Watching My Son Grow: 9 Months

Making the decision to have a child - It's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. - Elizabeth Stone 

Rowan is reaching so many milestones lately that I can hardly keep up. Crawling, standing unassisted, fine motor skills, eating anything and everything solid we give him (and loving almost all of it!), and connecting to animals and children in a real and meaningful way.

I am happy to say that he is a connected human being. He demands eye contact with all he meets- it is important for him to connect with us, rather than passively observe the world. This has been my number one goal as a parent- making sure he feels a connection to all living things and knows that he is a part of a greater whole. He has regular kid, dog, and bird friends that make his face light up and that crazy velociraptor squeal come out. He is enthusiastic about making connections with not just mommy and daddy, but all he encounters. He has not gone through a "stranger danger" phase (as some of his friends have) yet, and I hope that he will not, because he is exposed to so many loving people in his daily life beyond that artificial "nuclear family" model we, as a culture, have grown so used to.

I am also happy to report that a consequence of his connection is empathy. The other day, we decided to trim our parrots' nails- something they don't particularly enjoy, but is necessary (and we are gentle). But Rah Rah, our foster Amazon, has this wheezy panicked noise she makes when we hold her in the proper position (neck and head restrained, on her back, feet up)- as if we are terrible predators who are going to eat her. Rowan reacted very strongly and suddenly- his little face contorted into a grimace and he started to wail as he watched her distress. We promptly put her down and he then smiled. "It's okay, little Boop. We love Rah Rah." I assured him (I then waited until his nap to trim her nails!).

His multi-religious education goes well, too:
He's been to one of the largest pagan conferences in the world (and will be going again in February), Feri rituals big and small, small children's (non-denominational) pagan sabbats, a Sufi Zikr, Radical Faerie gatherings, and recently we celebrated shabbat with Jewish friends in their home (after they blessed the wine and challah, we shared with them how we say, "May you never thirst" and "May you never hunger" as we pass the sacrament around to share. It was nice.)