Six Months

14 pounds, 5 ounces.
25 1/4 inches.
5 needle pokes in your thighs.

Carrot puree at your temple.
Carrot puree soaked into the lapels of your sleeper.

Doctor Ripley pronounced you to be in perfect health.

Now, it's 9:15 pm and you are asleep.
Your father and I are watching Anne Boleyn say to Henry VIII, "now my love, let me conceive a son."

The sidewalks are clearing. Many are dry. Snow is slumping its way back into the ground, leaving forearms of open earth on either side of the paths.

"Mr. Wyatt," says Anne Boleyn, "I have a curious hankering for apples."

Peaches, pears, prunes: fruits we are to feed you if your face grows too red with a certain kind of effort.

Last week, a killer whale pulled a trainer to the bottom of a pool during the middle of a Sea World show. He grabbed her by the ponytail.

Across the top of your head, your hair is growing lighter. The undersides of the hairs are golden, the tops are brown. Is this even possible?

You are most likely to roll over when no one is looking.

"As long as I live," says Catherine of Aragon, "I will call myself the Queen of England."

Tomorrow your grandmother will read from "City of Cannibals" at the Red Balloon Bookshop. We will bounce you, somewhere, near the back. We will sign your name on a card. We will say the bag of lemon drops was your idea.