
One of my highlights this Christmas has been to spend more
time with our baby, Mariama. Although I
watched seven younger sisters and a younger brother grow up, I can’t remember
noticing the stages of development so vividly as I see them in Mariama.
Can it already be five and a half months? It just seems like last week she was born,
and the next morning I was wrapping her in a swaddling cloth and shhhhh-ing her
until she stopped crying. Visitors
poured in to greet, and she quickly learned to smile for them. We took her to get her earrings (essential so people will know she is a girl), and her
vaccinations. I am so thankful
that I didn’t ignore her during those first two months, because I would have
missed out on newborn Mariama. (Thank
you, Christy—and also Bill Keane—for reminding us to treasure each phase of life!)
Has it only been five and a half months? She seems like a completely different baby
now. She is getting so tall and heavy
in our arms! She watches and listens to everything
that is happening, as if she understands.
She grabs whatever lands in her hand (especially Mommy’s hair and the
long beads that hang in the doorway.) She
knows her name. She stays sitting up on
her own. She loves her crackly sounding
toys (which sound like the dangerous plastic we have to keep away from her to
me!) and “reading” books.

After taking a month’s break or so, Mariama has started back
up again. Often she looks at you, but
even when she doesn’t you can totally see her expression changing the moment
she knows you are talking to her. If you
are lucky, she will start cooing in response.
Before Mariama was born, Mommy suggested that I speak to her
in Hausa, to help her learn it more quickly.
So, for five and a half months, I have been. “Nkoro [link],” I say, using the name I
prefer to call her in Hausa, “Kin tashi lafiya?” (Did you wake up fine?) “Kina so, ki sha nono?” (Do you want to drink
Mommy’s milk?) “Kin ji wani abu?” (Did
you hear something?) I sometimes wonder
if I will be able to keep it up because speaking to Mariama is one of the few
times I use Hausa at home. However, so
far, I have been able to say whatever I want to her—and it has forced me to
grow a little in my Hausa too.

Maybe in a few months Mariama will start signing and
talking, maybe even in multiple languages, but I am not eager for that day to
come any sooner than it has to. If she
and Mommy go out of the house, I miss both of them. I love Mariama just as she is right now, my
beautiful little baby. Thank God with us for how she is growing!
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