Half a year

Dear Alice,

You are half a year old today. I've been unaccountably wistful as this milestone approached, treasuring the time when we were still closer to the day of your birth than to your first birthday. Now we've tipped across that fulcrum, and you are hurtling toward 1, ever further from the moment of your arrival in this world.

I look back at the earliest pictures, and in some ways you seem still very much the baby we met back in December. You are still our keen observer, often grave, always intent on the object of interest. That object is often your older sister, who usually can make you smile. It is a joy to see the two of you interact ever more, starting to develop little sisterly grins and joking postures with each other, even now before you can let us know for certain what you are thinking.

But even when Edith isn't in the room, you focus on the action, studying all that occurs, looking as if you are taking notes for an anthropological treatise or field ecology notebook. You increasingly let us know that you want to be where the action is, even if you yourself don't need to be at the heart of it. Nor does the action itself need to be dramatic to garner your attention: the breeze through the trees playing with the dappled light, or your own long, slender fingers as you turn your hands back and forth, studying the movements they make through the air, are sufficient to merit your interest. Your inclination to listen, to study, to understand are invaluable in a loud, demanding, needy world. Will it lead you to be a writer? a naturalist? a counselor? an artist?

Lest you reread this note at fifteen, pained by the face in the mirror that you judge so harshly, you should know that people find you beautiful. Strikingly, unusually beautiful. I concur. But I am your mother and my opinion is suspect (with the world and, no doubt, with adolescent you). So know that everywhere we go, people gasp at your eyes, whisper to each other about your face, ask us if we know how beautiful you are. A mother and her toddler who came into the Labyrinth Books children's section to read the other day were sidetracked by you in your stroller. At first I stood next to you, trying to make friendly small-talk while the little boy checked out the "meena" (his word for baby), much as I try to chat when small children are fascinated by Bismarck. But after awhile it became clear that they didn't care about me, or about the books anymore--they were in their own world in which they only wanted to commune with you. They spent twenty minutes staring at you, whispering about you, gently stroking your hands and feet. They said goodbye to you regretfully ("goodbye, little meena") without ever turning to nod goodbye to me or to Edith. Even less generally observant types seem struck by you: Last week in the Princeton P-rade, in which we marched under the graduate school banner, I heard drunk raucous seniors exclaiming to each other along the final stretch of the parade route, "Look at that baby's eyes!" and "Oh my God, that BABY!"

That's what we say every day, too: Oh, God, what a beautiful, grave, loving, delicious baby you've given us. Thank you for such a gift!

Happy half!

Love,
Mama

(Note: I tried to include a brief video of Edith feeding Alice, but Blogger is not happy about the video. I'll add it if I can get it to upload properly at some point.)