Mother's Day

Dear Gracie,

Sunday I celebrated my first Mother's Day as your Momma.  I still can't believe that I have my own holiday!  All day I just felt like I should be thanking you and Daddy for MAKING me a mother! 

Just because I'm sure by the time you're able to read this, you'll have forgotten what wonderful presents you got me (or maybe because you weren't actually on the shopping trip at all), I'll fill you in.  You are so thoughtful.  You got me a book that I can read to you at bedtime and a book to keep track of all of our little family's milestones.  And, my favorite, was a little necklace with a "G" on it that I'll wear all the time so you'll always be with me, Lil' G (that's your rap name by the way). 

When I was rocking you to sleep after a long day of gift giving, brunch eating, and park walking, you looked right up at me and stretched really big and shook your pompoms (it's this really cute thing where you stretch your arms over your head so big that you little fists shake) at me and smiled.  That was the best thanks I could've asked for.

Gracie, thank YOU for being my daughter.  I'm the lucky one :)

xoxo

Momma

Two Months

Dear Gracie,

On Thursday, you turned two months old.

You are growing in so many ways.  Your toes are at the very end of your 3 month old sleepers, your legs stick through the sides of the rocking chair when I rock you to sleep at night, and your head no longer fits in the hat that was so big on your way home from the hospital that it covered your eyes and nose.  You also spend hours a day staring at yourself in mirrors and smiling .  I often sing "You're So Vain" to you, even though I'm pretty sure there's no way you know you're staring at yourself.

Mornings are my absolute favorite time of day to spend with you.  After your morning feeding, we snuggle up on the couch for a nice nap with Daisy curled up at our feet.  Then we wake up and you do your Jazzercise routine on your activity mat.  I'm not kidding, you move your arms and legs so fast that your breathe sounds like you are running a marathon.  Your hands occasionally get stuck in the rings hanging down, and I usually yell "Yes!  She's going to be a gymnast" really loud until your dad knocks on the wall and tells me to calm down. 

At six weeks, we had to take you to the Children's Memorial Hospital to have ultrasound pictures taken of your hips and spine.  (Just so you don't worry, you were just fine!)  You were such a brave little baby.  While I was using every single bit of  strength I had to keep it together seeing you lay in that huge hospital bed, you were being the perfect patient sleeping through most of the procedure and barely crying at all.  When the doctor called with your clean bill of health, I broke down in tears and you just grinned up at me the cutest little toothless, gummy, slobbery grin ever.  You'll never know how much that little smile meant to me.

You recently started sleeping through the night a majority of the time pretty much all on your own.  The first time you did it, your daddy and I both woke up to the light streaming through the windows and both said "is she alive?!"  You were.  Whew.  Seven hours of uninterrupted sleep was amaaaazing let me tell you, but, I think it was just a peach offering because at the same exact time, you decided to just up and stop taking naps during the day.  Obviously, there are more important things for you to be doing during the day like checking the Dow and writing poems in your diary about how unfair it is that your parents won't let you get a mohawk.  Life is tough, right?

We are all just finding our way through this together, the three of us, and I think we're doing a pretty good job. 

xoxo
Momma