I understand that all babies use their mouth as a way of exploring their environment, but you seem to take a particular delight in chewing up the world around you. Within days of bringing you home from the hospital you gave your papa a bruise from sucking on his chest. As a tiny baby you left a series of marks on my chin when you were feeling particularly hungry and mistook my face for a good place to nurse. The marks stayed for days and turned purple and yellow before finally fading away. I think the best day of your small life was when you discovered you could grab something with your hands and put it in your mouth. That day you took your colorful chew toy that Grammy gave you in both of your tiny fists and went to town. And you have never looked back.
I try to exercise some discretion in what you are allowed to chew on. I prevented you from gnawing on the rusted armrest at RFK stadium, I intercepted a handful of grass when we were out playing on the lawn, I wiped down the table at the Vietnamese restaurant before letting you have your way with it, and I have pulled you sputtering and choking up to your feet in your bath countless times as you try to put all the water in your mouth. But I don't want to stop you from exploring. I love your sense of curiosity about the world around you, manifested in your desire to put everything you see to your lips - from the shiver of joy that passed through your tiny frame when you got a hold of the crinkly shower curtain liner to the look of astonished disgust when you tasted a soapy sponge. ( I think you will learn how to crawl when you are barely 6 months old purely out of a desire to get a hold of my cell phone, which I constantly place tortuously out of your reach. )
But - and here is the question that will haunt me for the next 20 years - how much is too much? How do I balance my desire for you to experience a full and interesting life with my desire to protect you from harm? You love to swing, but you also love to chew on the baby seat while you swing. Enzo dear, that baby swing at the park has got to be one of the most disgusting, germ infested surfaces on the planet. Could you just leave it alone? For my sake.
I promise to keep you safe. I promise to let you have fun. Forgive me if l don't get it right every time.
Love,
Momma
I try to exercise some discretion in what you are allowed to chew on. I prevented you from gnawing on the rusted armrest at RFK stadium, I intercepted a handful of grass when we were out playing on the lawn, I wiped down the table at the Vietnamese restaurant before letting you have your way with it, and I have pulled you sputtering and choking up to your feet in your bath countless times as you try to put all the water in your mouth. But I don't want to stop you from exploring. I love your sense of curiosity about the world around you, manifested in your desire to put everything you see to your lips - from the shiver of joy that passed through your tiny frame when you got a hold of the crinkly shower curtain liner to the look of astonished disgust when you tasted a soapy sponge. ( I think you will learn how to crawl when you are barely 6 months old purely out of a desire to get a hold of my cell phone, which I constantly place tortuously out of your reach. )But - and here is the question that will haunt me for the next 20 years - how much is too much? How do I balance my desire for you to experience a full and interesting life with my desire to protect you from harm? You love to swing, but you also love to chew on the baby seat while you swing. Enzo dear, that baby swing at the park has got to be one of the most disgusting, germ infested surfaces on the planet. Could you just leave it alone? For my sake.
I promise to keep you safe. I promise to let you have fun. Forgive me if l don't get it right every time.
Love,
Momma
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