Confessions To My 8 Month Old

Frazier, my darling, you were 8 months old yesterday and while usually I say I can't believe you are another month older, this time, for the first time...I can believe it. Because you seem like an 8 month old to me and finally it does seem like you've been around at least that long! You're a fabulous 8 month old and I love 8 months old, but mommy really must confess:

Once upon a time I was better at this.

Like before you were mobile and ate real food. Before you pulled things off shelves and out of drawers and ate your books. 8 months old has not been Mommy's time to shine, I'm afraid. I have let you put the living room curtains, the dining room tablecloth and the breakfast room rug in your mouth. I've let you fall off the bed and out of your bouncy seat. I've let you get your arm stuck through the slats in the laundry basket and play in Gatsby's water bowl.

I am terrible at scheduling. And meals. Sometimes you get breakfast and dinner, sometimes lunch and dinner, sometimes all three and snacks intermittenly...sometimes you have green beans for breakfast and bananas for dinner. Sometimes I puree, mix and freeze an entire meal and let you eat it as a popsicle. I nurse you on demand and I have no idea how many times a day that comes out to be. Sometimes we get you in bed by 9. Sometimes you stay up until midnight. Sometimes a whole day goes by that we never read a book, and sometimes you go to bed without a bath.

Because you chew on electrical cords and tip over wastebaskets when I'm not watching you attentively, and because naps are few and far between, I get far less done than I used to when you napped often and stayed in one place when you were awake. The laundry piles up, there are regularly dishes in the sink, and I only dust if we're having company. I try to shower on a regular basis.

I find that dressing myself is almost as futile an effort as dressing you- what with the snot and drool and spit up and leaky diapers and oatmeal that ends up all over one or both of us throughout the day. So sometimes I do neither.

I think back on the days when you were a little baby. When I nursed you every three hours, showered every day, did laundry several times a week, read to you often and baked in my free time. When our house was always clean, I fixed dinner almost nightly and we put you to bed early every night.

And then I think of these days as I sit here with hair I haven't washed in three days, with applesauce on my shirt, three loads of unfolded laundry piled in the living room, trying to type as you pull aprons off the hooks in the kitchen...

...and I'd rather spend one day like this with you, up to my ears in laundry and dirty diapers than a million any other way.

And maybe one day I'll be able to say that I'm better at this again.

Until then, sweetheart, I'm trying.

Mommy loves you so very much.