Four Months

Little Worm you are four months (and one day!) old, and you are really not so little anymore. This month has just flown by, and it scares me how fast time goes by and how quickly you change. Every little milestone is so exciting, but some days I just wish I could make the time stand still and burn your sweetness into my memory.

This has been my first month back to work full-time, and it is both fulfilling and heartbreaking. I feel like I've entered a second "stage" in our lives together. Those first few months, ripe with meeting you and learning your habits, spending every moment of my day with you, have necessarily ended. I feel slightly detached now, and it saddens me. I want so much to be your everything. Sometimes I cry on Sunday nights because our quality weekend time is coming to an end. I know that grandma will soon be sweeping in and taking over, and I don't want to let go. I could never be keeping up with this crazy schedule without her help, but it is the hardest thing in the world for me to let someone else be there for you because I can't. Six more months...the countdown has begun!

This Christmas-time was hard for me too. I didn't have time to bake cookies or think of thoughtful gifts. I couldn't even make some of the handmade things I had planned for. Christmas came, feeling like little more than just another day for me, and then it was gone. I always want Christmas to feel special, but I was especially sorry that my memories of this Christmas, your very first Christmas, were marred by too little time and too much stress. I'm so glad that you don't know yet Worm. Next year will be better.

Despite my emotional leanings this month, you have been an absolute ray of sunshine. You are always delightful, easygoing and quick to smile. You really only cry when you're hungry, and hardly protest even when we drag you around past your bedtime. You play by yourself beautifully, grasping your toys and pulling them towards yourself, always in a quest to pop them into your mouth for a taste. You can hang on to a rattle now, and you wave it around haphazardly, often bonking yourself in the face. You're enjoying tummy time more and more lately, and you grunt and concentrate on trying to pull your knees up under your bottom. It'll be awhile before you're successful at it, but the intention is definitely there. You've recently found your feet and you pull your toes up into your mouth and roll from your back to your side, feet in hand. You're getting better and better at popping your thumb in your mouth too, though you're not so sure that you like the taste of it once it's there.

You are smitten with your daddy, and you've been giggling at him regularly for weeks. He held the honor of being the only one who could make you laugh for quite awhile until very recently when you've finally let me in on the fun a few times. You watch him intently, often focused on him even when he isn't paying attention to you. It's as if you know you're his spitting image and you're observing him so you can model your actions after his.

You are such an amazing little creature, Worm. I'm not sure what I did to deserve a baby girl as wonderful as you are, but it must've been something really really great.