Gavin tried some avocado today…and hated it. He much prefers apple or yogurt. I guess he’s got a sweet tooth already.
My mom brought over a “jumper” yesterday (not the kind you wear, the kind you sit in and jump up and down in) and after several failed attempts, Chris got it set up today. Gavin seemed pleased to be in it. He looked like he was the captain of a very small plastic ship that was rocking around on the water, until you saw his legs waving around underneath.
The things he can do now compared with a few months ago are pretty amazing. He’s got very good arm and hand control, passing toys between hands easily. He holds onto things longer now too, so often when I pick him up to take him somewhere, a few steps later I realize we are also taking a toy or a blanket, a magazine or my water bottle with us. He can easily turn both front to back and back to front and has been sleeping on his tummy pretty exclusively. He can sit by himself, a bit wobbly. He can also stand for a few seconds when holding onto something. He moves five feet or so across the floor from where he starts, and scoots backward quite well. Forward is more of a problem but he usually gets where he wants to go.
He giggles alot at certain games like when his mama munches on his knees (“mmm, delicious knees” ) and peek-a-boo and rocket launch into the air. He is still having some schedule/teething/sleep issues, but I feel very lucky to have such a happy and easy-going baby. I do think that some of that is because of how Chris and I respond to him, but I certainly think Gavin deserves a great deal of the credit too.
I was talking with Chris about all the horrible and scary things that happen in this world and how I’m terrified that someday Gavin will have to deal with painful and angering and awful things that people do. Sometimes I wish he could grow up and live in a different world from the one I have come to know. But today I was thinking about that again and realized that I’m very happy that Gavin is here in this world, and he seems happy to be here, and Chris is happy he’s here, so I think that all in all it’s probably a good thing he’s here in this world, to bring some much needed joy to all of us.
erin found a survey on iViliage — a forum she trolls by moms who had their babies around the time we did — that was about how many non-well child visits to the doctor your baby has had to go to, and it made me consider the following:
with all the horrible things that can happen to babies and children, from an eyeball growing on their ankle, to fatal food allergies, to leukemia, cancer, downs, sids, and on and on and on, it’s sort of amazing when something actually goes right. it makes one consider, if one doesn’t already, the existance of a higher power or at least some ruling order by which the universe runs. erin’s said it before, and i’ll reiterate…gavin is perfect. not just the two eyes and two feet and a nose and a distinct lack of a third arm, but also in terms of his health, and, for that matter, his disposition. even when considered in conjunction with the corruption of the governemt, the dismal outlook on our relations with other countries and how we fit into the world, pollution and the depleating ozone, it’s still like this amazing, perfect little cosmic being living under our roof that shines a light and adds so much to our lives.
so for the last few months gavin has been having mild fevers, chewing on his hands and generally more fussy than his usual self. i have been waiting for his teeth to come in. there’s one that i could see right below the surface but still underneath the surface of his gums since Christmas. in the last week he’s been having trouble sleeping even when he’s tired and has been biting stuff fairly hard. this afternoon i put my finger in his mouth and thought i felt something very tiny and hard and upon further inspection i believe that the tooth i could see has now broken through. well, at least a part of that tooth about the size of a pin head. so, hopefully gavin will start sleeping better again soon.
I just finished feeding Gavin his twentieth of my 6 oz. raspberry yogurt. We do this while he’s lying on his back, and therefore, it’s not too messy. He gets very excited when he sees me holding the yogurt container. I think food is his new favorite thing.
I was talking with Chris the other day about having a son versus a daughter and was remembering how I felt before we knew which gender Gavin was. I always had this feeling he was a boy, since early early pregnancy, but had no idea if that was accurate. I was somewhat apprehensive about a son, because I had no experience with young boys, having none around when I was growing up. I hoped I wouldn’t be disappointed if the baby was a boy. Then he came. I didn’t even remember to ask if it was a boy or girl for a minute (and didn’t hear the nurse announce the news as he came out.) And I was thrilled, and it really didn’t matter in the slightest that he was a boy. I do still think it would be fun to shop for tiny dresses, but that’s about the only thing I would prefer about having a girl. Not to say I’d rather have a boy. I’m just happy with who Gavin turned out to be. I think that Gavin is likely to learn how to plant things in the garden, how to vacuum, how to cook, as well as how to play ball and get covered in mud, and those are all good things to know.
A day or two ago Gavin was holding his hands out in front of his face, turning them and looking at them in amazement as if to say: I know Mom and Dad can do really cool things with their hands, and I know I have hands, but I never knew I could make them do things like that too! I thought mine just waved around of their own accord.
Today is Gavin’s half birthday. He’s six months old! In the last week or so he’s started babbling a bit. He says “ba ba ba” and “da ba ba” and “ma ma ma” and variations of those three sounds. He can’t say “the quick brown fox jumped over the fence” but he’s working on it.
so erin went to copy pics off the camera today and lo and behold the computer would not detect the camera. i played with it a bit and my expert opinion is there’s either a problem with the cable or with the port on the camera that the cable plugs in to. feh. so no pics until we can figure this out. feh, again.
technology sucks.
~c
right now gavin is very happy, extremely joyful. he is giggling and grinning at everything. it is his happy time of day, a few hours after getting up in the morning. when he is happy, it practically pours out of him. when he is upset, hungry, tired it’s the same.
it seems gavin doesn’t “express” his emotions as much as, he just embodies them. he has none of the filters i put between my feelings inside and what i show, or tell the world outside of my head. i’ve learned to hide those things: happiness, anger, loneliness. gavin doesn’t hide them, or think about whether or not to express them, and in what way to express. he just is happy or sad, etc. i think the loss of ability to be the way you feel as an adult is unfortunate. of course there are reasons…social interaction patterns, and shortcuts within communicating, that make things easier, at least some of the time. but it seems a huge loss. i think this is part of the reason that i have had “the most fun since i was a kid myself” since having gavin around to show me what happy looks like.
i’ve decided to start writing some thoughts and reflections about Gavin, myself and our time together.
it amazes me to think of how gavin used to be two cells, so small he couldn’t be seen, and how he now is the size of my chest, with all these identifiable parts…nose, ears, eyes, some functioning internal organs. how he grew all those from next to nothing…i just can’t get my head around it. and they all turned out right too, with no extra nose instead of a knee.
some friends were visiting the other day and they say that gavin looks like “a combination” of chris and i. i honestly can’t imagine he’d look any other way since he is, in fact, a combination of us. it seems that people choose to see which parent the baby looks like, perhaps according to which parent they are closer to, or spend more time with. i can’t wait to see what gavin looks like when he is ten years old, twenty years… i imagine he’ll look the same to me, like my parents friends who hadn’t seen me since I was three , who said “You look exactly the same.” when they saw me twenty two years later.
