Month Cinco

Dearest Child-O-Mine,

On Sunday you turned 5 months old. The past five months have been amazing, comical, tiring and overwhelming. You are such a bundle of blessings for us and I can't imagine life without you.

Recently someone asked what I miss most about pre-motherhood and my answer was this, "Besides the obvious lack of sleep, I miss being able to just run to the store, or go shopping without having to remember when she last ate, when you last napped, and what kind of mood you are in."

Your sleep schedule still leaves much to be desired. I struggled over whether or not to give you a pacifier and finally decided that it was easier on all of us. Some days I question that decision. You still wake up every couple of hours, but now every other time or so I can just come into your room and replace the pacifier and you will go back to sleep for another couple of hours. This still means I have to get up, walk across the house and replace that stupid plastic plug. I don't know if I am ready to try and take it away from you though.

This motherhood thing is quite a lifestyle change. I have never questioned every decision I have make so much as I do now. Every decision pertaining to you, I go over repeatedly in my head, the pros and cons, the what ifs, the "will this mess her up for life's", oh the questioning and the doubting and the constant weight to do it right, not for my sake or my pride, but for yours. I want you to be the best you can be and I do not want to mess you up. I don't think the doubting every goes away when it comes to being a parent, but someone please tell me at least that you get better at it. If that is possible.

You are becoming more vocal and have quite a little attitude. At your four month check up, you weighed in at 13.4 and 26 inches long. You are so skinny that I can't put pants or bloomers on you, they just fall right off. You got my short torso and long legs and some height it seems from your father.

A couple of weeks ago we took you swimming for the first time. You were nonchalant about the whole thing. You made no acknowledgment what so ever when I put you in the pool. None. All you wanted to do was play with your two new best friends, Left Foot and Right Foot, and get them into your mouth.

You have started really grabbing things. When I hold the phone up so you can say hi to daddy at work, you try to close it or eat it. Everything you manage to get ahold of goes quickly into your mouth, which is fine right now when I can control to some extent what you can grab, but boy does this scare me when you can find bugs and pick those up and put them in your mouth. Well, I guess it will all be good for your immune system, right?

You giggle more these days and I could spend hours trying to make that wonderful sound come out of your mouth. You like it when I blow in your face -- you take this quick breath in, it's like a mini baby high for you I think. A small little rush of excitement.

I look forward to a day when you can tell me why you are crying and I can fix it, because some days, I don't read your mind so well and we both have a rough time. I am both looking forward to and dreading a time when you are mobile. I fear that working from home will not be quite so simple as it is now when you can move. But I look forward to chasing you around the house and all the fun we will have.

I love you, many bunches and many more!

Love,
Momma