dear huck // 5

i don't know where the time is going baby. yesterday you turned six months old, and today you're less than two weeks from being seven months. it breaks my heart knowing that now our days will shoot past our eyes faster than we can capture the memories. every night as we ramble through your bedtime routine, i try with all my might to lock away every piece of us together, our last moments of the day before i lay you down and you wake up a teenager.

your hair feels like baby feathers across my lips when you turn your head from side to side. you do that a lot now while you rub your eyes again and again and again before bed, as if you're hoping that by rubbing them you'll keep them awake just a little while longer. you're restless after we nurse, so we rock a while to help calm your busy hands. last night, as your breathing slowed and your body folded into mine, i looked down expecting to see your eyelids shut tight. but instead i saw two round shadows above your nose, highlighted by your beautiful, long eye lashes. you were wide awake and staring up at me, your head resting on my shoulder. you stayed like that for what felt like hours while we rocked - creak, creak, creak - back and forth. i wondered if you were waiting for me to stand up and whisk you downstairs to play. it's in those moments, almost a half hour past bedtime and with still no sign of sleep in your very wide-awake eyes, that i wonder if we're doing everything okay, your daddy and me. you're a mystery to me, sweetheart, even more every week. i spend so much of our time together wondering, wondering if you're happy, if you should have one more scoop of apple sauce at dinner, because you're growing so big, or if we should fill you up with milk instead. or maybe both? but then you'll be too full to sleep... and it goes on like that in my head almost every step we take. daddy tells me all we have to do is love you, which i do so much it makes my chest heavy and bursting, but i worry anyways, because i know there's more to it than that. there's so much i want you to know, to see, to feel, and all within what seems like too little time in the day.

you're kind of a mama's boy, huckers - but we won't be telling daddy that, don't worry. it's our little secret. when you wake in the night, daddy tries with all his might to soothe your incessant wails and pat your arching back, but it won't do. no amount of "shhhhh"-ing, or bouncing, or rocking will stop your tears when you're in daddy's arms. that's mama's job. and as soon as daddy passes you into mama's arms you're quiet. your back relaxes and your head rests heavily on my shoulder. so we rock, and we "shhhhhhh", and we rock some more. until your tears are only invisible stains on your cheeks and your breath on my neck is soft and calm. you and mama, we're a packaged deal during the silent hours of the night. and it's exhausting and oh so draining, but it's some of the most precious hours we spend together, just the two of us.  

you know what you do recently that makes mama's heart melt straight out her toes? you greet us with these big, round, open mouthed kisses that are so unmistakeably intentional, at least i like to think so. but you get so excited as we inch closer to you that you bury your face in our shoulders before you get the chance to plant your lips on ours. you turn yourself into this ball of wiggling excitement, until your burst! and your head shoots up and your lips land arbitrarily wherever they connect - on my chin, on daddy's nose. a lot of the time your lips land on my jaw bone, and when you pull away, a full half cup of drool hangs down from my face as a souvenir. thank you for that, honey. i always love it, always.

yesterday we were practicing our scoots (mine are actually pretty good, yours could use a great deal of work), and you were stretching your tummy and arms as far as they could go while you grabbed at a just-out-of-reach toy. and although your feet were pushing off the carpet as fast as you could get them to move, your tummy was stubbornly stuck in it's place; so you arched your back, twisted your head, and flopped right onto your back, a full foot closer to the toy. and then, just like that, you were on your tummy again, toy in hand. and the next time I looked up, you were three rolls away from me, stuck between your toy basket and the table and sucking on the very same toy. when did you learn to roll with such finesse? where was i? the next time i look up, will you be walking? it's likely, and i'll love it. but i want to hold on to you just like you are, six months old and 22 days. because time is moving just way too fast baby. way too fast indeed.