used to torment our mom on purpose by speaking in a nonsensical code around her, just to piss her off.  And a decade from now, I have a feeling your Gram will be laughing her ass off when I complain to her about you and your sister ganging up on me.  But you know what?  I can’t wait for you and Kaylee to build your alliance.  I can’t wait to see what amusing things you’ll find to do together to get on my nerves.  Just remember this, kiddo: I will have the authority to take away your video games, so make sure to choose your adventures carefully.

Welcome to the family, little man.  We’re going to have so much fun.

Love,

Mommy