Letters to Emmy : Eight Months

July 12 to August 12, 2014

Dear Emmeline,

Oh, dear. Second child syndrome is catching up to me and I completely forgot about this letter. Actually, I can’t even blame that because I’m pretty sure I forgot at least one letter to your big sister as well. At least I got it in before you turned nine months? Can I get credit for that? Or is dad your favorite now? (Just kidding, I know it’s me. I have the milk.)

It could also be lack of sleep catching up with me, because kid, you’re killing me in that regard. I’ll give the positives first: you do sleep. When you’re asleep, you usually transfer to your crib pretty easily. It’s usually easy to get you to sleep. But but but. You’re still waking up four, five times a night. Maybe ten. Maybe a hundred. I don’t know, they all blend together. But it’s a lot. I have tried giving you a few minutes to settle yourself back down, but you don’t settle. You scream. Very loudly. A scream-cry. One that actually makes you hoarse. Usually, once I come in, I can get you back to sleep fairly quickly, which is good. However, since you're in your crib now, it means I'm actually fully waking up each time I come into your room. Last night, I’m pretty sure it was every hour. When you were sleeping in bed with us, it was easy since I didn’t really have to wake up and could just feed you half-asleep. However, now that you’ve discovered the joy of spreading out in your own bed, you won't sleep in our bed and will toss and turn and whimper until I put you in your crib. Needless to say, I'm exhausted.  

Why won't you do this all night?!?!?!?!?

At least you’re cute. 

Like REALLY cute.

And at least you’re happy. 

Like REALLY happy.

I MEAN, COME ON.

 

YOU'RE SO DARN HAPPY.

Seriously, you are always smiling. Even in the middle of the night, when you are crying, as soon as I come to get you, you flash a giant grin at me. Anyone who looks at you is rewarded with a smile that just lights up the entire world. It’s unbelievable, that smile. It melts me into a pool of sappy goo every time. I'm so lucky to be a regular recipient of that gummy smile.

I thought for sure that we’d test the boundaries of your happy demeanor with a plane ride and a six plus hour drive, but nope. You smiled through it all. You completely charmed the socks off of the people both in front and back of us during the flight, and the lady in front of us begged to hold you. (Of course I said yes.) I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say that as I was carrying you through the airport, we received constant compliments on how cute and happy you were. At least two dozen people stopped me or said something about you. I kind of never wanted to leave the airport, because getting non-stop affirmation about your kid is kind of amazing.

The progression of your face from happy to unsure to downright freaked the eff 
out as the engines came on makes me laugh every single time.

You’re the bounciest baby ever. You love to bounce. You bounce in your jumper, you bounce while standing on my knees and holding my hands, you bounce while hanging onto the edge of the couch. Maybe I’ll scrap my current Halloween costume idea and make you a kangaroo instead.

You pull yourself up to a stand pretty much the second your feet touch the ground when we put you on the floor, and you’re even cruising furniture now. I glance away and you’ve maneuvered from one end of the living room to the other without crawling in about three seconds flat. Your favorite thing to pull up on remains: me. As soon as I’m accessible, you are on me like butter on bread. Your hands grab my hair and your slobbery mouth goes to my nose and you’re good. Pulling my hair and chewing my nose; two of your favorite pastimes.

Between army crawling and “real” crawling, you spent about two weeks doing this knee-scoot crawling that I tried so hard to get video of but never did. You’d do a regular crawl with one leg, with your knee on the floor and your calf out behind you, but the other leg would be bent in front of you at a 90 degree angle. But now you can crawl with the best of them. And the fastest of them. Seriously, you can keep up with me when I walk down a hall. I leave you in the living room to put some clothes away, turn around, and you’re right there behind me.

You finally decided that you love to eat, (still no teeth, though) and you’ll eat anything I put in front of you. Also anything that I didn’t put in front of you but that you happened to find on the floor. I could make you a feast fit for a baby queen and you’d eschew it in favor of some minuscule scrap of paper that you spotted across the house. I am CONSTANTLY taking non-edible things out of your mouth. A doll shoe (Carys!!). A receipt. A nickel. A stray piece of confetti from Carys’s birthday. And paper. Especially paper. Oh, my god, the paper. Carys never went through this phase, so it’s totally foreign territory to me and I’m genuinely astounded every time I pull a piece of carpet fuzz out of your mouth. “What? Where did this come from?? Why are you eating it?! When did you get it?!?!?” You're particularly fond of my wallet. I'm sure the toxins are minimal.

This is not food, baby.

You've decided you absolutely love water, much like your sister. I don't know how much of that is just from starting swim classes so early, but if you see water, you immediately want to be in it. (Ok, this is probably all babies.) You love baths, you love swim class, and you love splashing. If I say, "Kick kick kick!" you'll kick your little legs like a madwoman.  Of course, you also love eating the sand. Sigh. Can babies have pica?

One of the adventures we had this month was going on a bike ride - your first! I've had a double bike trailer since I was pregannt with Carys and have been looking forward to using it for years. Literally. Technically you're supposed to be one before riding, but since you'll be one in the dead of winter, I wanted to get at least one ride in this summer. You fought the helmet, of course (you'll leave on headbands, but pull hats right the heck off), but I figured I'd get started and hoped that maybe the changing scenery would distract you from the helmet. You stopped fussing so quickly after I started pedaling that I was worried somehow the helmet had cut off your airway and you'd passed out, so I immediately pulled over to check you, and you'd passed out alright - passed out asleep. (Note to self...take the baby for 3am bike rides?!?!)

(I assure you your sister was happy to be going - she was mad we were taking so long to get started.)

 

Your Nana and your Aunt Kimberly both left us in August to go back to their respective homes and that's about all I can say about that without crying. It seriously, seriously breaks my heart that you won't grow up with either of them being a daily presence in your life. 

Your hair isn’t as white-blonde as it was for a little while there; it’s darkened into a golden-blonde. Darker than it was, but much, much lighter than Carys’s ever has been. Your eyes are still blue. People like commenting on how blue they are and how surely they’ll stay this blue, but your sister’s eyes were equally blue at this age and have settled on a pretty gray-hazel. So I don’t know if yours will stay or if they’ll change – though with the lighter hair it wouldn’t surprise me greatly if they stayed. I would be surprised that brown-haired, brown-eyed me could have two kids with light eyes, but science. Genes. Genetics. Etc. At least you both got my dimples.

You haven’t lost a bit of the delightful baby chub and I’m cherishing every minute you have it, because I know when you start walking it will vanish quickly. I love letting you crawl around in just a diaper so I can scoop you up at any moment and snack on those rolls of yours. They’re seriously the greatest.

Ah, Emmeline, you’re so quickly growing up, and you’re going to transform from an infant to a toddler before I know it. I want to soak up these baby days as much as I can. Why do I always write these letters when you aren’t available to cuddle?? You’re always either sleeping or at daycare, and they always make me want to scoop you up and love on you for days on end, and then I get sad that I can’t immediately fulfill that desire.

I love you so much, munchkin. Even in the middle of the night. At 3 am. When you’re awake for the fourth time.

That’s a lotta love, babycakes.

Love,

Mama

P.S. Go to sleep.

P.P.S. I mean it.

P.P.P.S. I love you anyway.

 

Letters to Emmy : Seven Months

June 12 to July 12, 2014

Dear Emmy,

Hey, there, baby girl.

So you're seven months old now (well...you were like two weeks ago) and last month I thought I had you all figured out but this month everything has changed.

You loved your pacifier and needed it to sleep and I was actually worried about how I was going to wean you off of it, but then overnight you decided that pacifiers are total shit and you don't want anything to do with it and you scream louder if I try to give it to you.

You wanted to sleep by yourself and just be left alone, but now you only want to sleep if I'm holding you. Similarly, you were happy to play by yourself except now you think we've totally abandoned you FOREVER if I even step two feet away.

Oh, separation anxiety. How I DID NOT MISS YOU AT ALL.

Although....

Although I will say that they way you clamber to me no matter the obstacle is kind of amazing. And I'm not going to lie, I get a huge thrill when you reach for me. You put your arms around my neck and pull me in and bury your face in my shoulder and I squeeze you back and I can't stop and then eight hours later your dad comes home from work and finds me in the exact same position just cuddling you FOREVER.

You're a happy, content baby with an easy smile. And still those dimples. And still those rolls and cheeks, oh my. Sometimes the light hits your hair right and I think you might be my red-headed baby, but other times it just looks blonde, and still other times light brown. I think it's fair to say I have no idea what it's going to do. All I know is that it's much lighter than Carys's was at this age. You always have rosy cheeks. Your eyes are just as blue as hers were, but hers have darkened and turned gray-green-hazel, so it's anyone's guess whether your eyes stay blue. Still no teeth, but we're a family of late teethers, so that's no surprise. You were 18.5lbs and just shy of 28" tall at your six-month appointment.

When you do cry, it just slays me right to the core. Your cries are so unlike your big sister's were - or maybe I've just blocked out how heart-wrenching they can be? You sound so SAD. Not angry. Angry I could let go a little longer. Angry I'm trying to put you to bed? Yeah, okay. But heartbroken? Betrayed? GAH. You know how to get to me, kid.

You also blow raspberries when you are upset, which I think maybe you picked up from Carys? I'm not sure. You do it when you're happy, too, though. Same with squealing. Squealing and raspberries and I can't tell if you're happy or upset or just making noise.

You've been sitting up for a while, but you've now started crawling! You army crawl at a lightening pace and I've scooped you up inches from the stairs (which are impossible to gate off due to their configuration) a hundred times. You were SO FLIPPING HAPPY to have gotten that down. AUTONOMY! I CAN GO WHERE I WANT AND NOT WAIT FOR THOSE DAMN HANDLERS TO FIGURE OUT WHERE I WANT TO GO! You're starting to pull yourself up, too, and can go from the floor to my shoulders...somehow. I'm not really sure how you do it. You never stop moving. You are the biggest wiggleworm ever. You're go-go-go-go-GO-OMG-GO-ALREADY.

You love toys and to chew on things but only if they are NOT baby toys. I can seriously place 100 baby toys in front of you and mix one of your sister's toys in with it and you will choose her toy EVERY TIME. It's almost uncanny. And is starting to cause some friction between you and your sister already, but luckily at this point she still likes you enough to share.  Your favorites of her toys are, of course, those one with tiny pieces. Tiny, choke-able pieces. Tiny, choke-able pieces that you love to stick in your mouth.  Tiny, choke-able pieces that you love to stick in your mouth and scream over when I take them away.  Particularly the pieces to her magnetic dress-up doll set.  I'm constantly asking, "Do you have something in your mouth?" and the default answer is YES. You're like a human vacuum cleaner, sticking the tiniest pieces of anything you can find on the floor in your mouth. You also love to crawl up to our entertainment center and open and slam the doors over and over and over, and you really love this Weeble castle that a friend found for us at a garage sale - you've figured out how to press the button to make it spin, and I think you're doing it on purpose, even!

You're still nursing full-time (and I love how you constantly have your hand in my mouth and grabbing my hair or neckline), but we've slowly introduced some solid foods. The first attempt was not well received.

Since we're doing baby-led weaning according to your prompts, it took a little while before you were ready, but now you're eating real, whole foods like a pro.  I'm a little more strapped for time with you than I was with Carys, so you've still mostly gotten just wedges of avocado and apples, or whole plums and peaches (I pull the pits out when you start getting down that far), or carrots, or smushed blueberries, but no whole meals yet. Basically, anything I can prep and give you in less than five seconds, you've had.

Also plates.

You don't really babble the way I remember Carys babbling - you are more of a Neandrathal baby, squealing and grunting and sighing and cooing and blowing raspberries.  Say "mama" already, kid!!!! That's one of my favorite moments of motherhood, and I can't wait to hear your voice.

I'm pretty sure once you say that, you'll have me wrapped around your little finger.

OH WHO AM I KIDDING? You already do, like times a billion. The way you look up at me with those baby blues? The way you softly put your hand on my face? The way you smile at me with that big gummy grin? The softness of your hair under my cheek when we cuddle? Those rubber-band wrists and those roly-poly thighs? Your elfin ear? My god, do I love it all. You're fantastic.

I love you, baby squish. To the moon and back. And back again. And then again and again for eternity.

Love,
Mama

P.S. Oh, my god, I almost forgot one of my favorite things. You've learned to give kisses. You give these giant open-mouth kisses and it's just the best. thing. ever.