Dear Arlandria: Month Six

Dear Arlandria,

You're six months old today. Holy moly! I can hardly believe it.

While you've developed a lot over the past month, I had a moment tonight, when you were in your exersaucer that I felt connected to you.

You've been grumpy. Like, really grumpy. And it's different than the grumpy you've had before. It used to be that when you pouted your face or made a pained noise you were hungry, you were bored, you were cold, you had a poopy diaper. There was immediately some sort of need you had that wasn't being met. To be honest, you were kind of a Sim baby. You had meters, and when the meters got low, we had to fill them back up.



But now you are so much more complicated than that. You get mad. Like legit angry-shouting-upset-crying mad. And the thing is, you are doing it because you are not able to do something you've already learned: grabbing.

Don't get me wrong. Compared to where you were a month ago, you've become a grabbing expert; a grabbing machine! But you still don't know how to approach every toy and object in your desire. The big things are easy because they're all one piece. But the small things, the ones with handles that don't have the added help of being Mommy or Daddy's fingers. Those are so much harder.

And you lose your patience. It used to be you were perfectly content to sit still and stare at Steve (our ceiling fan) for however long it took us to make a bottle or change your diaper. Now you've learned the concept of time. You've learned the concept of a room. And anytime we leave you, you cry, you moan, you whimper, you throw toys (more of an accident than on purpose, but still it happens).

When you were in your exersaucer tonight, you were angry. You had no patience. You had not napped well and you were going to tell someone about it. So I gave you your rattle, popped the pacifier in your mouth, and I watched as you tried to wrap your fingers around the rattle.

Sometimes, when you go to grab things, you mess up. It's in between your index and middle finger, instead of your thumb and index finger. You try to take something to your teething gums and chew, but you can't figure out how to rotate it to fit your mouth. You will put things down and pick them up again trying to figure out a different way to hold it.

That is to say: you grasp, but you don't understand the concept.

You figured out your hands, the object, and even picking up and putting down (and pulling out in the case of your pacifier). But you don't understand exactly why what you're doing gets you different, and sometimes very frustrating results.


I still have problems like the one your having. Grasping, and not understanding.

I feel like my life has been a continuous grasping session.

I grasped writing, and pursued it as a degree, but I don't know that I understood the concept until I wrote outside of an academic setting. I grasped lawn care, but I don't know that I understood the concept until I started doing it as a job. I grasped love, but I don't know that I understood the concept until your Mom and I were married.

I still only grasp things: family, responsibility, health, business, money. I still only finger around the edges of more than a little contemplation on the biggest questions of the universe, the country, and my own life.

You are going to grab the rattle. You will master it like no one else has before. You will be more than capable of chewing whatever you want to chew and grasp whatever you want to grasp before much more of your life goes by.

And when you're older this will all hold true.

You will grasp math and reading and writing and science in school. You will grasp music and maybe an instrument or two. You will grasp the amount of life and lives happening in your family, and all around you, the history that led to you being here at this exact moment in time, every single person that contributed to your home, your food, your intelligence, your livelihood.

You will grasp the greatest of philosophies and the smallest of sweet moments. You will stare at the sunset thinking it glorious then see the stars come out in the night and think of how many sunsets are happening all at once, right now across the vast expanse of space.

You will grasp your own place, your own goals, and your own self - by the dark of night and the light of dawn.

But first, you will grasp that rattle and bite it like nothing else matters.

And of course, I'll be sitting there, watching you every step of the way.

With Love,
Dad