an open letter to fritz | vol. 7

dear fritz,

you are an energetic, intelligent, and happy child. and tall, you are also so tall. i don’t know when it happened, but you are such a little boy these days. you run with conviction and bound onto (and off of) furniture with joy. you are obsessed with all things truck. as we drive down the road you point every. single. truck. out to me and tell me that they are all yellow trash trucks, visual evidence notwithstanding. you make engine noises for each and every one, and occasionally throw in a siren sound (wee-ooh) for effect. needless to say, car rides with you are a blast.

you have turned into a “morning person” which i find inexcusable. you are chipper and excited when i greet you in your crib, and promptly ask for daddy, kitty, tucker (in that order). after i give you their various whereabouts, you dodge around the crib, darting away from my arms while you laugh hysterically. this goes on for a few minutes, then you decide that you must get out (immediately) and begin to whine. once i grab you, you bury your head in my neck for a hug, then lean back and give me a forehead bonk (your most consistent display of affection). you play fiercely all morning until your nap, and then sleep as hard as you played. you being to wilt in the afternoon and become almost intolerable by dinner time (your cuteness saves you). you always seem happy that bedtime has arrived, and you sleep through the night, every night.

speaking of bedtime, you’ve gotten into something of a routine. you start to wail for your books about halfway through getting dressed, and when i haul you up to see them (so that you can select one) you always pick the same book. the goodnight train. like, all the time. i try to encourage you to branch out, but you hug it closer to snarl “mine!” until i get the point and settle in to read (choo chooo).

you are still my adventurous eater. you had your first raw sushi this month and loved it. you also had more octopus (a perennial favorite at this point) and are now a pizza aficionado. you dig my gluten-free bread and my sugar-free jam, and will still devour an entire plate of steamed green beans with butter and salt. you enjoy my chicken and rice soup and pasta. always pasta, but we have to strip you down to a diaper to serve it to you, for obvious reasons.

you have begun to string words together, which is really exciting. some favorites include “no mommy” and “me no baby, tuck tuck”. ok, so they don’t always make sense, but you like the sound of your voice making sentences, and i do too. you learn new words by mimicking us a lot, last night you said “chicken” for the first time. your development has really taken off, and i’m excited for the time (around your second birthday, or so i’ve been told) when we can begin properly communicating with each other.

in three months you will be two years old and i will write another one of these letters to a very big boy indeed. please slow down baby, you are growing so fast and i don’t want to miss a thing!

until next time, my love,

mommy

boys

men are different than women, which is perhaps the most obvious statement of all time. they are direct, practical, thinkers. this isn’t to say that women aren’t those things as well, but we tend to be more emotional, more passionate. we attach importance to objects, songs, smells, and moments in time. we are romantic.  i’ve always found it frustrating that men are more ‘closed’ than women. sure, they feel things. but they process those feeling quickly and then move on. they don’t linger and analyze like we do.

so when i found out i was having a little boy i was slightly concerned. i worried that he would be born with the emotional availability of a full grown man. that he would feel joy or fear or frustration and i wouldn’t even know. that i wouldn’t be able to tell when he was excited or scared. that i wouldn’t be able to connect with this tiny man on a pure emotional level.

imagine my surprise and elation at discovering just how open he is. he feels everything so fiercely, and is led by these emotions. each feeling amplified. the cat walking into the room is the happiest moment in his day, until some other trivial occurrence unseats and replaces it. not being allowed to chew on the diaper rash cream is the most frustrating thing he can imagine, until he can’t… quite… reach… his favorite toy. every feeling is a live wire. a raw nerve. the thrill of discovery, the frightened whimper when i move out of his line of sight, the angry shakes of his chubby fists when he is told ‘no’.

i know that as he matures the wide grins and fat tear drops will be replaced with the eye rolls and sullen glances of a teenager. i know that in turn they will give way to the warm hugs and smiles of an adult. but i also know that i am forever grateful for what i have right now, a view of his precious heart before the walls go up.