Dear Reese,
Today, an excerpt from a year ago, before I published these letters here. Now you’re a little girl in pigtails who sleeps (mostly) through the night.
Septebmer 26, 2024 — 9:02pm
I got home from work after an all-day Zoom meeting, the second this week for a Leadership offsite. Cappi brought you outside to see me and you were still in your cherry romper I left you in. But you were tired out beautiful girl and soon were wailing at me. I wrapped you in the soft wrap and bounced you gently while Lin and Cara broke into the pizza from Wild Tomato I picked up on my way home. They drove up from Iowa for the week to visit us. You slept for two hours, well into the evening but I decided you needed your rest – set bedtimes be damned. Eventually, you started waking up around eight and we had a much calmer bedtime routine. You ate, got changed, I read to you some Zutara fanfiction, and by the time I was on the third lullaby, you were dozing off.
Still, it’s hard to hear you cry. Not that you’re doing anything wrong, just that I have unrealistic expectations that I should be making you happy at all moments and the fact that I can’t always immediately meet (or understand) your need still sucks sometimes. Lin reminds me that you crying doesn’t mean it’s my fault. I cry a little at that, as I have in the past when your MorMor has reminded me of the same thing. Also they are the second friends to visit and say you are not really crying a lot compared to what they’ve seen in other babies so I think your cousin Kai just skewed my perception.
I could cuddle with you forever, darling. You are getting bigger every day it seems. Last week Cappi sent me pictures of you standing on your own! Or rather, you holding onto something but completely supporting your weight on your legs without anyone holding onto you. That’s wild to me. Strong baby girl.
In your babysitting days with Cappi and MorMor you’ve also recently been introduced to the swing, something else I’m pretty sure you’re too small for but I guess all was well.
The day before Lin and Cara arrived, we have a visit with your Mama A and Big Sister O. We hung out at the cottage with Papa Murphy’s pizzas. I mostly ran around with O – playing yard games and going through my old beanie babies – while you spent time with Mama A. You took a nice long afternoon nap in her arms. When you woke up we went for your first hayride while you were on A’s chest in the baby carrier.
As for sleeping through the night, we haven’t quite figured out how to do that consistently. Lately, you’ve been waking and not necessarily needing to eat but needing some soothing from me (usually just hunting down your binky in the dark to put it back in your mouth) before you fall back asleep. The downside is that I rarely fall back asleep as quickly, last night I had a particularly bad path of insomnia after getting up a couple of times to soothe you to sleep in the midnight hour. I was up until you actually needed to eat a little after 4am. But we power through.
Next week, on October 1st, you’ll be starting daycare (three days a week to start, the other two you’ll be with MorMor and Cappi) and I’ll be back to work full-time. New chapter for us, darling. I’m hoping the routine will ultimately be good, but I’m dreading the adjustment. I suspect we’ll need a few weeks to settle into a new rhythm.
Love,
Mama