So you may have noticed, if you are following this, that I have not written a four-month, five-month, or even now six-month newsletter. There IS  a reason for this, and it’s not a lack of photos or things to write about. Rather, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it is that I am doing when I write these newsletters. I am putting images and information about my son onto the web for all to see. I have made my blog a “mommy blog,” and my now six month-old boy, when he is older, may well encounter photos of his cute chubby thighs (well, chubby by tall and lean baby standards) still floating about the ether. I don’t know what he would think of that, but I do know that it gives me great pause.

I have decided to try to use this blog to write about matters of faith, food, and literature (so much for alliteration), and to restrict my posts about Nikolay to those who, by way of friendship or family ties, would have seen him anyway. He can hardly be upset if a friend from church, who sees him at least once a week, also gets to see photos of him taken during the week. He may, though, be distressed to find that a college admissions counselor gets to read a detailed report of his sleeping patterns.

So here’s the deal. This will be somewhat like our wedding, where we called all those who “self-identified as family” to join in for the large family photo. No more discussions on who does and who does not belong. If you self-identify as someone who ought to be granted access to Nikolay’s daily comings and goings, then write to me and I will make you whatever Wordpress needs you to be to view “private” posts. I will also do the same for Flickr and my Picasa Photo site. For the rest of the world, I will try to publish my Sunday/Sabbath meals, any interesting recipes I find or create, and whatever else comes to mind. I’ll even throw in the occasional (non-embarrassing for future purposes) photo of Nikolay. I hope you don’t mind.

Until next time, when I will write about the dairy-free chocolate truffles I am making for this Sunday, I remain …

Mrs. Eloquacious

Sometimes “waah waah” from the playpen while Mami is making breakfast means, “I’m lonely, please pay attention to me,” or sometimes it means “please help me get to that toy over there,” and then there are SOME times when it means “People, do you not SMELL that giant heap of doggie doo right next to me? Please! Please help me! Get it out of here!”

Dear Kolya,

The past month has been a pretty exciting one for our family, as we are now almost completely settled in to our new home - and loving it. The infamous larva/beetle issue notwithstanding, it’s been a fantastic move. Just today, You, Papa, the Wolf, and I took a long, luxurious walk around the new neighborhood. You held up pretty well until we decided, as we neared the house, to take a detour and walk another half mile. We quickly noticed that you had given up, and were sleeping peacefully in the stroller. Ah, well. You tried. But what am I doing here? This anecdote belongs to Newsletter: Month Four, or “Farewell, Midnight Snacks.” (I wish!)

Which brings us to this month’s title, “Sleeping Like a Baby.” I always believed that this referred to some blissfully relaxed state of repose, the kind of sleep one enters peacefully and exits calmly, having dreamt of sweet and wonderful things. Little did I know that sleeping like this baby could refer to the sort of short-lived sleep that ends abruptly in a fit of screaming and wailing.

I am humbled every time I consider that you are an immortal soul, and that God has entrusted us with your spiritual as well as your physical care. Friends recently stated that it’s all good as long as we keep you alive for a while. That sort of bare minimum thinking doesn’t sit well with this Mama, who is prone to intermittent spells of extreme guilt for all the ways that I’ve already failed you. I’m sorry, son, if at some point you find that you can only sleep on board a sailing vessel or a transcontinental train. Please forgive me that I gave in to the ease of “baby crack” (aka the lovely swing your grandparents gave you) and didn’t teach you to fall asleep in your crib earlier on. (Then again, come to think of it, perhaps I have simply predestined you to be the next Indiana Jones, perfectly at ease sleeping on the back of an elephant or camel en route to some exciting locale.) Because of your reliance on being rocked, driven, or walked to sleep, visiting friends and family has been a little hard. We’ve started working on going to sleep in your crib or one of your Pack n’ Plays, but frankly this has met with limited success. Part of this is because of the aforementioned “waking and wailing” phenomenon, and part of it is because Mama is a softie.

Despite my earlier assertion that you wouldn’t move out of our room until you slept through the night, we decided that it might help things along if you didn’t have to listen to us constantly shifting/snoring/accusing each other of stealing the covers. This gave Mama mild panic attacks, as we don’t have a baby monitor. Let’s not discuss the phantom baby cries I have heard ever since. It doesn’t matter if you’re sitting next to me while I cook dinner, I still hear you crying off in the distance. This is not good. I don’t think you’ve minded moving out nearly as much as I did - though there have been times (such as when you and I had the nasty thing ravaging our church) that you moved back, temporarily.

The best part of this month has been that we no longer have to stalk the smiles… they come easily enough, especially when you are around your Papa. It’s clear that you love him, but this annoying habit you have of allowing the smile to fade when you see a camera is entirely too much like him. Stop that!

You have continued to gain on your cousin Joshua. While you started out somewhere around 1/3 of his weight, you are now about 2/3 and going strong. This is crucial because at the moment, he can still pin you easily enough. He has fantastic rolling over skills, and his newfound ability to sit up unassisted has inspired you to want to learn, as well. Before you can do that, though, we’ll have to work on your persistent resistance to “tummy time.” What’s up with that? I know that it’s not entirely pleasant to have one’s face smooshed to the ground - but this is where the arm and neck muscles come in handy. I’m terribly sorry, but here I’m going to have to insist.

Then again, perhaps Mami should just chill. After worrying herself silly a few weeks back because a silly book said that you should be able to hold things for a few seconds by three months, I am now pleased to report that you are holding things admirably. In consideration of this newfound ability to manipulate the world around you, we’ve upped the ante on a few of your favorite toys. The swing now has a bar with things to move and rattle. Your chair now has a cool lion and elephant combo, both of which make all manner of interesting noises when you hold them. I’m a little miffed that you prefer the elephant’s easy-to-hold trunk and ears to the lion’s mane, but only because Papa and I decided that, for purposes of exposing you to our native tongues, all your elephant toys (Slon) would speak Russian, and every lion (Leo der Loewe) German. I may have to decree that your German donkey toys speak German as well, because at the moment the elephants outnumber the lions 2:1.

Another exciting development of the month is that the bobblehead has nearly vanished. You’ve got some fabulous head control, which is impressive given the relative size of your head to the rest of your body. A suprising yet pleasant development is that you now like slings and carriers. The Maya Wrap, the Hotsling, and even the Baby Bjoern are all perfectly appropriate modes of travel because you can see the world. One of your favorite things to look at is Mama holding the cute baby (psst - don’t tell anyone - that cute baby is YOU!).

So now that you’ve survived your first immunizations (and had a snazzy blue camouflage bandaid to prove it) and your first bottle since the hospital NICU days (you were underwhelmed), what can possibly go wrong? Perhaps I shouldn’t ask…

Love, Mama