Hungry Trumonster

Dear Trumonster,

No one can whine quite like you. It's okay; we still love you. But my god, you can scream.

Maybe it's some version of colic that lasts forever. Maybe it's some form of gas that's impervious to gas drops. Maybe I'm writing this at 3:00 a.m. because, in your limited experience, life is just really really hard. After all, following your colicky first six weeks, you were only healthy for maybe two weeks before we all got the cold that never ends. I can understand that a world where you've always been congested might seem a little cruel.

I have a different theory. I think maybe you're just CRAZY ABNORMALLY HUNGRY ALL THE DANG TIME.

It's okay. It's very American of you, actually. I fill you up with all the milk I have, and you just want MORE. Not Enough. Need More. And in that mood, you scream when we change your diaper, when we set you down, when we play, when we do basically anything. The screaming only stops if we walk around with you, lulling you into sharing the same exhausted haze that is your father's and my constant companion.

Sometimes you're too tired to eat and too hungry to sleep. These are good times.

If you notice I'm not taking myself too seriously here, it's because I know you're getting enough to eat healthwise. Each time we take you to the doctor, you fly off the charts in height and weight. You were never in newborn clothes and barely in three-month clothes. At five months old, you are now poking holes in twelve-month clothing.

All of this—your constant hunger, exhaustive crying, enormous size—contributes to this one feeling that consumes me all the time: it's going too fast.

I remember thinking that the first five months of Fletcher's life were my favorite. But your first five months? They went so blindingly fast, it's like they never happened. And it breaks my heart.

I wish I had Hermione's Time-Turner so I could go back at the end of each day and just spend time experiencing you. Time continues to be the enemy. It doesn't help that I spent so much time during your pregnancy looking forward to your newborn and baby days, building them up in my mind, so that now I can't remember where they went.

You're a miracle. Screaming or not, you've burrowed your way into my heart, right there with your brother. And I wouldn't change you. (We're all very entertained by the big guy you are. The excitement you show for eating your first foods is so hilariously appropriate that we have to remind ourselves not to constipate you with too much rice cereal. You're a riot.)

You've taught me that I was wrong to be self-righteous about what a "good" baby your brother was. In Nature vs. Nurture, I'm putting just a little more stock in Nature than I used to. (And when is it not wrong to be self-righteous? I'm a foolish girl. You bring me back down to reality.)

I've said it before, like so many other parents: I just want it all to slow down. Don't be in such a hurry, Truman. Take the time to be a baby before you eat your way into childhood.

I love you completely.
Mommy