Letter to Lucia: 7 Months

Little Lucia,

According to the right, logical calendar, you’re seven months old tomorrow. Seven months! That’s a real baby! And what a baby you are these days: sitting, playing, trying to crawl. You get cuter every day. I feel certain that’s an objective observation, not just your mama’s. There’s something about you sitting on your play blanket, playing with little toys, that just overwhelms me with adoration. A baby!

We’re made some important steps this month. Perhaps the biggest is that you now sleep in your own room, in your crib, instead of the bassinet in our room. You took to it without even a blip, and you now sleep reliably from 7:30pm to 5am. After I feed you at 5, you almost always will sleep at least another hour or hour and a half in bed with me and Daddy. This is my favorite part of the night—having you snugged in right next to me, sometimes sleeping with your forehead touching mine.

Though you started off as a champion eater, devouring every new food with gusto, you’ve become more discerning in the past couple of weeks. And by “discerning,” I mean “picky.” Surprisingly, you did not love pears; you eat them, but with an expression of wariness, as though any second they’ll turn on you. And mangoes—you hated mangoes. This was the first food you truly and completely despised. I took a little video of your expression after having a bite of mangoes, and it is just priceless—you react as though I’ve just fed you acid. Today you tasted prunes and seemed to accept them. Your favorites are still sweet potatoes and butternut squash.

You’re a lot of fun these days; you’re starting to enjoy new games and toys. Your doorway jumper is your current favorite. Just a couple of weeks ago, I’d put you in it and you’d just lackadaisically spin; and then, one day, you got it. Now you bounce wildly, with an expression of pure joy on your face. You jump and spin and babble and squeal. I usually put some music on, and, at times, you bounce in rhythm. It is endlessly entertaining to watch you. (And, since the jumper is in the doorway of the office, your rapture even gives me some time to pay bills and check email and glance at the news.)

You also enjoy sitting in your saucer “activity center,” a hideous plastic contraption, the sort of thing I swore, before you were born, that I’d never buy. But I did buy one. I realized I just needed somewhere to put you sometimes—like when I’m getting dinner ready, or cleaning up the kitchen, or trying to get the laundry into the drier. Inside the house, you’ll accept being put there for a short bit of time, and you casually chew on any of the toys that happen to be closest. But it’s when I take the saucer outside and sit with you on the porch that you really love it. You look out at the street, watch the many birds and neighborhood cats, and gaze seriously at the occasional passerby. Sometimes you remain completely, happily occupied for half an hour or forty-five minutes; and I get to read a book or The New Yorker or the Times. We occasionally exchange smiles, just two girls hanging out on a nice afternoon.

Today we did something new: sat outside on the grass. You wiggled your toes in the grass, and touched it with your hands. When I sat you directly on the grass for a photo, however, you did not seem to like it. You let out some little whines and jiggled your legs; it looked like ants were biting you (they weren’t) so I picked you right up.



We are thrilled that you seem to be a good traveler, and we’re marking your seven-month birthday with a trip to Tahoe. The last time you were there, it was September, and you were still in the womb; I was incredibly hot all the time and swimming in the cold lake was pure bliss. We are excited to introduce you to the lake and the mountains and the pinecone-laden firs.