Dear Maly,
You turned six-months-old today. I can’t believe half a year has gone by since the day we met. Each month you become more amazing and brilliant and I fear the day when you outwit me. I have a gut feeling I’ll be writing about that experience in next month’s letter to you.
Last month we started feeding you “solids”. By “solid” I mean a small bowl of breast milk dusted with rice cereal, oatmeal or barley. As the month progressed, we slowly began thickening your meals with more cereal and less milk. Now you’re eating human food. If it were up to me you’d already be eating bacon, venison, dove and ribeyes. According to those in-the-know you’re supposed to eat vegetables and fruits first. Your first real human food was mashed avocado. Second was banana. Third were peas and most recent were prunes. And what’s best is your Mom has made all of these meals for you by hand. What’s even better is that they were not in the form of a casserole.
You sit up really well now and have started scooting across the floor on your stomach. You can push yourself up onto your hands and knees and you get a great rocking start, but you usually just end up perpetrating a low-flying belly flop that trajects you only an inch or so. But you do it with such enthusiasm and dedication. Scooting — you have that down like a dog with tapeworm, except you scoot on your belly versus your butt. I can set you on the floor and turn away for a moment only to turn back to find that you’ve moved a couple feet to the nearest delicious electric cord.
Your Mom and I bought a swing for you a couple weeks ago and you LOVE it. The sound of your laughter when I swung you for the first time melted my heart. Our front yard faces west so I installed the swing so your back is to the afternoon sun. Every time a car drives by you frantically look over both shoulders and grunt and squeak to see the street until it’s too late – the car passes and you’re back to swinging.
Maly, usually I focus on you in my letter to you but I am going to turn the table now. My Dad died on September 26th. I hurt really badly right now and I hate to think that one day you will have to feel the same pain that I’ve been feeling recently.
Your Grandpa loved you so much and he was so proud of you. I wish so much that he were here right now. I wish that he could teach you things as you grow older. He had a lot to offer. He left me too early and now I am left to figure out how to be a father on my own. I no longer have a Dad to turn to for advice and help. I promise you, with all of my heart, I will do the best that I can.
I want to be here forever for you – to protect you, to help you, to hold you, to hug you, to kiss you, to nudge you out on your own for the first time and find solace in knowing that I’ve taught you well. You come from great lineage and I want you to always be proud of that. I’m really scared right now despite what your Grandpa recently told me. He said, “You’ll be okay.” He was refering to how I was going to provide physically, emotionally and financially for you and your Mom after having recently lost my job. He said it with such confidence that I can’t help but remember his voice and heed the notion that he knows something that I don’t.
I promise I will be there for every low-flying belly flop, every inch crawled, your first step and every step in life thereafter. I will always be there for you.
I love you so much, Sugar — more than you will ever know.
Love,
Daddy