8 Months

My dear little Booberry,

This past month just FLEW by! I think it’s because we’ve been so busy – visiting your Grammy every other Saturday, work and school and all the hours in the car every day (plus the weekend we went up to Asheville – I’ll post about that separately.) We’re busy little bees, and you especially, what with all the growing and changing you’re doing.

Cutest change this month: you can wave! Sweet heartbreaking Jesus, it is the cutest thing EVER!!!! Every single person, upon seeing you wave for the first time, has immediately sighed, “Aaaaaaaaawwwwwww” while their face melted into a look of sheer adoration. You, my child, are preciousness personified. When people ask how you’re doing, I tell them, “Oh, you haven’t heard? She’s the center of the UNIVERSE!” And you are.

Your Auntie Sarah definitely thinks you are the greatest. On days when you aren’t with Abuelita, Sarah walks through the house saying, “Ad-die?” (it sounds like two words when she says it) and trying to find you. On Tuesday morning when I dropped you off, Sarah pushed Samantha away from you when Sam was trying to give you a kiss. She looked pissed, like, “Don’t you touch her. She’s MINE!”

Sarah won’t let you take naps. After 10 minutes of wondering where you are, she sneaks down the hall, opens her bedroom door, and starts rocking the bars on the crib and saying, “Ad-die!” over and over again until you wake up. It’s sweet and well intended, plus it’s making you sleep more at night, so I’m all for her loving torture!

Your Daddy and I love being around you so much that we’ve officially given up on putting you in your crib at night. You’re just so sweet and snuggly and we’re all so happy in bed together that we don’t want it to end. (Any comments regarding disagreement with the practice of bed-sharing can be forwarded to pretty much every relative we have. I think they’ve started a group.) Morning times are still your best times – you have the “morning whispers,” as I like to call them, where you wake up and start jabbering, but it’s in a whisper voice, so it sounds like, “psh shhh. whoooo. ssshhhhh.” One of us will always make the joke from the movie “Elf” – “I like to whisper, too!”

You’ve also been working on giving high fives. It’s usually a little hit or miss, but last night at dinner, you had a breakthrough.  There were two ladies sitting in the booth behind us, and they didn’t mind that you were climbing me like a monkey and peeking over into their booth. Then the lady closest to us held her hand out and asked for a high five. Your dad has been trying so diligently to get you to give high fives, and right now you’ll only give a “five” if the person’s hand is held out straight, palm up (you don’t get the hand in the air thing yet) and even then it doesn’t happen every time. But this time, you nailed it! You gave her three smacks on the palm, and then when she asked for a repeat, you did it again! Your papa was SOOO proud! He yelled out, “Only 8 months old! My baby is a GENIUS!”

The most difficult change this month is one we’ve been waiting for for awhile: you have teeth! 4 as of today! Two weeks ago, there was nothing. All of sudden, you had one little tooth on the bottom. Next thing we know, there’s a big tooth peaking in up top, another tooth springs up on the bottom, and the other top tooth finally broke through tonight. You’ve handled teething like a champ. The only time we really notice is at night, because you’re a lot more upset at bed time, and your crying has taken on a bit of a shriek on the nights you have a tooth coming through. Also, you’ve been rubbing your ears a little bit, but we think that’s the teething, too. We’ve given you Tylenol and things to chew on for the pain, but it’s been pretty easy. I mean, the shrieking kind of makes me want to poke my eardrums out, but I know you’re crying because you’re in pain, not something stupid (like I walked out of the room, which you have started doing lately. Can we talk about the clingyness in a minute?) so it’s more tolerable. I know that seems mean, but it’s true.

Okay, the clingy thing – you have started crying when I walk out of the room. Not every time, but it’s definitely something that happens pretty frequently and something that’s developed over the past month or so. I just ignore it and go about my business because I don’t want you to become a clingy mess, and you usually stop crying pretty quickly, so I don’t think it’s a huge problem. I’m actually kind of shocked that you’ve become clingy. I mean, I spend three days a week away from you (either at work or working on my thesis) and I’m only with you until 1:30 on Mondays and Fridays. One of my biggest worries every time I have to start spending more time away from you is that we’re going to lose our bond. So far that hasn’t happened and I’m so beyond grateful for that.

I love you, my little Boo Bear, and I’m grateful for every single minute with you, whether it’s a minute where you’re giving high fives and waving hello or a minute where you’re crying over a new tooth, every minute is amazing.

Love, Mommy

7 Months

Dear Addison,

First and foremost, your father and I would both like to tell you something very important. Well, not so much tell you as politely ask, beg even, that you please, for the love of God and all that is holy, SLOW THE HELL DOWN!!!!

Within the span of about 9 days this month, you decided to hit about 10 baby milestones all at one time.

6 Months

Dear Addison,

Today you’re 6 months old! That seems so huge to me. A whole half of a year with the cutest, sweetest baby around.  This month has been a little scary just because of how much you’re changing. You can almost crawl. Seriously, not even 6 months old yet, and you can get around a room like a pro. It involves a combination of rolling over and lots of getting on your hands and knees and scooting, but you can cover some ground. Your favorite destination is basically anywhere Ringo is. And I don’t know if it’s out of love, curiosity, or his primal kitty need to pounce and kill, but that damn cat will sit juuuuust out of arm’s reach from you wherever you are. In the mornings, you sit on the bed in your Bumbo and play with your spoons (both wooden and plastic measuring), and Ringo is right there. I think he is intentionally egging you on, daring you to venture too close to his kitty lair, trying to show you that he still has some form of control here in the house that he used to rule. That used to be HIS wooden spoon, you know, and the woman snuggling you at night used to be HIS bedfellow.

So far, he just runs away when you get too close, which is definitely better than the alternative. And I know you just want to love him. Desperately. You want to pet his downy kitty fur and play with his soft ears and you will stare him down, almost willing him to come closer. You guys will stare at each other, you with big, bright, curious eyes, and Ringo with big, wide, terrified eyes, both of you sensing that soon, you’ll be able to crawl and chase that cat you so desperately want to love. Just one of the many reasons I am not super excited about your quick development in this area of mobility.

Ringo is the tip of the babyproofing iceberg in this tiny little mess we call home. We may wind up selling everything we own because I don’t know what else to do when you start crawling. There’s no place to put things so they’ll be out of the way, no “junk room”, no extra closet. We don’t have enough room to contain the things we have now, which is why there’s crap all over the place, so how are we going to hide all of it from you when you start crawling? And it’s not like we’re hanging on to unnecessary things. We’ve culled our belongings more times than I can count since we moved into this house. But I think we’re going to have to take a vow of austerity and live without any decorative objects of any kind. Or maybe we’ll just suspend everything from the ceiling and turn our house into a giant baby mobile. Rock Band drum set over the sofa, your dad’s CD cases taped to the ceiling, and candles magically floating a la Hogwarts. That can happen in real life, right?

You’ve started eating real food: rice cereal, cantaloupe and banana so far. As evidenced by your voluptuous thighs, you are a fan of all foods you meet. You are so fun to feed, watching globs of baby cereal streaming down your face while you smack your little gums. Or when you grunt with impatience between bites of banana. Of course, introducing new foods to you means introducing new kinds of poop to your diaper. Your dad and I can both assure you, that’s not as much fun.  And that’s all I have to say about that.

Your personality is so much different this month. You’re still as happy as always, constant smiles, full of laughs, but there’s something deeper behind your eyes, like you’re understanding and processing more information. I can see you becoming more mature, less of a baby, and it’s amazing to watch. I mean, don’t get me wrong: totally makes me want to slit my wrists a little to see my little baby growing up, but I love watching the cool little person you’re becoming.

Part of that cool little person you’re becoming will take naps in your crib. Can  I hear a “Hallelujah!”? I think this is entirely your Abuelita’s doing, because when you’re at her house, that’s kind of the only option, which is good for you. You will nap for HOURS at their house in Sarah’s crib, and Marisol actually put you two in there together last week. Heartbreakingly cute pictures followed. Thanks to your crib experience, I can now put you down in your crib here at home when you nap during the day. Our record so far was 2.5 hours Friday evening. And what did I do in my 2.5 hours of freedom? Something productive? Of course not! I ate dinner like a normal person, one without a baby attached to her. Then I watched some of my shows that had piled up on the DVR while worrying you weren’t breathing and getting up about every 20 minutes to watch your chest rise and fall.  (I’m hoping that you didn’t get my tendencies toward completely obsessive anxiety when you received my part of your genetic cocktail, by the way.)

It’s pretty astounding to look back 6 months and think about how many changes have happened. We’ve seen two new little baby girls born this month, and it makes us nostalgic for when you were only a newborn, so helpless and small. It also makes us realize how far we’ve all come since then. One of the coolest things is looking at you and knowing that you know who I am, that you get excited when I walk into a room. It feels like now you’re not just dependent on your dad and me, but you actually like us. It’s the best feeling around.

Love,

Mommy

5 Months

Dear Addie,

My little Boo Bear, Boo-bah, Boolicious, you just keep getting better! At this rate, by the time you’re a year old, I’m just going to be laying on the floor, twitching and mumbling, “Too cute. Cuteness. Can’t. Take. Cuuuuute.”  Where to begin with the cuteness this month? Your laugh is pretty hilarious. And a little weird. If you hear it from another room, it’s kind of hard to tell whether you’re laughing or about to cry. But when you see it in person, it is totally delightful. It’s still a little inconsistent, though. Something that makes you laugh for five solid minutes one day (like giving you reverse raspberries on your belly button) will get crickets the next day. The last thing that made you laugh really hard was your daddy leaning in and giving you crazy kisses all over your cheeks. I think part of it was that his beard scruff was tickling you and he was making silly faces, but you just laughed and laughed and laughed. Crazy kid.

4 Months

Dear Addison,

Oh, my sweet little Boo Bear, this past month has been delightful!  For the record, I’d like to state that I’ve mourned your aging since day one. Every day I think, “She’ll never be this small again” and wish I could stop time somehow so you wouldn’t grow up. You’re so different from the tiny baby with the wobbly head and sweet little smush face that we brought home, and it makes me sad to know that I’ll never have that baby again. Plus, I just don’t like change as a general rule, and this extends to my sweet baby girl. But this month, your changes have been so much fun that I’ve hardly mourned the old, tiny-newborn version of you at all. (Well, at least not every day.)