Wow. So much has changed in the last seven months. SO MUCH.
You are my little ray of sunshine. Most mornings (at least the ones where you end up in our bed at some point during the night), you wake up and pleasantly say, “HI!” to anyone in the room. Sometimes if we are super sleepy, and you are not, you will crawl out of the bed, ever so quietly, and then start playing with the cabinets very loudly; to make sure we are awake right along with you. You eat breakfast, usually on your own, and I am convinced it is your favorite meal of the day. Rarely do you throw any of your breakfast to the ground, and usually you eat every bite, which is uncommon for other meals. The rest of your day usually consists of singing, dancing, and taking care of all of your babies. You are such a good momma to them. You are always so excited when Daddy gets home; I’m not sure who is more thrilled to see who, you or him. Your days are always filled with hugs, kisses, and laughter.
In July, your little sister, Harper, was born. You are so in love with her, and are such a great big sister. You always want to hold her, and love on her. You make sure you kiss her goodnight, every night, even if the rest of us don’t get any love from you. You were excited when I was pregnant with her, but I was really nervous about when she was actually here, but you do great. Your reaction when you first met her was priceless; your face has never been so filled with happiness. You always want to know what’s going on with her, and even in your young age, you can’t quite “defend” her yet, but you keep a watchful eye if someone other than momma or daddy is holding her. You love to cuddle with her on the floor, try to rock her in the swing, try to share your food with her, and give her her binky. Even if she already has a binky, you will take hers away, just to give it back to her. I hope this continues in your life. Since she is now smiling and gurgling back at you, it’s easy to see how much joy you bring each other. You really haven’t shown many signs of jealousy. Impatience, yes, but not jealousy. I expect you to be impatient at your age.
You definitely march to the beat of your own drum. If there isn’t music on that you’re dancing to, sometimes you will just bust out in your own little dance routine. I honestly don’t know where you picked that up from, because you are a much better dancer than your parents, combined. You also love to sing. Your current favorite song is, “I Love!” by, none other than you. You just belt out “I love” repeatedly, but it more sounds like, “I lub” and it’s pretty adorable. I hear it several times a day. Sometimes it’s to me, sometimes it’s for your babies, and sometimes it’s just to whoever is within earshot. You also love “Skidamarinky dinkydink.” I’m not sure if you enjoy that one because Daddy has a funny dance and hand gestures that goes along with it, or if you just like the song because it’s a little silly. You will often do some of the gestures along with us, and sometimes you will just sing your favorite part (I lub boo!)
Your vocabulary has grown. A lot. Some for the better, some for the worse. You were playing with a balloon a few weeks back, and it popped. I was a little scared because, hey, I am a little freaked when a balloon pops, and you were holding it. It didn’t faze you, but you did say, “Oh, shit!” Whoops! On a different occasion, I dropped something on the kitchen floor that would stain the carpet (carpet in the kitchen? I know!), and said shit, and then I heard my little echo in the other room say it about 20 more times. We really need to start watching ourselves. You love to say your sister’s name (Parper, or Harpah), please (cheese), Bubba (the nickname for the dog), and when we took you to the zoo, you repeated a LOT of the names of the animals back to us. The most exciting words that you are learning right now are pee pee and poo poo. You are starting to get the concept of what they are, which means potty training is on the way! Yay! Just this morning, you had a dirty diaper, and I changed it, and put you in your crib so that I could clean up, and you semi-squatted, and pointed to your diaper, and said, “Poo! Poo!” I asked you if you poo poo’ed again, and you kept doing it, and pointing, so I checked you out, but you hadn’t done anything… I really do think you’re starting to understand it though. You still won’t say it before we check you though… even that would be a big help. Oh well, progress is progress.
Last week we took you to your first pumpkin patch. You didn’t sleep well the night before, so we were ALL a little cranky that day. They had some horses that could be ridden (both real and fake) and you didn’t like either one of them. We took you inside a “museum” that they had set up, which was full of bugs on display, and some corn and pumpkin information too. You didn’t really enjoy that either, until we got to the kiddie pool full of dried corn. You loved that, and were a little mad once we took you out of it, and it stuck the rest of the day. Finally, we took you to the pumpkin patch. A real pumpkin patch where they grow pumpkins, and not just a dirt field, where they place pumpkins for you to pick out, don’t let anyone fool you on that. Once we got off the hay wagon, there was a small pile of pumpkins that we set you on to take a picture, one of our friends was there, and handed you a small, completely not ripe, bright green pumpkin to hold. That was your pumpkin. We could not get you to set it down the entire time, you were in such awe of your pumpkin, and I was so glad that we got to take you there. Your reaction to picking out your own, even though it wasn’t even ready to be picked, gave me such joy, especially when I saw your happy and amazed little smile that went with it every time you looked at it. That evening we took you to the kiddie park for their Spook-a-rama. We dressed you up as a little witch (the cutest witch ever by the way) but they were so crowded, and we were all so tired, so we walked around, rode the train around the park, which is the only ride you like, and headed home.
We also took you to the zoo that weekend. It was your third time, and by far our best trip yet. We went on a semi-cold, semi-rainy, Monday. Let me tell you, that is the BEST day to go. The place was not crowded at all, it stopped raining (minus a few sprinkles), and although it was cold at the start, we were all bundled up nicely, and it warmed up throughout the day. You were so bright, and I could tell that you were absorbing everything we saw. You repeated back a LOT of the animals we told you about, and many animals reacted to you. The first thing we went to see was the gorillas. They were acting goofy; like they have every other time we’ve been there, but this time you were standing at the window, watching when one came up, and gave you a kiss. It kind of freaked you out, and you were a little upset, but at the end of the day, we had you next to the glass at the grizzly bear encounter, and he swatted at the glass, muddy paw and all, you didn’t seem bothered. We will have to teach you a little bit better on that one. During our lunch, we had a few bright visitors come by. At first, you didn’t notice the peacocks hop into the pavilion, but then they went after food that someone else had left behind, and they started making noise, and you were tickled. They hung around for about 30 minutes since daddy kept throwing them pieces of bread and cheese, and you loved every minute of it, they were anywhere from 1 foot to 5 feet away at all times. Once they started clucking (or whatever noises they make that isn’t their loud call) you were even more thrilled. That may have been the best part of the zoo for you. We took you to the children’s zoo within the main zoo because last time we missed the petting zoo by about 3 minutes, so I wanted to make sure that we got in this time. I thought you would really enjoy it, but you weren’t too impressed. You pet a sheep, and that was that, you just kind of stood in the middle of the place, like, “What now?” You enjoyed some other sheep, which you couldn’t pet, that we passed by because they were talking to you, and every time they would bleat, you would clap and giggle. It was a good day.
Your mouth is full of little teeth. Six on top, five on bottom (almost six though!) You can feed yourself for the most part, although we are working on making it a little less messy. Sometimes you get carried away with your fork, and I think you imagine it to be a magic wand with how you fling it around. For some reason, every time you have a cup, you think it needs to be turned completely upside down, so we’re still trying to master the whole drinking on our own thing. If the cup is a sippy cup, we are good, if it’s anything else, even with a lid and a straw, it’s a disaster. You are good at brushing your teeth. Daddy is trying to teach you how to spit, but so far, it hasn’t been successful. You are trying though, so I have to give you credit.
I am so excited to see what the latter half of your year brings, but I am saddened because you are growing up so much already. We rarely have our morning cuddles anymore, and you are little Miss. Independent with most things. While I do look forward to doing things with you like little projects, crafts, and making things, I miss my baby, who needed me for everything. Even the fact that you can now pull up your own pants, makes me a little sad, it’s just one less thing you need me for. We have started to have wonderful moments together, like sharing Necco wafers, which I wouldn’t trade for the world. I just wish I could have the best of both sides of the spectrum. I love you, and as always, I am excited to see you grow!
Love,
Momma
