letter to baby

Dear Hunter @ 2 months

August 8, 2017

Dear Hunter,

Ah, my sweet little man. I love you so much. You are just such a joy to everyone in our family. Even the dogs enjoy a little snuggle with you.

I have really been cherishing my time home with you. Spending every day with you is so wonderful. I get so bummed out when I noticed it’s 3 in the afternoon. How did the day speed by so quickly?!? I hate how days are just gone in an instant.

At least my days with you are filled with cuddles. I love getting to hold you while you nurse or while you take a quick nap.

You are a great sleeper, unlike your sister, but we won’t rub it in her face. You are only getting up once a night now. It is wonderful. And you even do a pretty decent job of fall asleep on your own. You fuss a bit but generally just fall sleep, at least for a quick nap.

I haven’t taken too many naps since you are such a good sleeper, but every now and then I take one and you are generally on my chest or in my arms. So perfect.

We can’t believe how much you and your sister look alike, but are still so different. You are my chunky monkey! At this age you have about 5+ pounds than she was at the same age. It’s nuts to me that she was in newborn clothes for 3 months and you are going to quickly grow out of the 0-3 months stuff, probably before you are you 3 months old.

You nurse really well, which makes everything much easier than

The best developments this month are your smiles and coos. You smile so much when we talk to you or give you light tickles. The coos come every now and then and they crack me up as they have such personality behind them. You put some gusto behind them.

I am looking forward to seeing everything you learn next month. And seeing much more chunky my chunk monkey can get. ha!

Love,

Mommy

Dear Autumn @ 17 Months

April 23, 2015

April 2015

Dear Autumn,

I love that you are happiest when you are outside. You point for your coat or vest so we will put it on you and then you walk over to the door, grasp the handle and fight the lock to get out. You pitch quite the fit when you can’t go outside. But it’s so nice to see you happy when sitting on the back porch, walking along the pathway, or in the backpack while I walk the dog.

You’ve always enjoyed being outside but the love for it has intensified when the weather got nicer and you started walking. I think you love being outside, but also love the independence.

At the last Dr’s appointment you were not yet walking, which worried him a bit because of your ‘advanced age’. But we knew you fine, you just wanted to be sure of yourself before letting go of us. Once you became more confident you would take a few steps from the sofa to get a toy, but that quickly progress and now you breeze by us in the house. You are still nervous of falling outside though. I don’t mind, I love that you grasp my finger with such might. I hope you will never stop.

At least the Dr was pleased in your steady weight gain. You still have skinny chicken legs that I love to gobble up. You still have days in which you are really picky about eating, or just not hungry, but for the most part you eat really well. You love stealing my food, especially my guacamole.

You understand both English and Spanish and try to communicate in both languages the best you can. We are so happy that you are learning so much so quickly. It’s amazing when you grasp a new thing, like an animal noise or body part, with ease. My favorite is when we go on our walks and I ask you what noises the different animals make and you mimic my “ooh ohh ahh ahh” for the monkey with “aah ahh oooohhh”. The best!

Some of the best moments are when you walk up to me and grab my leg when I’m cooking and you give it a big squeeze while you rest your head on my thigh. You are the best cuddlier when you are in the rare mood to stay still. But for the most part you are on the go and will walk over with your arms stretched out wide, lean your body and head against me for a beat before pulling away to give me a smile as you go on to get a toy or love (pester) the dog.

I can’t wait to enjoy this next month with you. We have my 2nd mother’s day to celebrate and I am looking to all of us going to the Make Way For Ducklings Parade for it. The weather should be getting nicer and nicer, so hopefully we will spend plenty of time outside. And I’m sure that you’ll love doing more and more craft projects like coloring and painting. Our fridge and my desk will be plastered with your creations soon enough!

I love you so much!

Love,

Mommy

Dear Autumn @ 10 months

September 27, 2014

September 2014

Dear Autumn-

There are moments when I look at you and I can picture what you will look like when you are a little girl. When I see you sitting there and I envision you with golden brown hair, pulled back in pig tails, while you absentmindedly play with your feet at the bottom of your long legs while watching cartoons. But for the most part it’s all fuzzy to me. Either way, I’m just trying to enjoy the things happening now because it’s astonishing how fast these past 10 months have gone by.

You are doing so well crawling around at a lighting fast speed. As well, you are doing a great job pulling yourself to stand up. You hold on tight to the TV stand, sofa, oven, and the dog’s gate (which blocks you from eating his food) and then up you go to stand there and check yourself out in the reflection of the oven or to yell at that dog while he eats his dinner. Thankfully you are pretty cautious so you haven’t taken make spills just yet.

You had a pretty decent cold this past month and since then you won’t take a bink. You couldn’t suck on the pacifier and breathe through your stuffed up nose at the same time so you stopped using it then. I figured it would be temporary and just while you were sick but you have refused it since. This is bad since I think you still want it at times but remember the struggles you had with it when you were sick. But it’s good that you gave it up on your own so we don’t have to struggle with that when you are older. But who knows, maybe you’ll want it again in a month or so.

We’ve begun planning your first birthday party. It’s crazy to even have that on the horizon but it’s just 2 months away and that’s going to be here before we know it. I am looking forward to your little farm themed party. It should be tons of fun, but thankfully we still have 2 more months until then! Sob!

You bring such joy to our lives. We love you so much!

Love,

Mom

Dear Autumn @ 7 months

June 24, 2014

June 2014

Dear Autumn,

Oh man, we love you so dang much. Sure there are rough moments, or even days, but with 1 flash of your toothy smile or an extra arm squeeze, we’ve instantly forgotten about whatever drama is going on and our love for you increases 10 fold.

I’m proud of evrrything you tackled this past month! You started swim class, got your first 2 teeth, and took a trip to Florida to see G.G. and great grandma. The flights and trip were good but some of that teething has been a bit rougher. You had some mild fevers and another torticollis flare up but overall you took it like a champ (with a little baby Tylenol).

You’re now sitting up like a pro. Sometimes you’ll fall backwards on the bed or blanket but you can go 5-10 minutes just hanging out playing with your toys. When you fall you are either okay with it and keep going about your business or do the silent cry, which leads to a full blown meltdown, and it’s not like you got hurt in the process. Weirdo.

You still whine yourself to sleep. It’s funny and weird. You fight sleep so much. When you are fussy we sing the ABC’s to you and you generally calm down by the letter ‘D’. It’s amazing how quickly you recongize it and are soothed by it as well. I try to mix other songs, like “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”, so I’m not singing the ABC’s 10 times in a row but it’s clearly your favorite.

The only thing we are struggling with is keeping you in your crib the whole way through the night. Some nights are great and you make it right through and other nights you end up in our bed at some point because you were having such a fit. It’s not a good combo with your dad’s anxiety about your cries and my practical sleep walking so if it takes more than a few minutes to get you back down you ending up back in our bed. You have the system rigged! You know our weaknesses to play us and you win. Ha!

You have been sleeping on your stomach which makes your face do the cutest smooshed fish face. I just want to kiss you up then but I resist because it would wake you up. But when I do need to get you up I kiss up like a hundred times until your grumpiness is awake.

This upcoming month is going to be great! We have a lot of fun things planned, like you’ll meet your g-pop and we’ll go camping.

Love,

Mom

Dear Autumn @ 1 month-

December 18, 2013

December 2013

Dear Autumn-

You are 1 month old today. I still can’t believe you are here, let alone you’ve been here for a month. The month has just flown by.

I look at you and I am overcome with happiness. It’s a joy that comes from you making me a mom, a moment I’ll never forget. Your dad announced to me that you were a girl and right then we knew our little Autumn Olivia had arrived. This was a moment we happily waited for as it would change our lives in the most amazing ways.

When we found out you had an omphalocele it was like a punch to the gut. It was impossible to think of you being sick and having to struggle when you were first born. We just had to take things one day at a time learning more and more about what was going as you grew inside of me. Thankfully, as time went on we learned that you were healthy and that you would just need to face one surgery to correct the omphalocele. Still, that just seemed impossible to me. How could you just be born and need surgery so soon after? But that is what we were facing so we just trudged on waiting for the day to meet you and figure out more about the omphalocele.

Thankfully, when you arrived the Dr’s said the surgery was going to be ‘a piece of cake’ and you would do really well because you were so healthy. Every day when you were in the NICU you would reach another milestone and amaze us. You really shocked us as we were able to take you home just 7 days after you were born, instead of the month that we were warned about. So incredible!

And since then you have been delighting us with your growth, healthy appetite, strength, and beauty. You have been steadily been putting on weight (7 lbs 0oz at this mornings appointment!), much to my delight since it makes all the work related to pumping all worth it. You have been eating more and more each week and are now around 3- 3 1/2 ounces each feeding. Oh man, you can be so hard to burp though! Your dad will have better luck getting you to burp at times. We are just happy to see that your cheeks and belly are filling out. Oh those cheeks, I just love to kiss them. And every now and then I love to sneak a kiss on your mouth which you open in response.

You definitely have my mouth, ears, and toes. While you have your daddy’s eyes, long lashes, and chin. We love your brown hair and how soft it is. We are hoping that it will grow in with a bit of a wave like your dad’s when his hair is long. We shall just have to wait and see that, as well as what color your eyes end up being as they are a striking dark blue now with a lighter blue ring right around your pupil.

You don’t really like tummy time but do well with holding your head up when we have you perched up on our chests and shoulder. You have become more and more observant to the world around you as you look around at Kemper or family who has visited. You’ve had some fussy days and nights but for the most part are pretty mellow. But when you are unhappy or hungry you really do let us know. You will wail and wail until the bottle is in your mouth and then, just like that, are happily gobbling it down. You actually do more yelling at us than crying, as you scream ‘ahhh’ vs ‘wahh’. You are a noisy sleeper and eater as you grunt and click all the time. Daddy jokes that you sound like a dolphin.

This month has been filled with so much joy that we can’t wait to see what the next month brings as you grow bigger and bigger each day and develop into a beautiful little girl.

I love you so much.

Love,

Mom