Posts tagged baby

Dear Emma,

Good news! You get to spend your 9-month birthday at home with me! The bad news? It’s because you threw up at daycare this morning AND suddenly developed a fever, so I had to pick you up only 30 minutes after dropping you off. At least you were happy for your monthly photo this morning…although in retrospect, your squirminess and refusal to sit straight up may have been a sign.

You’re napping at the moment after a dose of baby ibuprofen and we’ll be picking up some antibiotics at the pharmacy later this afternoon. Or more accurately — different antibiotics, because you’ve already been getting antibiotic drops in your ears since Friday, when we took you for your 9-month checkup and discovered that the ear infection diagnosed two weeks ago was still hanging around. SIGH. I can’t even express how frustrating it is to see you constantly under the weather in some way, shape, or form. Even when you seem otherwise fine, your runny nose and cough never seem to fully go away. I know this is to be expected from a baby in daycare, and I know that your immune system is improving every day. But sometimes it seems like you are doomed to be sick forever. Today I ended up in tears right along with you, because I couldn’t make you feel better.

But on to better things! In the last month, your abilities have, as per usual, exploded. You started saying “mama” and “dada” on a regular basis and even though you probably don’t really mean it yet, it’s definitely music to my ears to hear the word. (Even when you’re screaming, like you did one night in Charlotte. “Waaaaaaaaaah…dadadada….”) You squeal and grunt when you want something or are pleased with something you did. And your laugh has evolved into different flavors. You still giggle when something really makes you laugh, but now you also do what I can only describe as a chuckle — a quick “heh heh” that never fails to make me smile.

You are also starting to take slightly longer naps, which doesn’t seem like a big deal, but let me tell you: when you’ve been a serial 45-minute napper for months, an hour and a half feels like a long time! Last weekend your morning nap was two hours and 15 minutes and I started to wonder if someone had swapped my baby out for a different one. (And yes, I kept checking the monitor to make sure you were breathing. It seems this is something all moms do.) The downside of this is that I think you’re also starting to transition from 3 naps per day to only 2…but if those two are longer, I think it’s a fair trade.

But by far your biggest accomplishment has been learning to pull yourself all the way up to standing. Two weeks ago you couldn’t do it, and now it feels like you’ve always been able to. You pull up on everything — your crib, your bookcase, the coffee table, your car seat. Yesterday you even pushed yourself up on a giant package of toilet paper while we were unpacking groceries. Whatever you can find is perfectly acceptable. You’re an equal opportunity pull-upper.

Every day you become more observant, more aware of the world around you, and more adventurous. You bonked your head pretty good after a fall at daycare one day, and if you didn’t have Dad or me shadowing nearly every move, you would have taken several head-first swan dives off the couch by now. It seems your desire to explore is running ahead of the development of any sort of self-preservation instinct!

By far our biggest adventure this month was going to Charlotte for a week to see my half of your family. Everyone was there — Gima and Grandfather, Uncle David, Uncle Brian and Aunt Cindy, and your two cousins Daniel and Lucas. And Aunt Katie and Uncle Joel even flew in from Seattle so that our visits could overlap! We gathered on the front porch for a family photo that we’ll all enjoy for years to come. Although this photo will probably seem funny to you someday because it doesn’t include any of your future siblings and/or cousins, it seems funny to me because my family is so much bigger now! What was a family of six for so many years has now doubled in size. Amazing!

We also drove up to Durham one day so you could meet your Great-Grandmother and I’m so, so glad we did. She is 98 years old and you are the first great-grandchild she has been able to meet. I haven’t seen her as excited about anything in a very long time as she was about seeing you. It made all of us — Great-Grandmother, Gima, and me — very, very happy.

During the first quarter of my freshman year at college, my family came to Atlanta for the weekend to visit. I was so homesick and spent so much time crying that your Grandfather came back the very next weekend to take me home to Charlotte for a few days. That was 1996, and I guess since then I had forgotten what it felt like to miss your family that much. But now I remember. Our whole week in Charlotte was fantastic and went by far too fast. For the first time in 17 years, I actually cried when it was time to leave North Carolina.

Emma, having you has made me realize just how important family really is. You’re here, and you’re the most important part of it. You and Dad. Going back to Charlotte with a child of my own made me think about a lot of things, and who knows where that might lead. But wherever we go, you guys will always be my home.

Love,
Mama

Dear Emma,

You are 8 months old! Last month I complained that time was starting to slip by more quickly, but this month provided a bit of contrast. March 2013 can be separated into two distinct phases. We started off with two solid weeks of the never-ending stomach bug…and as soon as we all recovered from that horribleness, you decided it was time to REALLY keep us on our toes by entering the era of mobility.

March 19 shall now be known as the day you learned to scoot. (Don’t worry, I recorded it in your baby book for posterity!) It’s been completely amazing watching how quickly you went from the initial wiggles-in-a-generally-forward-direction that I recorded in that video to your current full-on army crawl. On Saturday, I plopped you down on the floor and let you explore the entire living room. You crawled over and rocked your car seat back and forth for a bit, and then scooted over to explore the bottom shelf of this bookshelf. Lucky for you, someone had preemptively stocked it with toys and books!

I don’t know if it’s related, but your sudden mobility has coincided with a still-ongoing bout of increased fussiness and clinginess. Sometimes you’ll be totally content on Dad’s lap and then a split second later, you’re squirming and groaning like it’s the worst thing ever and geez Dad, why don’t you just let me down already?

Happy…as long as you stay right there, Mom!

And then other times I’ll put you down on the floor or in the exersaucer and you are totally content until the instant I get up to get a snack or do some dishes or grab a magazine or do anything that involves being more than 2 feet away from you — and then your face will crumble and the tears start to fall. It’s somewhat annoying but also rather endearing to think that you want me right there with you all the time.

I guess it’s all part of your little personality starting to shine through! You are more adventurous than ever, constantly trying to dive bomb your body off the edge of the bed or couch with no recognition that doing so might not be the greatest idea. You reach for the bowls of food we hold, because you like to dip your fingers in and see how it feels. I watch you on the daycare video and see you scooting and rolling all over the floor, literally going from one end of the room to the other and back. And when I walk in to pick you up, you always greet me with a big happy smile and a flurry of arm flails.

We pushed our boundaries a little more this month and took you out to lunch and dinner a few times. Yes, we’ve been doing that for months already, but now you’re eating 3 solid meals a day, so while you previously would just hang out in your car seat while Dad and I ate, now there are high chairs and bibs and little containers of baby food involved. There’s also the fact that you can get really distracted when there’s action going on around you — people! lights! stuff to grab off the table! — and the fact that you often get fussy in the evening because you don’t get enough sleep at daycare. But we went out several times this month with different groups, including a massive 30-person dinner get-together when one of my old co-op friends and his family were in town, and you did great each time.

Last weekend was your first Easter, and it was a nice one. The Easter Bunny visited you at daycare and I’m happy to report that amidst photos of other babies looking wary, sporting uncertain expressions, or outright crying, we were greeted with a photo of you gleefully clapping your hands and smiling for the camera. Your teachers decided you’re meant for a career in pictures, but I think it’s more likely that you’ve just gotten used to people (namely yours truly) egging you into grinning for a photo. You also got an Easter basket with a few toys, and your favorite was this plastic book. Delicious.

This month we also had a nice visit from Grandma, Uncle Alex and Krystle that turned out to be perfectly timed between the end of the stomach bug and the beginning of crawling. You were in a spectacularly good mood both days they were here, and who can blame you? They gave you non-stop cuddles and attention, not to mention several new toys. We are already looking forward to spending a week around Corpus this summer so all of your dad’s aunts and cousins can snuggle you too.

Once again, I’m a few days late with your monthly letter because I didn’t find the time over the weekend to sit down and write it. You’ve got (another) cold, and on top of that I suspect you’re mere days away from popping out your top two teeth, so I spent most of the weekend wiping snot from your nose, drool from your chin, and snuggling you when you were fussy. I wish there were a way to make your immune system strengthen faster, but I guess we just have to keep toughing it out. You’ll find that there are a lot of things in life that are like that — things get worse before they get better. But you can also count on me for snuggles, real or in spirit, anytime you want.

Love,
Mama