Hello, Tooth!

Along your bottom gum, just a touch to the right of center, a tooth is poking through. Just a tip, just the barest nub, but it's there, it's coming. The sensation is new to you and you want to touch the tender spot, constantly, with your tongue. Usually, however, you overshoot the gum and the tip of your tongue emerges from your lips and you lick, cautiously, all around the outer right side of your mouth. This makes it look like you are thinking very hard about something--like algebra or how to rob a bank.

Also coming is your ability to crawl. From your belly you can now get up onto your hands and knees but you haven't yet figured out how to manipulate your limbs from that position. So instead you collapse back onto your belly, or back into the cobra position and scream at me until I come and hoist you up, onto your feet, where you can pretend you are already an expert at all things.

Stillness is no longer something you aspire to. When I hold you in my arms, you burrow your head into my chest and then use your head as leverage, throwing your butt into the air and wriggling side to side so that it is impossible to rock you gently before laying you down into your crib. Instead I am forced to hold you in a steel death grip, not something that lends itself to relaxation for either one of us--though "Steel Death Grip" would be an awesome title for a going to sleep board book. I would replace "Snuggle Puppy" and "Where is the Green Sheep" with "Steel Death Grip" any day.

Today is Grandma Ricki's birthday. She and Grandpa Peter and Michael are in China right now, Bejing to be exact. Here in Northfield, we are trying to master "hello" and "good-bye," two words we pretend are easy--just a flapping of fingers at the crease of the wrist--and so whenever Daddy or Mommy or Grandma or Luxy or the odd woman at Blue Monday with the page-boy haircut and overweight child say "good-bye," I maneuver your hand to imitate the gesture. In another month or two, you'll be able to master the gesture--and in another 50 years or so, you'll have the concept down too.