There was a short phase you went through this month that I found rather funny. You’ve started your own debate club with your daddy. In short, he was trying to teach you to say “Daddy”. It went a little something like this:

Your daddy (YD): “Dah-dee.”

You: “Mah-mah.”

YD: (more emphasis) “DAH-dee.”

You: “Mah-MAH.”

YD: “Dah-DEE.”

You: “a-MAH-Mah.”

YD: “No, Daaah-deee!”

YD: “A-MAH-MAH.”

As it turns out, your verbal sparring only precludes the latest in your personality development: THE TANTRUM. You, my little precious baby, have your glorious moments of beaming sunshine-awesome-child, but one little setback can turn you into a willful, belligerent toddler she-beast. I’ve witnessed the transition several times now, and each time I am stunned at the speed of your transformation and the ferocity of your toddler anger.

I know you would want us to take your outbursts as seriously as you deliver them, but as a coping mechanism, the Good Lord has seen it fit to give us the gift of humor. Dear One, when you see fit to pick a moment to pitch the most hellacious conniption you can manage, you’ll one day understand why your daddy and I have to turn away, biting our lower lip and trying SO HARD TO NOT LAUGH AT YOUR RAGE. We’ll try harder to hide our giggling fits from you in the future, for reals.

Related: The skills I’m learning this month are Tantrum Neutralizers and Distraction Techniques, which is kind of like toddler tantrum Krav Maga: Redirect, Control, Attack, and Takeaway. Gotta stay one step ahead of you, sugarplum.

Your daddy, as you’ll soon learn, is quite schooled in the art of the subtle pester. You yawn, he’ll stick his finger in your open, gaping mouth and poke your tongue. You walk past, he’ll snag a belt loop on your pants to stop you mid-step. In the off chance you happen to be wearing lower-cut pants and you just so happen to bend over, he’ll be sure to drop some foreign object down your coin slot. Take my word for it: he will do it. Yes, we call it a “coin slot” in this house.

The other night while you were strapped into your highchair, your daddy decided just then to tickle around your ear with the back end of a ball point pen that was nearby. Of course, you flinched and giggled, bending your head down in an effort to evade the caress of this strange object. This reaction only spurred your father, as then he began to tickle around the opposite ear. The two of you carried on for the next few minutes: you giggling and grinning, your daddy gently chasing the pen around from ear to ear, bedeviling you.

Eventually he grew tired of the game, and placed the pen down on the table next to you. Being your father’s daughter, naturally you snatch the pen and then proceed to stick the pen in your ear. Then you reached out, pointing the pen at your daddy’s ear. Who says kids don’t learn?

Hey Reese, we’re finally getting somewhere with this walking business! I’ve now coached you through several unassisted steps, and you like to practice standing in one place for upwards of a minute or two before you collapse onto your posterior in a fit of giggling. You seem to know that you are on the brink of something big – I can see it in the look on your face when you practice cruising from the couch to the table to the wall to the entertainment center to another chair to the desk to the other couch to the wall to the baby gate. Very ‘recently’, as in ‘just a few hours ago’, you’ve taken SEVERAL UNASSISTED STEPS across the room and I’ll made my prediction: You’ll be walking by Christmas. Now don’t make mommy a liar.

My favorite new name for you this month is Kissy Van Smoochy. Why is this? Well, because lately I have been watching you interact with your stuffed toys and your dolls. There is one particular baby doll that you treat very differently than the rest of your toys. I suppose this is because she’s looks enough like an actual human baby that you tend to carry and hold her much like I carry and hold you.

One night as you were playing and I was sitting next to you, you scampered into my lap, grabbed the nearby baby doll and pulled her up into your arms. You looked up at me, grinned your sweet toothy grin, then bent down and planted a loud, smacky kiss right on the top of her head.

Just like I do to you.

In fact, you’ve become quite skilled at the art of the kiss. Long gone are the days of the aimless, sloppy open-mouth baby kiss — now we get closed-mouth, lippy kissy-noise kisses. I think your daddy and I have started competing to see who gets most kisses from you every night. I think he gets more than I do, but at least I know *who* taught you how to give the smoochies.

The other night I came home from work and you and daddy met me at the door. I thought you were going to explode from the excitement! Smiling, hiccup-laughing, waving your arms — I don’t even know what I did to merit such an enthusiastic response, but I will tell you one thing: there wasn’t anything better in the world at that very moment then to have you be so happy to see me.

Little one, you are doing such awesome things this past month that I cannot keep up with your changes. You literally evolve faster than I can type this letter, faster than I can compose the thoughts into cogent sentences, even. It’s so apparent that you are hurtling about a hundred miles an hour to toddlerhood right now, and Lord knows I’m in way over my head over here. Despite my feelings of inadequacy, you have been a source of non-stop comedy for me and your daddy. Let’s review, shall we?

Your Second Halloween. Remember this? You were THE cutest Sock Monkey Baby this side of the Mississippi. Good Lord your mother COULD NOT snap you in correctly into your costume, thus the effect was that you looked a little misshapen in the lower limb areas, which is, oddly enough, common in most variations of actual sock monkeys. I’m sure no one noticed because you were so blindingly adorable with a tail.

The Catastrophic Shit Storm of 2008. Reese, I saved you from putting poop in your gob but I couldn’t save the bathmat from your arial assault. I have managed to restore the general cleanliness of the bathroom, but not without copious amounts of bleach, scrubbing, and perhaps some swearing. As a new mother, I realize these lessons sometimes come hard and fast and often times they are disgusting and horrible and smeared everywhere. LET US NEVER SPEAK OF THIS AGAIN.

Fascination with the Toilet Paper Dispenser and Mad Housewrecking Skillz: you’re quickly earning your street cred as an efficient destroyer of all things tidy and neat. Don’t think for a second that I haven’t noticed you hungrily eyeing up that toilet paper dispenser for the past few weeks. I suspected you were preparing for your inevitable assault, and what absolute joy you would derive from denuding the single-ply sheets from their hapless cardstock core . That toilet paper roll might as well have a huge neon sign on it, garishly blinking “THIS IS AWESOME“. You. Were. Transfixed. I knew that I could police the bathroom all I wanted, but you are crafty and diligent and you would have your way with the toilet paper. OH YES. Now I have the video proof of your calculated and deliberate assailment and the satisfaction it brought you.

The Beginning of The Yap Yap. We’re trying catch you saying Dada or Mama but instead your response thus far has taken the form of a string of the most complicated consonants and vowels and intonations that cannot be phonetically spelled. We have also noticed that you love to talk to, or talk about, everything. You talk to your books, you talk to your stuffed toys. You have conversations with yourself, in your crib, when you wake up every day. You chatter on, explaining what everything is in your lilting baby voice and it really has become one my favorite sounds (next to your father saying “You’re right, honey” or “I’ll clean the kitchen, you just relax”). I think I might look into making podcasts of your conversations so I can take you to work to drown out my cube neighbor or otherwise known as The Guy Who Watches Movies At a Reasonable Volume While Working.

Speaking of books: this next bit will please the book-loving grandmothers that you have. Reese, I’ve never really seen a pre-toddler get SO into books as you have recently. I didn’t read to you earlier in your short life only because the only things that you seemed to enjoy was crying, CRYING LOUDLY, or getting boob. You were always kind of like “meh” and considered books to be in interesting only in the capacity that you could rip their pages out or throw them on the floor or put them in your mouth. Something this month has changed in you, and now… you don’t destroy the books anymore, but you review them over and over again. And your favorites (i.e. any of the “Peekaboo Baby” tomes) are ones that we will read several times a night before bed. You’ll pick out a book, drag it over to me, scramble up into my lap and proceed to look at each page. When finished with the fifth or sixth pass of said book, I try to introduce a new one but you push the new book away in protest, insisting Not this book! THAT book. THAAAAT BOOK!! GAAAH!! So, we’ll “read” your preferred book until I cannot manage the requisite sing-song “PEEKABOO” any more.

REESE. YOUR WILL. IT HAS BEEN MADE KNOWN.

So my doctor once told me that the span of four to eight months is considered the “Golden Age of Babies”: named such as this is the time frame where babies start to exhibit interactive behaviors, start to eat foods not originating from boobs, and are not typically mobile (which I’m quickly finding out was a good thing). Right now, the rate at which you absorb and then demonstrate your new-found knowledge is dizzying enough to me, but the really amazing part is how much I’m learning about you. I’m thinking my doctor is wrong. I think the Golden Age is starting right now. It’s like a switch has been flipped recently, and you can so accurately mimic our sounds and motions and routines. Tonight, you watched me do the “cheek pop” with my finger over and over. And you know what? You attempted to make the same sound, using the same motions, and then you laughed that glorious hiccup-laugh that tickles my soul.

This month you’ve learned to grunt (like your daddy), blow kisses (to your momma), wreck the toilet paper, brush your teeth with your special toothbrush, brush *my* teeth with the same toothbrush, and whenever you take a drink of any beverage, you make that “ahhhhhhhhhhhh” sound of utter refreshment every single time. I think it’s the same sound I make when I pick you up out of the crib each morning, hug you tightly, and breathe you in.

Love,

Momma

Right now, we’re more like thirteen and a half months into the writing of this Letter. We have a lot to cover, so I’ll summarize in a nice and tidy list:

What’s AWESOME This Month

1) The relationship you have with my boobs is NOW OFFICIALLY OVER. It’s done. I was afraid I would miss nursing you. Isn’t that crazy? That I would miss being the one person who could instantly smooth over any bad mood AND put you to bed in a comforting way, who would have guessed? So far it’s only been 2 weeks of booblessness, but you don’t really to seem to miss it much at all. (I won’t mention the part where you yanked my shirt down this morning and giggled at my right boob.)

Now I’m going to share something dreadfully adorable with my readership that may embarass you when we bring this up in dinner conversation when you’re sixteen: Do you remember the moments just before I would nurse you? You would giggle. No, really. You did. You would get really excited and giggle in anticipation of boob. It was so odd, but it always made me feel like my heart would burst with happiness that anyone would be so glad to see my boobs.  Now that I don’t nurse you anymore… you have transferred that special giggle to other things. For example, you giggle in anticipation for breakfast in the morning. Specifically, you giggle for bananas. We’re not talking about that Gerber-fied mush in a jar.  We’re talking authentic Chiquita bananas. YOU LOVE THEM. YOU LOVE THEM MORE THAN MY BOOBS.

2) Do you even realize how cute you are when you talk? I mean, I don’t know if you’ve actually said much more than “Bisshhh bissshhh” or  “Bay Bee Buh Buh Bah Buh” but I think we had a “Dah Dee” last night. Oh, yeah, and on occasion I have heard a “Mahmahmahmahmah” out of you too. You seem to understand a lot more than you can say right now, so I’m not concerned. If you take after your Mama in any way, you most likely won’t have a problem with talking.

Really, take it from anyone who knows your Mama.

3) Walking! You’re not doing it yet! But you are TRYING. You love to practice walking. I love to practice with you, although I have to take breaks to wipe tears of laughter from my eyes because when you walk, you have the determined gait of a besotted sailor.

4) Crawling! At high rates of speed AND daring heights! Currently, you have become bored with the pedestrian “flat” landscape and have opted to scale the graduated terrain of the central staircase at the Winthrop Manor. It would be irresponsible of me to suggest that you scale the mount unescorted, so to ease the concern of our dedicated readership I will assure them you never climb them alone.

5) One more thing: You’ve started eating WAY more food than before. I think the uptick in eating is related to your imminent growth spurt and your walking practice.

What’s NOT AWESOME This Month

1) The sheer size and volume of your waste output has increased THREE FOLD. And by THREE FOLD I’m referring to the number of diapers you can soak though in a single night.

2) TEETHING. Oh My Dear Goodness, teething is such a bad time. Between the fever spike, the loose stool, the resulting diaper rash from the poopy diapers and then the pain…damn molars!  The only upshot to the teething is you’ve found a way for us to reuse the endless political propaganda mailers IS BY CHEWING THEM INTO A PULPY MESS. Take THAT John Patrick Carney and your NON STOP JUNK MAIL!

Uhhhm… That’s pretty much it. I really can’t think of anything that was NOT AWESOME this month. I mean, aside from me not getting around to writing this two weeks ago.

What’s AWESOME Right This Very Minute

You sit about 6 feet from me, sitting with your Fisher-Price nursery rhyme radio. You are wiggling back and forth in time to Pop Goes The Weasel, and it is ridiculously sweet. You got moves, girl.  That will come in handy if you’re ever challenged to a street-hop dance off.

Love,

Momma

Happy birthday, my little baby girl! You’re ONE. One WHOLE year old. One year of you transforming from a squirmy, squalling, pooping pupae to a crawling, giggling, zerbert-giving baby! One year of near constant sleep deficit for me and your daddy (but mostly me). One whole year to learn what we are to become by learning who you are.

You may think I’ve forgotten about writing your letters for your 11th and 12th month. Turns out, we’ve have a major reorganization in our household over the past month and a half, and we’ve replaced your normal letter structure (just for both months 11 and 12) with: an annual performance review.

Key Areas of Responsibility

Communication: Upon your arrival, it was clear that you had a talent for communicating the “big picture” ideas from the very beginning: “I’m wet/soiled!” “I’m hungry, make with the boob!” “I’m pretty sure nothing’s wrong, but I want comfort anyway!” However, your communication style lacked polish and a certain nuance that makes one more promotable.

We have always known you would eventually improve upon your style of communication, and in recent months we’ve seen even more refinement of your daily communications: Babbling, Pointing/Babbling, Word Recognition/Comprehension (i.e. “Where is the doggie? Where is daddy? When did you learn to use a cell phone?!”). You have really started to express yourself very well recently – the biggest change is that you have started to wave and say “Bye Bye” to people as they leave.  You also point A LOT at everything and you say things that sound a lot like “Buh Buh” or “Buh Bee” or just “Bah Buh”. There are a lot of other things you say that can’t even be phonetically spelled. Generally, everything you point to has a label, and that label has been consistently drawn from your developing vocabulary.

Management has recently observed that you appear to understand the fundamentals of telephone and cell phone use. Whether it is pure imitation or actual cognition is hard to say — but it is very promising to see you hold a phone up to your ear, smile, and answer each imaginary call with a sweet “Aye-YAH-yah!”

One area your Management would like to see you improve is your tendency to call “off hours” meetings. Management would like to remind you that off hours are defined as being 11:30 pm through 6:30 am every night — it is not appropriate to schedule last-minute meetings during this timeframe. If your need is urgent, a manager can be paged via the proper communication process.

Technical Performance: Each month that you are with our organization, you demonstrate a constant desire to learn about your environment and associated technologies. You pay especially close attention to most battery-driven devices (television remotes, cordless and cell phones, laptops). You have effectively learned basic computing skills from your managers by observation (your keyboarding skills do need some work as slapping the keys with your open palms isn’t quite proper technique), and have used the various remotes to turn the television on and off repeatedly. Your skills with even more basic concepts have improved greatly, as now you are a master of opening closed doors and closing open ones, placing objects inside a container and then taking them back out again, and your latest skill: playing ball with members of management. We’re certain that with time and further development, your technical skills can only improve.

Personal Growth Management: We have seen satisfactory progress made with your Personal Growth Management (PGM). According to our independent evaluation auditor, your weight is at the 25th percentile, and your height is at the 50th percentile for individuals in your field. All gross and fine motor attributes are developing as expected, with no perceived delays or setbacks. In terms of the Mobility & Agility Index (M&AI), you have been evaluated to be quite normal for your stage of development. The auditors also wanted the Management team to note in your performance review that you have always been cooperative and a very pleasant individual for each evaluation.

Social Interaction: Your skills in social interaction have grown exponentially since joining our organization. We have noted the ease of which you meet and accept different people, only needing a slight “warm up” period before you are contentedly playing with individuals outside our organization. Your mentors at day care have also commented about your charming effects on your social peers as well. You excel in being both social and outgoing and are generally happiest when your environment proves to be engaging and stimulating.

Professionalism: Here we have seen a great deal of improvement, specifically in the areas of professional conduct (Re: “Spitting Up/Vomit Refactoring”). Over the past six months alone, you’ve demonstrated a commitment to reducing the amount and frequency of SU/VR occurrences, opting instead to maintain a sound digestive process and Pampers Maturity Model follow-through. While we understand the Pampers Maturity Model will only satisfy this year and possibly next year’s growth potential, we feel you’ll already be working on implementing the next process model in due time.

Core Skills and Personal Attributes

Teeth: Currently, you have eight teeth. The larger part of tooth-eruptions have passed without incident, but management has noticed that the appearance of the latest tooth seemed to have caused you a little more discomfort and stress than previous tooth-eruptions. Please be aware that there are support services available (”Mommy” and “Baby Tylenol”) to you, to aid in your comfort and well-being through these trying events.

Crawling: You have demonstrated expert skills in crawling since reaching your eighth month milestone as part of our organization. Management has noticed that your ramp-up to full fledged mobility seemed a bit hindered by your initial reluctance to “roll”, but as soon as you started it was clear you were ready to take things to the next level.

Cruising: While it is evident you are comfortable with crawling, you have also started to introduce some “cruising” concepts to your locomotion. However, you have shown your more cautious side, and your “cruising” is very much limited to our coffee table and the two couches. Management has decided to factor this hesitancy in the next Mobility & Agility evaluation.

Walking: N/A. Management has observed that walking will be considered a goal for the next annual review. Please note this as an action item in your next personal status report.

Eating/Drinking: Here we have seen great improvements in your basic Eating and Drinking skills. You show a willingness and aptitude to eat nearly everything the Management places on your tray. All reports from your mentors at day care also suggest you are one of the easiest individuals to feed at mealtimes. You have also learned to be self-sufficient in Drinking, as you can hold your own sippy cup AND regular cup.

Coping Strategies: An area that, at times, needs work. Management has started developing an action plan to support and distract you during your moments of coping failure. During the interim gap before this action plan gains traction, Management has agreed to always pick you up and give you lots of kisses and hugs until you feel secure again.

General Weaknesses/Strengths

The following areas have been identified as “Needing Work”: Debilitating diaper rashes, separation anxiety, irritability due to nap-deficits, coping strategies, calling meetings during off hours (11:30 pm through 6:30 am), breast-dependency, hat-wearing intolerance, road-trip intolerance, tantrums

The following areas have been identified as Personal Strengths: Open-mouth baby kisses, snuggling, hugs, air kisses, babbling sweetly, rasberries, naked-belly zerberts, giggling, smiling, pointing, crawling, cruising, general night sleeping, eating, drinking out of a cup or sippy cup, flirting with boys, flirting with everyone, high fives, low fives, dancing, chasing Mommy around the house, restaurant etiquette, making Daddy’s heart melt

Overall Management Rating: Exceeds Expectations/Outstanding Performance

Manager Comments: Reese has demonstrated synergistic behavior that aligns with our internal Core Values Statement and Global Paradigm, and have overall proven to be a valuable team-player within our organization. She advocates bleeding-edge initiatives and impactful methodologies as well as consistently building solid back-end initiatives. She is a true asset and continues to improve all facets of her overall performance and professionalism on a day-by-day basis. Be it also noted that she smells incredibly delicious after her nightly bath and her Mommy misses her ALL DAY LONG at work.

Love,

The Management

I cannot even believe that we have now officially shifted out of the single digit months when referring to your current age. TEN MONTHS. My relationship with you has officially lasted five times longer than any relationship I’ve had prior to meeting your father. And my relationship with your father has lasted 6 times longer than I’ve known you…so…uh, have fun figuring that out.

On a side note, no one could have convinced me that I would still be nursing my baby at ten months. Your relationship with my boobs still seems healthy and strong, so you’re probably not going to like what I have planned for you this month:

The Beginning of THE WEANING.

The Great Boob Breakup of 2008.

And no, my editor does not pay me per instance of the word “boob”. I just find breast too clinical, and ta-tas too cutesy, and other euphemisms too crass. Plus whenever I read “boobs” I tend to pronounce it with a silly inflection, like “boouuubbbes”. Really. Ask your father.

Or you could ask your Aunt Beth, because I tend to pronounce “booze” with similar inflection. Boouuuzzze.

Anyway, the weaning. Yes. I am really going to do this. By now you’ve seen the memo that your Mommy has recently accepted a full time position working as a consultant. You may be inclined to think that going full time means I would see less of you. I prefer to think of it as this: my free time with you will be better now because when I’m with you, I won’t be thinking about all the work I’m not doing for my freelance clients.

I’m so thankful for the opportunity to work a flexible part-time schedule so I could be there for you, nurse you, care for you…but somewhere along the way, my part-time became full-time and my free time became a guilt-fest. When you work at home, my dear, sometimes it’s hard to leave work…if you know what I mean. Well, you may not know what I mean now, but sometime in the future you will understand. My hope for this new adventure is that my work life becomes more structured and predictable, because currently it is neither. I want my time with you to be about you, and I think this change will support that desire.

Moving on: You’ve been doing a lot of swimming this summer. You’ve been having fun on a semi-daily basis in your frog pool that Gramma and PawPaw got you last month. You love your little pool. This month you got to try out a big-girl pool with your friend Laynie. You just went crazy, I could barely hold onto you, you were that excited. You so desperately wanted to swim, kicking your frog legs and your rudimentary dog-paddling arms. Somewhere along the way you’ve learned to love water, and for that I am thankful. Your Momma never really *officially* learned to swim, and it’s probably one of the things I regret not learning. I don’t like the idea that if we went to a pool or lake or the ocean and I couldn’t save you if you got into trouble in the water. It doesn’t help that I tend to panic in deep water. Enjoy the water, my little fish. You will learn to master it one day.

Oh Yeah — Remember last month when I said it wasn’t going to be long before you started crawling? WELL GUESS WHAT. You are so totally crawling now. You’ve been crawling to follow me around the house, crawling to get to the massive pile of unread magazines I have stacked on my coffee table, EVERYWHERE CRAWLING. Tonight I stripped you down to your diaper before your bath and left you in the nursery so I could fill up your bathtub. No sooner had I turned on the water and you were already padding across the bathroom floor. That means you crawled out of the nursery, down the hall, and made a beeline for my feet as I stood in the bathroom and I was like HOW DID YOU COVER THAT DISTANCE SO QUICKLY?

Let me tell you about my new name for you: “Ice Cream Baby”. No, it doesn’t have anything to do for your love of ice cream. I’ve been calling you “Ice Cream Baby” because when I’m holding you and your father comes home from work, you take one look at him and then you literally melt and become a sweet little shy baby, turning your face to my neck with your head on my chest. It’s like you melt like ice cream when you see your Daddy, and that in turn melts your Daddy’s heart into a gooey, sticky puddle of smooshy love. Tonight when he came home and picked you up from the floor, you pulled an “Ice Cream Baby” right into his chest — at that moment, there was no better thing in the world for your father. This feeling, the one that you give him when you snuggle with him, makes up for every single hair you have unceremoniously yanked from his chest.

You’ve been doing so many new things this month, and not all of them have to do with you destroying magazines or eating paper when my back is turned. Some newer things have just happened in the past few days. You are still experimenting with sounds, some sounding deceptively close to you saying “Mum mum mum mum mum”. You practice your conversational babble, mimicking the tones and inflection of our conversation to you. I’ve been noticing that you’ve learned to whine by making high pitched noises through your nose. I’m not such a fan of that, because it seems you do that only when you are bored. You still throw a fit if I leave the room suddenly and no one else is there to distract you from your loss. I’ve been learning to move with the stealth and skill of a ninja to keep you from noticing my absence and screaming, but so far, you’ve been able to detect my movements. How do you DO that?

You’ve become a proficient kisser, by the way. When I say “Do you want to give Mommy kisses?” you respond with a perfect open-mouth baby kiss complete with a little baby tongue. You’ll give most people kisses if they ask you for them. We’ll worry about your technique a little later. Also, the snuggling is still happening this month, of which I cannot get enough.

This month I am going to try to memorize everything about you: the way you smell so delicious after a bath, the cowlick swirl on your crown, the way you suck in your lower lip, the shape of your toothy smile (six! six teeth!), the little panting noise you make when you crawl, the “concentration tongue”, the way your mouth opens like a baby bird when we feed you bites of our Cheerios, the way you screech and thrash in delight when we play the “I’M GUNNA GET YOU” game before bedtime, and the way your Daddy makes you laugh that laugh where it sounds like hiccups are getting caught in your throat.

I love that sound.

Love,

Momma

You have officially been outside of my womb for as long as you were in it. Okay, okay, it’s an approximated amount of time, but STILL. Nine. Whole. Months. Isn’t it time you started paying rent?

At first, you didn’t seem too happy to be separated from your placenta. The first several weeks I seem to remember you being extraordinarily crabby, with lots of crying and bleating and screaming.

Those days are long over, and you have become such a sweetsugarpunkinpiebabygirl. For those who do not speak “googlyparent”, it simply means you have finally adjusted to life on the outside quite well, and have become such a sweet-tempered baby.

I’ll overlook the fact that recently, and I literally mean in the past 48-72 hours, you have become very mommy-needy and very aware of when I leave the room EVEN FOR JUST A MOMENT. That’s when all your good-natured sweetness dries up and you cry — but you don’t just stop at just crying, you WAIL and SCRAHHAARREEEAM until there is no breath left, then you sit there, face frozen in a crumpled grimace of anger with your mouth WIDE OPEN

and I wait…

and wait some more…

and finally, after pushing that last breath its silent bitter end, you draw in the next breath and form the most hellacious shriek ever to be uttered by a small human.

In summary, lately you seem to be attached to me and have learned to vocalize your displeasure when you discover I have left your general vicinity.

This month you’ve done some other things of great interest to us, things that herald your growth from a squirmy larvae to a squirmy semi-mobile baby.

MOBILITY: Not long after you mastered rolling from back to tummy and tummy to back, you have developed the fine skill of the creep. You scooch, mostly backward, and at quite the clip. Land speed records will be broken soon, I can feel it. It doesn’t take long for you shimmy your way into trouble. Which reminds me, now is probably the time to start child-proofing the house.

You have done all of the following things at least once this month: Pushed yourself up from your belly to a sitting position, pulled yourself up from a seated position to a standing position, and stand up while holding onto furniture. And seriously, you are THISCLOSE to crawling. You get up on your hands and knees, it’s just the locomotion you’re missing. It won’t be long now.

EATING: You like food. All kinds of food. Any food you can get your hands on. But the really cute thing you’ve been doing lately is offer ME the food you have gripped in your hot little hand. You sit there, eyes bright with the sweetest expression on your face, fist raised towards me like you want to do that new-fangled “fist bump” or “bones” or whatever the kids are calling it these days. In your fist exists a bit of mashed up sticky goop of food you’ve been holding for the better part of twenty minutes, and it’s disgusting, you offer it and of course I cannot refuse.

Also, it turns out you are a big fan of ice cream. Together we polished off a single scoop cone at Gramma and Pawpaw’s, and you just could not get enough.

NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION: Girl, who taught to shake your head no? Is this something you’ve been learning from the kids at school? ‘Cause you didn’t learn it from me! The past few days you’ve been employing the INTERNATIONAL HEAD SHAKE FOR “NO”™ at dinner time, most of the time when I offer a spoon full of food and your interest in eating has diminished. But you don’t just shake your head, you shut your eyes tight AND THEN you shake your head back and forth NONONONONO.

NONONONO. Riotously funny. Maybe not in a few months when the answer to every question will be NONONONONONO.

That’s not all. You also show us how you are SOOOOO BIIIIIIIIIIG when you throw your arms up over your head, and you know how to “Give Kisses” with your little lip smacking air kisses.

The kissing, that has to be my favorite. The kisses you give and the snuggling you just started doing this week. You weren’t much of a touchy-feely snuggly baby before, so this is new behavior. The other afternoon, when you were tired of playing, you fussed for attention. So I picked you up and held you close and FOR THE FIRST TIME you nestled your head against my shoulder and hugged my neck with your arms. FOR THE FIRST TIME, you held me as close as I hold you.

Please keep doing that.

Love,
Momma

The other day, we were in a doctor’s office up north of town. Your daddy was really sick, actually. Sick from a bug we suspect came from you, our sweet little petri dish. You’ve both been ill, and you’ve been fighting coughing and congestion for the better part of your short life. Anyway, we were sitting in the waiting room waiting for your daddy to be called into see Dr. Jill when this guy (another patient, maybe?) started paying close attention to you. He was just enthralled with your aura of baby cuteness, I suppose. Seriously, he just said over and over “Such a cute baby. You guys did great!” until it started to feel a little creepy. He went on to ask other fairly specific personal questions, some of which I artfully declined to answer with any sort of detail because something about his relentless need for personal information was a tad unsettling.

Reese, I cannot stress how often I have heard a variation of “cute baby” or “adorable smile” or “look at those eyes”. It’s great, I love the fact you are just so beautiful, and I’m not the only one who thinks so (you know, because I’m your mother and all). It really helps that you are such an engaging baby; always quick to make eye contact and smile. This characteristic, my sweetheart, will be a burden to you if you ever move to New York City and have to ride the subway TRUST ME ON THIS ONE.

There is a darker side to this endearing cuteness of yours. My nightmares of someone coming into my house and hurting you or taking you away from have somehow increased in frequency. I can’t help but feel it’s somehow related to this whole “parental instinct” thing, but it’s an eerie feeling to be on the defensive when I think a random stranger is paying you too much attention. I could assume that for this guy, seeing you only triggered fond memories of his own kids at that age, and that his intentions were absolutely harmless in every way. My biggest fear EVER is losing you, and I can’t help to think that one day you may catch the eye of someone who wants to pay you much too much attention, and all the horrible things they show on Dateline would become my reality.

Enough of the heavy stuff, on to the fun things about your life this past month. We have seen big changes in you this time around, especially in the eating, talking, and mobility fronts.

The ROLLING: Hey Squirt! Welcome to self-directed locomotion! Shortly after I published last month’s letter (you know, the one where I said you were THISCLOSE to rolling your little self over), you sure as spit rolled over. FOR THE FIRST TIME, RIGHT BEFORE MY EYES AND THE CAMERA. There is no limit to your rolling, a WHOLE NEW WORLD OF MOTION IS YOURS. For about two weeks, you’d wake up in the wee hours of the morning (goodbye, delicious full night of sleep!) and “practice” your rolling. Only you’d manage to roll on your belly, and then you’d cry for someone to come save you. Any guess who would come to you at all hours of the night? HHHHMMMMMM?

It’s just a good thing that I don’t even remember what eight hours of uninterrupted sleep feels like anymore. Plus, you’re always happy to see me and my boobs early in the morning.

The EATING: My little gourmet. Cheerios, cheese, hummus, chicken, pork, turkey, graham crackers, club crackers, Pepperidge Farms Goldfish, cucumber, whole fresh peas, yogurt, whole milk, cut up grapes, steamed carrots, your shoes, my necklaces, the dog’s ear, blueberry smoothies, avocados, and little pasta stars — all of these things you have tasted and enjoyed. You are well on your way to enjoying a wide variety of foods and most notably, you enjoy the foods directly off my plate the most. You have learned (and I don’t think I taught you this, but I haven’t disciplined you either) that if I hold onto a Cheerio with my lips, you will take your index finger and thumb and very expertly liberate the Cheerio from the tyranny of my mouth. I probably ought to teach you that Cheerio stealing isn’t proper table manners, but for now I’m just thrilled that your fine motor skills for snacky-snatching are developing so nicely.

The most notable development of late is your determination to feed yourself. Spoonfuls of sweet potatoes are so passé; lately, all you want to eat is anything you can grab with your sticky, busy little fingers.

The TALKING: Munchkin, when you started babbling, you took it very seriously. All your attention was given to the volume and consistency of your bah-bah-ah-baas, with your face solemn, concentrating on your pronunciation and DID I MENTION VOLUME. Lately, you’ve started added demonstrative movement to your vocalizations, I suppose for emphasis. I don’t know how else to describe it: swaying back and forth, rolling on your little round bottom, your chin upraised… you look like a 16.5 pound miniature Ray Charles, only with no piano or sunglasses. This new development has to be the most hilarious benchmark in your growth towards verbal communication. Dear Heart, you’ve started noticing and employing non-verbal communication in a very endearing way.

The SLEEPING: The changes in your sleeping habits I largely attribute to your new-found rolling abilities. Also, I have been informed that when babies reach 8 or 9 months they tend to experience “sleep regression”, so you can imagine my joy when I found that out. We’ve not had such a great month of sleep, and by we I actually mean ME. We’re back on the “once a night wake up”, usually happening anytime between 2 am and 7am. Somehow you manage to scooch into a corner, your head stuck up against the crib railing and you’ll cry. I don’t even use the baby monitor, I can hear you even when I’m dead asleep. I’m hoping that there will be a point where you will return to your 12 hour sleep patterns, but for now, we’ll just have to get by.

Today you are playing quite contentedly with a small selection of toys in my office as I finish writing your letter. I’ve been thinking lately about all the interest surrounding “Mommy Blogging” (and when you say “Mommy Blogging” you should ALWAYS raise up your hands and form the air quotes around it): the nasty emails from odd malcontents, the Kathy Lee Giffords of the world worrying about the controversial exploitive aspect of blogging about your children, the possibility of you one day resenting your parents for journaling your life in such a public way.

I’ve come to realize that there will be a time in the future where you will resent ANYTHING I do or say. Until then, I used this format as a way to document your early life. I do this because you’ve already grown so fast that the curious little mannerisms and sounds you used to emit just mere months ago are gone, and those moments won’t be back. I do this because there are others, members of your family here in the States and even in the Netherlands who are reading about your growth everyday. I do this because I don’t want to be so consumed by making pretty websites that I miss out on even the smallest details of your development. Journaling all these little things encourages me to look and experience you and your growth in a way that I would otherwise miss.

My little sunshine baby, we have a long, lovely summer together in the months before you turn 12 months old. You already have started to take on the shape of an older baby, the kewpie roundness of you is diminishing and being replaced with the leaner physicality of a pre-toddler. So much has changed about you, and I am just crazy-in-love with you.

Don’t even get me started on your daddy, you so own him and you don’t even know it yet.

Love,

Momma

You are now 7 months old. I can barely believe it. It seems that it was only just last weekend we were digging our way out of a snow drift, and here we are – springtime, warm sunshine, blooming magnolia and cherry trees.

I’m a little behind in writing to you this month, as I’m simultaneously trying to manage my projects, figuring out if I owe estimated taxes or not, and trying to keep up with all your little benchmarks and milestones. Child, I’ve never seen anyone change as much in four short weeks as you have. I sit here in utter amazement sometimes, watching you take in your surroundings and process your environments. It’s like I can literally hear the little neurons in your brain firing off signals, building additional synapses with every new discovery you make.

You have discovered that there is no limit to the number, quantity, and size of foreign objects that you will fit into your mouth. You seem to have a particular taste for paper, especially high-gloss four-color printouts, but usually you’ll attempt to eat anything you can get your hands on — food off of my plate, my cellphone, your shirt. The only two objects that are near impossible to get you to put in your mouth appear to be green beans and peas.

It’s really cool, actually, to watch you figure out how to pick something up. Even something as small as a sweet potato puff or even a Cheerio — I’ve watched the progression from clumsy, blind grabbing has quickly evolved into a much finer, deliberate, and careful orchestration of your fingers and hands. Plus, the zwieback toasts… oh, you so do look very much like a little chipmunk nibbling, both hands grasping your crunchy treat.

Just now I wrote an email to your father about you. Yes, you. You, my little thieving monkey, were watching me eat a delicious, crunchy carrot for a snack this afternoon. Oh, how your eyes did watch my every nibble, each lip-smacking crunch of crispy, sweet, inappropriate-for-your-age carrot. The way you oh-so-intently watched my nibbles should have been a warning to me about what would happened next.

YOU. SNATCHED. MY. CARROT.

You leaned over, hand outstretched, and nabbed the carrot right out of my mouth and placed it directly into your slobberbox.

You couldn’t have looked more pleased with yourself as you did then, grinning around that large, orange, half-eaten prize. With a deft swipe of my index finger I freed the potential choking hazard from your maw, the whole time wiping the laughter tears from my eyes. I suppose that it would be irresponsible of me to not impart this first life lesson of manners: Always ask first before stealing food from the mouth of another.

The Rolling Over: you’re just not quite there yet. I’ve watched you squirm and kick and come THISCLOSE to rolling over onto your tummy. I’ve even put you on your tummy and you roll up on your side, but then you get frustrated and scream, and then flop back over on your face. Dear Little One: we have much to learn about patience, because if you get angry about the injustice of Tummy Time, just wait until you have to decipher the Internal Revenue Service tax code the night before estimated payments on self employment taxes are due.

The Sleeping: I think my personal favorite development this past month has to be your sleeping pattern. I used to think that “sleeping through the night” meant that you would sleep five or six hours in a row. No, that’s for babies, for 4 month olds. Now you sleep more like ten or twelve hours without complaint, from 7 pm to 7 am. That’s not to say that you don’t wake up, I know you do because I can hear you playing in your crib around 3:30 or 4 in the morning — but you don’t cry, you seem to be perfectly content wriggling around and talking to your blue stuffed monkey. Eventually you settle down and I don’t hear from you again until the glorious morning when I wake up. Reese, I only dreamed that I would see eight hours of sleep again, and here you give that precious gift to me.

The Splashing: You love your bathtime. At first, in the early months, you didn’t much care for anything related to the bath. Now you love it. You love being naked. You love your bath toys. And lately you have discovered that you love to sit up in the tub and SPLASH.

The Babbly/Screechy/Shouty Muscle Development: Your verbal skills are much improving. I just love that quiet and sweet baby babble of “ah-bah, bah bah bah ah-bah”, it’s so cute that it seriously makes me want to reproduce (but then I remember about the blissful eight hours of sleep I am getting now, and I reconsider). When you are worked up, you flap your arms wildly, look up at me from where you are sitting and you screech. Screeching and grinning and flapping. You have also “discovered your shouty muscles”, as Ken would put it. I’m hoping your discovery of the shouty muscles does not last, but I fear this phase probably lasts well into your teenage years.

I think you might have suddenly developed a sense of humor. Of course, your sense of humor isn’t quite refined enough to enjoy, say, a good fart joke. But you seem to find your daddy HILARIOUS when he fakes sneezes. The fake sneeze! Sneeze is the new fart, I guess. Anyway, you think it so funny to hear the comedic “ahhhh Ahhhh AHHHHHHHHCHOOOOOOO” that you burst out into convulsive giggles, your whole body laughing. You killed yourself laughing at your father’s fake sneezes, seriously. This fascination with fake sneezes is getting a little out of hand because now, when you sneeze FOR REAL, you burst out laughing. My little goofball.

My Little Sweet Sugar, my PunkinButtercup. What a month you’ve had. I love our afternoons together — going for walks in the park, running errands around town, or even just napping together for an hour to two. I can’t wait to see what you do next. Perhaps rolling over? Beginning to crawl? How about doing my estimated taxes worksheets?

Love,

Momma

You reached your sixth month of life a few days ago. Amazing how time goes so fast. Also, you have discernible eyebrows now, for which I am glad.

You might have noticed that I’ve been a little preoccupied lately with my computer — one reason is that I’ve started picking up several part-time projects (which, you no doubt have noticed seems to lead to a near full time occupation of my spare time) and the other reason is that I’ve been making a list of the scope of your development this month. You change so fast that I fear if I don’t document all these new things, I’ll miss them, and I hate the idea of missing out on these experiences.

This very moment you are sitting up all by yourself, on the floor, with your toys scattered around you. This has to be the biggest leap in your physical development, and one I fully embrace because YOU, dear Reese, are beginning to explore the joys of playing by yourself. Just for about thirty minutes at a time, you are capable of sitting up, balancing, grabbing, reaching, stretching, and self-correcting when you lurch forward. I’ll walk into the living room where you are playing and you turn your head as far as you can just to look over your shoulder and smile at me. Do you even realize that when you do that it melts my heart? I think you do, somehow.

When you are tired of sitting, you fall backwards and then AND! THEN! you grab your feet. The foot grabbing, this is a very recent development and a hilarious one at that because of the lengths you will go to try to fit your foot into your mouth. The foot-snatching occurs on the “Magical Changing Pad of Bliss”, on the floor when you are playing, and in the bathtub too. There is no place that you won’t try to eat your toes. I’ve been eating your toes for MONTHS and now you finally understand my joy.

Speaking of eating, there’s something we have to discuss. I realize that your lower jaw has been blessed with the appearance of two mighty incisors, but you are NOT obligated to use those chompers so indelicately upon your primary nutrition ports. I realize that you are still too young to be empathetic to my pain, so there isn’t much I can do to stop you if you decide to use Jake or Smiley for teething purposes. Don’t make me switch you to a bottle!

Now that’s out of the way. You are generally a great baby. You have the best disposition for a sixth month old, and your personality is really starting to show. You are smiley and unafraid of strangers, and will happily go to whom you are passed without complaint. You are single-minded and determined when there is something you want to do: Reaching for my dinner, grabbing for a specific toys, clamping your mouth shut when I try to feed you carrots, and reaching up with your hands to grab my face and pull it close for your special open-mouth kisses. As long as we keep you entertained with new toys or a change of scenery, you stay in a great mood. The best part about being six months old is that it is much MUCH easier to distract you out of a bad mood. A simple change of position, or a new toy, a nap or a feeding is all that we need to do to keep you on your sweet side — or at least it keeps you from doing that annoying billygoat bleating.

The past few weeks you’ve been spending your waking hours grabbing things within your spider arm reach and shoving acquired things into your mouth. It used to be that you would primarily chew on your own hands and fingers, but now you gnaw on my hands, my face, sometimes my hair, every toy you own (and some you don’t), and I swear I even saw you eyeing up the dog. I assure you, Ronin does not fit neatly into your mouth.

Something Grandma noticed and brought to my attention that I had not caught before — you have discovered the sensation of your own two teeth in your mouth by repeatedly thrusting your tongue, back and forth, over the top of those little biters. I don’t know how I missed it, or if you literally started doing this the day I took you to Grandma and Grandpa’s house, but it’s just sort of neat to see you suddenly become aware of these physical changes in yourself.

This month we started daycare for a few hours each day with a nice family down the street. It’s hard to hand you over in the morning, but I actually think of these few hours as “school” for you. You are in an environment where you are learning more about your world – colors, pre-counting, pre-reading, exercising, songs, sharing with others, and verbal development. You get to interact with some older kids daily, which is something I couldn’t provide for you but I am thrilled you get to experience. And the verbal work! You have been a pretty good sound maker, but lately you actually are seem to talk back to us! Like almost a real conversation, only we still don’t really understand the words coming out of your mouth.

The downside to daycare is the fact you seem to have had this endless cold for the past month. The snot. The phlegm. The COUGHING. I really disliked the coughing. Fortunately for me AND you, the coughing has diminished greatly, but there still seems to be some congestive yuck still lingering in the back of your throat. I’m praying daily that you don’t develop the dreaded ear infection.
This week, you so generously passed your cold to me, so now I get to feel your pain. All I have to say is “BUCKETS OF SNOT”. Gross.

Oh! Yes! How could I have forgotten? You saw your first significant snowstorm last weekend. 20.4 inches of snow! I was more excited about the fact I got to dress you up in your cute snowsuit and put you in the snow! You didn’t much like it. And then, oh that snow, it fell on your FACE. YOU REALLY DIDN’T CARE FOR THAT EITHER. You didn’t try to put the snow in your mouth, which actually surprised me considering your propensity to place everything else in your mouth. Ah, but there will be next winter, right?

Reese, you are just lovely. I race to the daycare every day to pick you up, and I can’t wait to get you home so I can play with you and hold you again. You make life so much more complicated and intense, but every day I scoop you out of your crib just to nibble on your cheeks, to see your Chroninger eyes and your Philipsen chin. I don’t know how you do it, but every day you make me even more thankful I am your mother.

Love,

Momma

Today you turn 5 months old.

Five! Months!

This past month has just been filled with a lot of new things that you are doing, or and in some cases, things that are happening to you. New teeth! New foods! New and Different Poop! Arching your back when you want to be picked up! KISSING WITH TONGUE! Who taught you that?!

And that Wookie noise you make in the back of your throat. Your impression of Chewbacca is uncanny. I suppose that is what babies do when they can’t figure out what to do with all that drool.

But the one new thing you do I really gotta ask you about: Why must you make that noise when you are bored? Or when I’m in the same room with you, but I’m not actively entertaining you with new and different toys? I’m right here, sitting on the floor RIGHT NEXT TO YOU, and you assault me with

AAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGHHHHHHH!!! AAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGHHHHHHH!!!

And your little plan works. I pick you up and try to determine if you are in pain, or some other discomfort and of course you are not. After all that billy goat bleating, you bust out the biggest smile and then you laugh. Laughing at your poor, harried mother who is getting bossed around daily by a 14-pound pink screaming dictator. You think this is funny? This little joke of yours?

(It is funny, in a cosmic sort of way.)

Anyway, you keep doing new things every day, so many in fact that it’s hard to keep up (and I can only type so fast). Good gracious, child.

So you have now cut 2 teeth. Bottom central incisors. And you haven’t really acted too different, save for a little crankiness here and there. Usually you can be pacified with a chew toy, Jacques, or my finger. And you do like to chew. A lot. You shredded a Netflix envelope within 5 minutes of your father watching you — which actually says more about your father than you.

My favorite part of this month has been feeding you. Oh, and not just boob either. I’ve been really getting into making you freshly prepared rice cereal, baked sweet potatoes, bananas, and just yesterday, steamed pears. It’s inevitable that you would be starting some solids this month. You’ve been eyeing up my food for a few weeks, making audible lip-smacking sounds while I eat. Somehow you’ve actually perfected that “begging” look the dog makes. Which is surprising because I’m pretty sure you just found out he exists recently, so I’m not sure when the two of you would have found time to conspire against me.

It’s actually quite hilarious to feed you, because of the way you get so excited and worked up. Your eyes bulge, your mouth opens WIIIIDE, and your arms and legs flail around like someone clamped a car battery to your backside. And then you WRENCH that spoon away from me, and proceed to gnaw on it for the next eight to ten minutes. It’s quite precious, but also I have feeling your sense of independence is only going to get more defined with the coming months.

On a slightly related note, your poop has started to change in a few ways. It used to be fairly innocuous, both in aroma and texture — at times, it would be the color of a highway construction barrel. Now — now it is much different, not quite as offensive as grown up poo, but definitely beginning to get malodorous and a bit gross. I know it’s not really polite to discuss poop in a public format (and for this I’m sure you’ll make me pay during your teenage years), but it’s just another sign that my formerly toothless, exclusively breast-fed baby is growing up.

All these changes are happening so fast, and I’m really only just starting to get used to your delightful babyness. I seriously just want to eat you up, starting with your chubby round cheeks and your nubbly little ears. You laugh when I kiss you, because I make loud smoochy sounds by your ear and I tickle your neck with my nose. You are such a beautiful little girl, and the time I spend away from you makes me miss you so much that I cannot wait to pick you up and hold you again.

It’s going to be tough to give you to daycare, I can tell already.

Love,

Momma