five months

i am starting to really notice that he is getting older now. i suppose that later when he is fourteen and in trouble at school because he met the wrong friend and changed overnight i will reflect on this time and wonder how i ever could have used the word older but right now it feels that way. every time he hides his face under the covers and waits for me to move in closer before he peels back the sheet and giggles or the times when i leave a clean diaper beside him as i rush the dirty one into the bathroom and then return to find the new clean one stuffed in his mouth wet and unusable, his face painted with a grin, the way he reaches for my fork and sways his legs to the music, in every moment it is there. my baby is becoming a little boy. they say that babies are neediest when they are first born, dependent on you for everything but i am not so sure. these days he needs me in a more definable and desperate way. he needs a hug and will grasp on to me if i don't cuddle long enough. he needs me to play with him and will look at me with what seems like contempt if i don't pull out the book or find him his monkey. i know he can't express any of this with words but he tells me none the less. he needs me to be there in the same way i need him.

this has become even clearer tonight. he hasn't been sleeping well the last few nights. the worst it has ever been in fact. at first i thought it was teething but he didn't seem unhappy or in pain at all. then i thought it was a growth spurt, something i would just have to wait out. but then tonight as i went to put him into his crib he grabbed for me and gave me this sad look that said "please don't", so i tucked him in our bed beside me instead. it only took him a moment to move himself closer so that his head was tucked neatly by my side and there he fell fast asleep with a little grin on his face (and there that he remains even now as i write this). lately we haven't had much time where it is just him and i and i think he misses it. our mornings spent sleeping in and reading books, the afternoon walks and me making dinner with him sitting beside me on the floor, watching me chop. i know that soon baka will be going home and it is going to be sad. we are going to miss her a lot, no question. but still, i think it is going to be good to go back to the familiar. for both of us.

here are some more pictures we took today.




(my scarf and cohen's hat and sweater are all byproducts of the great cohen knitoff 2006)