Live, Love, Laugh...

Baby girl...
More than 4 months have passed since you left my belly for a brighter, and perhaps a more roomy world. You are so big now that it is hard for me to fathom that you were ever inside me. Yet, many nights when I am in bed and nearly ready to fall asleep, I will swear to myself (and to your dad) that I felt something in my stomach that felt just like you kicking! Of course, it isn't real....and no, we don't have a sibling incubating in there (not yet!) but I think that once you've felt your child move inside you....your body never forgets. Though four months have passed, and though you've grown and changed so much, there is still a string connecting your heart to mine and I am so comforted and fulfilled by our link to one another.

almost ready for a walk, March 2008

The past four months have taught me why nearly every mother I know says...."Now this, THIS is my favorite stage!" like they've never said it before. They say it because it's true. You are blossoming overnight. Each day brings a new accomplishment, a new little trick. What I like best is your response to things. For one thing, you smile immediately when smiled at. It's a smile that takes over your whole body and causes you to kick and squirm as the delight makes it's way from your lips to the tips of your toes. You also startle easily. Your dad thinks this is funny because you get it from me. I almost jump out of my skin when someone sneezes in the booth behind us at a restaurant and I nearly faint if someone pops a balloon unexpectedly. You are the same way. Your little arms fly up as if to say, "WHOA!"
You are very loud now. Gone are the days of taking you to quaint, candle-lit restaurants and having you sleep while we enjoyed dinner. You are a little car alarm, a little blaring alarm clock....you squeal and scream and test all different pitches and tones with your vocal chords. Every once in a while, you stop to crack up at what an amazing voice you have. It makes us smile to hear your voice and I find myself looking forward to the day when you can say ma-ma or da-da even though I don't want to rush a singular second of your life.

daddy's look alike, March 2008

You are a huge baby Einstein fan these days! After crazily googling phrases such as:
Pros and cons of baby Einstein
Is baby Einstein linked to ADHD later in life?
Infant vision problems linked to watching baby Einstein videos
etc, etc, etc
I finally caved and popped Baby Bach in the ol' DVD player (you know, just to see how you would react.) Well, you might as well have requested popcorn and a box of Sour Patch Kids. You were tickled. Your eyes would bug out in utter amazement as a colored truck drove itself across the length of our television screen. My eyes were bugging out, too. Only mine were bugging out thinking of the multi-millionaire stay -at- home mom who got to the tippy-top of the financial ladder by filming brightly colored toys from the Dollar Store rolling across a black background.
{Why, my sweet, didn't I think of that?}
Anyway, thanks to our dear family friend, Mr. Google, I don't let you watch it very much...but when I do, you totally enjoy it. You have even developed a favorite part. You squeal and kick each time the chicken clucks his way from the left of the tv to the right. Then a little girl appears and says something to the effect of, "When I see a chicken, I go bwack, bwack, bwack," and at that point you are so thrilled that you melt right into your bumbo seat. I practically have to scrape you out of it with a spatula.

sitting in daddy's chair and in your bumbo chair, watching baby einstein, March 2008

This weekend while we visited with Pop Pop and your Unky and Aunt Libby, we decided to watch the footage that we've taken of you on our new video camera. I didn't know how good it would be to watch ....as I felt like we had about one hundred tiny little 30 second clips here and there of this and that. Once we got the video camera hooked up to the tv, the memories started to play back on command. The first clip was from when you were just 2 days old. You were more tiny than I recalled and I looked more worn out than I recalled! Yikes! We continued to watch and I became so thankful for videos in addition to the thousands of still photos that we have taken of you. The videos capture your smallness, your coos, your cries. They forever preserve the voices of a mommy and daddy who are giddy with excitement and down-trodden with sleep deprivation. We had fun watching the footage from late November up to the present... and we all laughed until we were sick at the insane amount of times that I said, "Let's see your pretty smile," while I was filming. I said it multiple times each time I taped you. I said it more times than one could possibly believe. I said it in a crazed, new mommy tone, too. If I had to throw out a number of times I said it...I would say 200.
{And I would be being conservative!}
You will make fun of me for it when you are older. I just know it.
The other thing that had all of us slapping our knees was the unbelievable number of times your dad was on camera in his ratty orange polo t-shirt. It must have been a big coinky-dink, but it cracked us up that he had it on almost every single time he appeared on the tape.
Know what other annoying thing we did on each clip? We got a shot of the dogs just staring up at that camera.
We promise to improve out videographer skills before your first dance recital. We really do.

sitting by mommy while she reads, March 2008
I am greatly enjoying the 4 month old you. I am wishing, once again, that I could freeze you right at the age you are now.
Time is breaking the speed limit and I am trying hard to remember all the scenery from this trip that is your life. In the blink of an eye, I will be sitting as this computer composing a letter to you as a 5 month old, while you lay sleeping in pajamas that are growing snug.
I feel like I would cry and protest your growing up so fast if I wasn't so darn excited to see you bloom. The wonder of who you will become makes the passage of time endurable.

asleep in your carseat, March 2008

Know this baby girl....I love you like crazy.
Momma