Early Fall
Marcus is growing and thriving, and life with him is busy and full and fulfilling all at once. At right, you see baby touching his shadow in a playground; below left, pushing around a not-meant-to-be-pushed toy at a different playground.
I thought I got the "it all goes by so fast" thing people always say about life with babies (and no, I haven't yet stopped thinking of my baby as a baby, even though he's walking around and so much more of an independent person)--everything is fleeting, it feels like it was yesterday that he was born, etc. What I didn't really get until now was how short each baby stage genuinely is. I mean, the crawling stage was really less than five months--that's nothing!--and pulling up and cruising even less, and so on. I think right now we're in the "dog" phase. Marcus loves dogs. Perhaps it goes back to that stretchie he had when he was two or three months old, that Robert misread and thought said "I love dogs." It actually said "I love hugs," but there was a dog on it, which confused us. It was nothing I would have bought him--it was a gift--but it was soft and comfortable, so he wore it a lot.
I
n any case, our baby loves dogs. If his first word was "Dada," after all, his second word was "doh!" ("dog" minus the final /g/--very distinct vowel from "Dada"). When he sees a dog on the street, first he takes a second or two to process it. Then he points and exlaims "Dog! Dog! Dog!" at regular intervals about a second or two apart, pretty perpetually until the dog has gone out of sight. Last week he started doing a neat thing at home: Robert was sitting in a chair and Marcus brought him a book to read and climbed up on his lap. It was actually the Teeth are not for Biting book--not really about dogs per se, but there happens to be a picture of a dog (biting a bone) under a table on one of the page. Robert was reading along, and when he got to that page, Marcus started pointing and yelling "Dog! Dog! Dog!" He then slid down, took the book away, replaced it with a new book, and climbed back up onto Robert's lap. This book is one of those my-first-animal types of books, and sure enough, when Robert got to a page with a picture of a dog on it, Marcus exclaimed, named the dog a few times, and then lost interest in the book--sliding down and replacing it with a third book that had a picture of a dog in it. I don't know how long this stage will last, but for now, yes, we have quite the dog-lover. I'm starting to be on a first-name basis with the dogs inthe neighborhood, actually.
Since about the third week in September, Marcus has been in sort of a golden age at daycare. He's the oldest baby in the room, and he's relishing that status. Sometimes when I pick him up they call him the Mayor--greeting everyone, keeping tabs on everyone. He transfers beautifully in the morning and just trots off to play or to have breakfast (Robert calls that joining the baby cabal at the table). We've gone to the playground many an afternoon after I pick him up from daycare, because I can't bear to waste any of the sunny days we've had, even though it's getting cooler.
Weekends have been exciting, too--one week we went to the South End Jazzfest, and then last Saturday we went to the Big E with Sarah and Sean and a few other people. The Big E was quite the thrill. Baby loved watching the sea lions ("Dog? Dog? Dog?"), a 4-H dog show ("Dog! Dog! Dog!"), and the circus. In the circus there were more dogs--trained dogs who leapt on and off of motorcycles and jumped through flaming hoops. He was entranced. When the elephants came out, however, he was elevated to an even happier state, if that was even possible: "Dog! Dog! Dog!" he cried, and yes, they did kind of look like really big dogs up there.
Below are three shots from the fair: Marcus and Robert posing in the sheep barn; Marcus on Robert's lap while watching the dog show (John eats from our giant Kettle Corn bag in the row behind); Marcus climbing onto the stage in the Farmarama building while we waited for a chicken puppet show that never actually happened.
Below are five more shots from the month--from left to right, Marcus on my back patting a big (friendly) black dog at the Big E; Marcus snuggled up to me in a ring sling; this month's obligatory sleeping shot; Marcus standing on a table at Northfield's new offices eating an orange; and Marcus in the wrap at the Jazz Festival.
