Month Eight

Dear Sweet Two Tooth,

You technically turned eight months old the day after Christmas, but our lives are one whirlwind of packing and unpacking the car and driving to and fro that I have not had a moment to sit and write this until now, January 4th. This will certainly not be the last time that I disappoint you with my fierce desire for procrastination. I hope the lazy gene skips right over your little ladder of DNA and if not? What can I say. Sorry.

What a busy month you have had. Sitting here now trying to put into words all of the ways you have changed in the last month proves difficult. You haven't began to walk or talk or even crawl...you (sadly) have not decided to free the rest of your itty bitty teeth from their personal hell inside of your gums, but even though your changes have not been huge milestones, they are plenty. In a million little ways you are growing up before our eyes and becoming a little person.

You have a sweet way of shyly smiling at me when I walk into your room to pick you up from your crib after nap time. You will see me, break into a huge grin and then hide your face as if I have caught you loving me too much. Believe me, you can never love me too much. Please never be embarrassed to show it. I would die a slow painful death if I were to walk into your room and not see that gorgeous two-toothy grin.

I've never met a baby who smiled more than you smile. You smile all day long. You smile at strangers, at your family, at your baby dolls, at the cat, especially at your brother. You smile at the floor, the walls, the molecules of air swirling around your head. Of course when you are not smiling, you are screaming. There is no in between with you. Also? My god can you scream. They say little girls can shriek. You do not shriek. You let out blood curdling screams and I fear that you may have a lucrative career in horror films.

One of your favorite things in the entire universe would be food. Any sort of food. Last week you seemed to be having some "trouble" in the nether regions and so we fed you some baby prunes. Nasty, smelly, disgusting prunes and you ate them up as if I was serving you a treat sent down from the gods above. You will shove fistfuls of  fruit puff stars into your mouth and somehow manage to not choke.  You finally love baby food and I can't get it into your mouth quickly enough. You love juice from a cup, as long as I hold it for you (mommy lazy gene creeping in) and still will fuss and cry from the moment you see your bottle until the moment that it enters your mouth. I mean you see it, right? You know that it is coming to you and yet you still act as though I am going to heat it up and then toss it out the window. 

Sleeping through the night is like...well...I wouldn't know.

You might be saying Dada. Let me rephrase that. You are saying Dada, but I refuse to believe that you know what you are saying. Daddy would disagree with me but that is nothing new now is it? You love your toys, you love to dance, you love to lay on your belly and turn yourself in complete circles with your hands. You are just understanding that in order to crawl, you will need to get up on your knees. I thought you might have figured it out last night, but I'm thinking it will take some more time (lazy gene) before you have the patience for it. I am in no hurry for you to master that one. I rather enjoy your lack of mobility.

I can't stress enough how happy you have made us. How much joy you bring into our lives. I can overlook the sleeping issue as long as you can overlook all of my faults. Someday they will become more apparent to you and I can only hope that you will love me regardless. I am doing my best to raise you to be a strong, smart, independent woman. I've never been so scared of a job in my life. Your daddy and I were discussing how hard it is to be a stay at home mom. It is certainly the most difficult job in the world (you couldn't pay anyone enough money to clean your brother's bathroom as I did yesterday) but as I told your father, the reward at the end of the day is worth all of it. I love you like crazy.

Love,

Mommy

Comments

[Simon]

My wife and I had that same 'dada' discussion for a fair number of months; I was of the same opinion as your husband is now :). Our son (now 20 months) certainly did not say it in direct reference to me to begin with, and he now inarguably does. Somewhere in the middle he made the connection and neither my wife nor I can pinpoint when that happened.

[Mom]

You have no idea how I look forward to these birthday posts. You are an amazing Mommy, JuJu and I am in awe of that. The best part is, this (love)will all come back to you some day, just like it's come back to me. I Love You!

[Tammy]

WELCOME BACK!!!! Oh how I missed you! I can not comment much about being the "stay at home" Mom, but the vacation benefits sure are good! LOL!!
You must remember one thing, no matter what that darling little girl says first, there is no love like a child has for it's Mother! My oldest said "DaDa" for the first time on Father's day! There was no beating that one! Missed you GREATLY!

[joanne]

A - She is painfully cute and that picture of the two of them together make me want to weep with the cuteness. Oh and she's almost at that age where I start liking them. :) I like it when they develop personalities and all that jazz.

B - If it makes you feel better, there is a linguistic reason most babies come up with dada before mama. I learned in my langauge acquisition class in college that the muscles to do the 'd' sound develop sooner than the ones needed to put the lips together for the 'm' sound and that's why babies usually will come up with dada first.

[Peeved Michelle]

That's just what babies do. First they say "dada," then they say, "mama," then they say, "no," and your lives are over.

[Amanda]

Julia said "Dada" first and it made me cry, but now I love when she calls for Daddy instead of me :)

[heathabee]

she is going to TREASURE these when she grows up :-)

do you print 'em and put 'em in her baby book?

:-)