A letter to my five-month-old Baby

Dear Luke,

I don’t think you will ever understand how much I love being your mama. You have made the transition into parenthood so easy for your papa and me. You are such a sweet baby and the more time that goes by, the more fun you get. Five months is my favorite age so far. You are starting to get mobile and roll around and play. You love it when we sing to you and get so excited your arms and legs flail around like crazy. You love food. Any food. You think you should be eating the same food dad and I eat. You think you should be able to drink any drink within sight. You get ticked when I don’t feed you fast enough but talk and smile and wiggle through your feedings like it’s the best thing in the world. You have become such a good little sleeper. We decided we were going to let you cry it out one night. (papa was a lot tougher than me, I wanted to go cry it out with you) But you did so well. You only cried for a few minutes and it was less awful than I thought. Ever since then, you have become a much better sleeper. You go to bed for us at night and take pretty good naps during the day.

You are really good at entertaining yourself. Your mama has to write articles to make a little money and you are so good to play on your blanket with your toys or in your bouncer. After I’ve been writing for a while, I always sit on the ground to play with you and you get so excited. You love books. You want to turn the pages yourself and the limbs start a flailing as soon as we start reading. You also love anything with a screen. Computers, TVs, phones. You want to touch them and they keep you entertained forever.

You are such a cuddly baby. You’ll let us kiss you hundreds of times a day and it never seems to bother you. Every time you coo or babble, my heart melts. I love it so much. I love that I feel like we are starting to communicate more and that you are starting to understand what things are. Sometimes, in the morning I just bring you into bed with me and lie next to you and hold you. I get scared that I’m going to blink and you’re going to want to be independent and won’t want to lay in bed with your mama.

Baby Lu, you have brought me more joy and happiness than I ever thought possible. You have become our world. Making you happy is my favorite thing and it bring me pure joy watching your discover the world around you. Dad and I are so excited for you to get older because we want to show you everything. We want to take you everywhere and we can’t wait for you to start talking. But for now, I am so grateful that you are my sweet five-month old boy.  Don't grow up too fast. 

The forgotten four month post

Somehow, I wrote this post over a month ago and never posted it.. Lukie's five and a half months now!


Luke is starting to do some things that I don’t want to forget.

For example, on Monday night, he laughed for the first time. Jered and I were at his parent’s house and Luke was being a pill so we took him for a walk around their neighborhood. He loves walks and was being smiley and I started tickling him and he did this growly low laugh. It was the cutest thing ever. Seriously melted my heart. I’m so glad Jered was there for it! So laugh for the first time at 3 ½ months.

He is starting to look more like a baby. He is filling out a lot more and I feel like he gets cuter all the time. So many times throughout the day, I find myself looking at him wondering what he is going to look like when he’s older. His blue eyes are beautiful. I think they are going to get him a lot of attention throughout his life. They are the first thing people comment on whenever they see him.

He has become a thumb sucker. It is honestly the cutest thing. Some people tell me how bad it is but I say if I’m not having to constantly find a pacy I’ll take it. Plus watching him suck that tiny thumb of his makes my day.

He is such a happy baby. I love that he is starting to like social interaction more. If he can’t see me for a while in his crib or bouncer, he’ll start to whine. As soon as I bring him over to me, he’ll talk and smile and coo.

He is becoming so vocal. The noises he makes are such a crack up. I love it. I always wonder what makes him turn it on because he’ll go for hours and not make a peep and then all of the sudden he goes crazy.

I love that whenever I feed him or give him his pacy or am stroking his face trying to get him to fall asleep, he always puts his hand of mine or holds my finger or something. It is so sweet.

He wiggles like crazy! He is getting hard to hold because he stiffens up his whole body and when he gets excited his arms and legs go crazy.

He is starting to hold onto things more and put them in his mouth when we give them to him. Not really grabbing at things, just swatting but anything I put up to his mouth he tries to suck on.

I tried giving him rice cereal for the first time last night (06-05-12) He seemed ticked. Like he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t understand that what I was giving him was food he just knew he was hungry so he kept turning away from the food and would open his mouth huge to nurse. It was so funny. Any cereal I did manage to get in his mouth he spit out. I’m gonna say he’s not quite ready for that just yet. But a couple weeks later I fed him sweet potatoes and he really liked them.

He is starting to go to sleep earlier, thank the heavens, and we start trying to get him to sleep around 7:30 or 8 now. Sometimes, he has off nights and it’s later but he is starting to get in more of a schedule. Thankfully, he never wants to wake up for the day before 9 and usually not before 930 or 10, sometimes even 11.

Every day I am excited for him to wake up. I love taking him on walks because he always gets so excited and is so happy during them. When I go with my friends, it’s hard to pay attention to what they are saying because I just want to talk to and play with Luke.
He is such a blessing in my life. Every day I feel grateful to have this happy healthy baby in my arms.

Pics from four months

 

A late night thought..

Sometimes I think to myself, “my life is little.”  I live in a little apartment and am a wife and mother to a sweet five-month-old baby.  That is my basic role.  Now, of course there is nothing wrong with this role, I love it, but in the scheme of things, sometimes it feels..well small, not insignificant, but small.  Often it’s easy to see others and their talents and think, what do I have to offer?  Sometimes, I think this world where we are so connected does a disservice because things like blogs and Facebook can give the illusion of perfection.  It is easy to read someone’s blog or see how crafty or talented they are and think, wait, am I doing something wrong? I’m not a, b, and c.  

Life is ever changing and it is so easy to look ahead and think, well, when I buy a house then this will happen or when I have more money than this will change.  But, I don’t think that is what life is about.  There is always something to look forward to, but I don’t know if that is always the best thing to focus on.  Sometimes, we just need to stop and look around and love what we have and where we are right then.  The life of a stay at home mom isn’t glamorous, but it is familiar and comfortable and wonderful all at the same time.  I took Luke in for his well check today, which also happened to be my old job, and looked around and didn’t miss it one bit.  I miss the people but I don’t miss working from 8 to 5.  I love that I am the steward of my time now.. love it.  I love that if I want to go to Utah for a few days I don’t have to fight with my supervisor for time off or wait for PTO to accrue.  It makes me feel more in control of my life.  But back to the point at hand, aside from this, it is easy to look at the world and all the great things people are doing and think.. what am I contributing to make this world a better place? 

Here’s the thing.. you can get really obsessed by all of that but the truth of the matter is.. the world is made up of ordinary people doing ordinary things.  That is what life is.  Ordinary moms (and dads and people in general, but in this case I’m talking about moms) doing their best everyday to raise their children the best they can and we are seeing the fruits of their labor everyday in a thousand different ways.  It was one ordinary mom who raised the wonderful doctor Luke saw today and the good friend who is so great to talk to and the sweet lady who checked me out at Target.  Really, the world is run by people who were raised by people like me.  Just people doing their best whatever that means to them. 

I’m doing some serious rambling here but it is something I wanted to get written down because it’s something I have been thinking about a lot.  There is this super popular blog called the daybook that I’m sure you’ve heard of but I actually copied and pasted something she wrote the other day because I thought it was so profound.  It kind of goes down a different vein talking more about relationships, but it can totally be applied to daily life. 

“I have spent far too few moments treasuring the beauty of familiarity. The thought struck me late the other night when I was in the bathroom, cutting my husband's hair. I don't know why it struck me then. I've done it countless times before. But this time, somehow the simple intimacy of knowing exactly how he likes his hair and snipping my clippers accordingly while he watched me in the mirror seemed profound. There is something to be said about sharing your life with someone. Growing up and growing old together. Raising your children. That idea is often romanticized by stories and movies, but amidst the day to day living of that life, the appreciation for it can be lost. 

To be truly known by someone, with all facets of your past and present, your weaknesses and strengths exposed and still loved. That is beautiful. And getting to watch the little boy that I have with that someone, grow in his own familiarity with the world and with us, it's a bigger experience than the small words I have can describe. What a privilege it is to be the one that he knows better than anyone. And to experience the seemingly insignificant day-to-day of growing old together

with someone. To me there's nothing, even in the constant stream of new and exciting, that could top or fulfill as much as that warm familiarity.

I guess what I’m saying here is that life really is beautiful.  And all of those seemingly ordinary moments add up to be something so much bigger.  Relationships and growth and understanding and love and learning all come from ordinary moments that happen every day.  So, even if the majority of the world will never know who I am, I can be happy knowing that in my little world I am giving all that I have and trying to be a little better everyday.  I love the quote that says “bloom where you are planted.”  I think part of a happy life is learning to be happy wherever you are and doing whatever you’re doing.  That and choosing to be happy now, not later.