Smile!

December 23-

The baby is growing on me.  Like mold, or a particularly virulent species of spider plant.  He's seven weeks old tomorrow, and in the past three weeks or so his social repertoire has increased.  Instead of merely staring, creepy-old-guy style, he is now able to stare, creepy-old-guy style, AND smile.   Also kind of creepy-old-guy style.  While making small, imperious noises.

This is a flabbergasting improvement.  When you start with one sardine, two sardines seems positively profligate.  I mean, smiles, hot damn!  I can actually start to see a human on the horizon, as opposed to the pissed off, wounded ferret we kept caged in the napper during month one.

Let's hear it for neurological development!

In terms of my own neurology, an interesting side effect of baby-having is that you become absolutely bat-shit, basket-case crazy when it comes to stories of bad stuff happening to babies.  A serial-killer aficionado friend of mine had to give up serial killers for two months.  This morning I listened, terrified, to an NPR story in which previously hunky dory infants succumbed to a terrifying, though reassuringly rare, neurological disease.

And I'm remembering, and remembering, and remembering again, the women I know whose babies died.  Three children gone before they could begin to irritate -and delight- their mothers.  All my love, and my sorrow.