7 months, catching up

Some commentary before the monthly letter: admittedly, I fell off the news-posting bandwagon for two months. This is her 7-month letter, which I wrote down on time - just after the 2008 election - but didn't actually post until now.

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Dear Annika,

In your newsletters so far, I have focused on you to the exclusion of the rest of the world - what could be more important, after all, than a new baby? But this month, the amazing things that you have been doing should be set in the context of the amazing things happening in the rest of the world.

The year of your birth is turning out to be a very eventful one. At its beginning, while you were still in the womb, your father's beloved Giants won the Superbowl. The summer and fall brought the beginnings of a financial crisis that is still unfolding; it is said that it's the worst one since the Great Depression. Banks failed, and stock markets around the world plunged. For the city of Philadelphia, all of that was forgotten briefly on October 29th, when the Phillies won the World Series for the first time in 25 years. On November 4th, America elected Barack Obama as the nation's 44th persident. I hope that by the time you're reading these letters, there will seem nothing remarkable about a black person, or a woman, becoming president. I hope that you'll need a good imagination to picture an America where that wasn't possible. For the first time in eight years, I am optimistic that when you are my age, and you look back at what has happened in the world during your lifetime, you will see positive changes and progress.

Of course, you are a poster child for progress yourself, and when I come home and you hold out your arms to me, everything else is secondary.

This month, you discovered how to crawl, and you're delighted by your newfound mobility. Trena reports that you stood up for the first time this week - and promptly let go of the sofa you used to pull up, and fell over. Progress is not without its setbacks. But you don't give up easily, I've noticed, when there is something you want. Last night you wanted to drink from my water glass, so I let you try. You had some difficulties, kept trying to gulp too much at one time and ended up gasping and spluttering, but you kept eagerly leaning forward to try again, with a look of very intense concentration.

You're highly interested, in fact, in anything that grown-ups are drinking - water, coffee, orange juice, beer, soda. We've let you sneak a tiny taste of both coffee and beer - your Swedish great-grandmother Lillian was so delighted to hear that you liked coffee! We've also started tentatively trying to feed you foods that aren't pureed, but you're not very good at chewing. You like to try things that we're eating, but you tend to gag on anything with pieces too big to swallow easily. We figure you'll get there eventually, though.

Love,
Mama