"Snapshots"

I had Eliza take a shot of me with Lars - I've been here nearly three weeks, but have not really taken lots of photos - we are pretty busy around here doing other things!! But I did want to be sure to at least have one!!

I love holding little babies. Last night friends of Matt and Eliza were here, and their new baby - a couple of weeks older than Lars - was kind of fussy. So I offered to hold him. I guess I just wanted to see if I could still calm a fussy baby - it's my dad in me coming out!! He did settle down - even burped a couple of times. I think he was tired too. They have three little boys almost under 3 - their oldest will be three in September I think! So Mama has her hands full. The boys are all cute, and Mom is calm and resolute - that certainly impressed me!

(Lars is not fussy at all - I do get lots of chances to hold him, but he settles down almost instantly, so I wasn't sure if my fussiness skills were still intact!!)

But I was reminded of Bonny's infancy. Bonny was a long-awaited, much-loved baby- but she was colicky!! She cried a lot. Sometimes we just put her in her bassinet, and turned the stereo up loud! Fortunately, she cried in the daytime and slept all night! And once she got over colic, she was a wonderful infant who was predictable and easy-going. She slept well, ate well if you fed her her favorites, and entertained herself well.

As I was sewing this afternoon, I was thinking about each of our kids and wondering what "snapshot" would come to mind as I thought about each of them.

Bonny would sit on the floor with an old grocery box I had covered with fabric. She would take her toys out of the box - and then put them back in. She was 6 or 7 months old, and this was pretty much a favorite activity of hers. As a first child of struggling students, she didn't have lots of material possessions - I'd piece together fabric remnants my mom sent to make dresses for her! But she enjoyed what she had!

Harry was a calm, quiet baby - ate and slept well from the get go. He would sit on the floor with 2 year old Bonny and follow her lead. He would sit in an infant chair and she would lay toys on top of him - he didn't resist at all! He had the curls though, and everyone thought he was the girl and Bonny was the boy - mainly because I dressed her in unisex clothing so I could pass it down to Harry! And she had a little Dutch bob for a haircut. She was pretty cute though.

Phoebe was a baby who did not like to be cuddled - at least when she was fussy. She wanted to be laid on the couch on her tummy and have her back patted - and patted!! I watched lots of late night TV during her early infancy!! She always got attention from passersby when we were out - even back then she was "working the crowd" with her smile and her big blue eyes!

Eliza enjoyed a lot of attention as a baby, since there was almost 6 years between her and Phoebe. She spent her first couple of months sleeping in her car seat - all night, but she wanted to be tilted that way - the tilt of the car seat seemed to be just right. She was pretty mellow - either that or someone was always holding her, so she didn't need to get our attention by hollering!

Hannah was adventurous - she was my only climber. She was pretty mellow too. And of course, she had her casts for a few months, so carrying around a baby with casts is a lot of my memory of her. They certainly did not deter her - she crawled and got around just fine with them. She had a cute smile - and people always thought Hannah and Eliza were twins - at an early point, Hannah caught up size-wise to Eliza, so they were the same size for a time.

Noah was also mellow - maybe I was just real nervous with Bonny and that's why she was colicky!! My favorite memory of him, though, is the way he was totally willing, as a very young baby, to be read to. He never tired of being held in your lap while you read a book to him. I spent lots of time in that big blue and gold chair in the window corner of the living room, reading stacks of books to him - I especially remember one called Dad's Back by the Australian author.

I wish I'd kept journals about my kids. I sporadically made notations about things, but there was not a systematic effort to record the things they did and said. So lots is lost in memory.

Make this a cautionary tale!!