two months//dear maddox

dear maddox,

today you are [already] two months old. even though i still feel like you were just born, i woke up the other day and realized may was half over (and now almost over). which means this year is almost half over. which means time doesn't slow down even one tick when you have kids. weren't we just sitting in our friend's apartment ringing in the new year? you were about twenty six weeks, just developing your hearing so you could listen to us talk. and now may is almost over. you sure change time, kid.

you have changed so much right before our eyes. not only are you bigger (but we don't really see that. until we sit with a week old baby at church and realize just how big and how you aren't a newborn anymore) but you look different, too. you're not our tan little grumpy baby anymore. all your jaundice is gone which makes you the color of a normal human being and not snooki. your face is developing features and that newborn look is gone. you look like a baby now but i still call you a newborn, especially if i'm ranting and raving about something (smokers, most likely. mama's gotta protect those newborn lungs!).

your newest thing is talking. you talk SO much. i wonder where you get that from? ;] you make noises all day long and we just talk back to you and you babble your sweet little coos and squeaks back to us.

you also have started making tears when you cry. oh man, that breaks my heart. i laid you down for two seconds to change some laundry and when i turned around your eyes were filled with tears and i promise i will never lay you down again if you promise to not make any more tears.

you LOVE sitting up. AND standing. we lay in bed with our legs propped up and lean you against them. you talk and kick and dive bomb to the side and we laugh and tickle you and lose hours and hours this way. and standing, oh man. i think you're going to be the earliest walker this world has ever seen. we hold you under your arms and you stand and bounce and "take steps" with your right foot (pick it up and put it down, pick it up and put it down) and you smile the entire time.


and we cannot forget about smiling. smiling's your favorite. that first smile the day before my birthday was only the beginning. you smile all day long especially when we're talking to you and when we say "hi." you have the best smile and i know i'm biased but it's more than just mommy brag. it's real life. it's especially adorable because you have one lone dimple, just like your mama. it melts me.

we've got this nursing thing down pat. i lay in bed and nurse you and we cuddle. it's your favorite way to be nursed and mine too because it requires zero effort at 3 am. thank you for being such a good feeder. you are your father's son. i'm afraid you might not even remember how to nurse any other way which might prove to be a problem when your parents are idiots and pack everything including the kitchen sink into your diaper bag and somehow manage to leave your bottle on the counter. not that that has happened multiple times or anything. i think you should tell your daddy that i could remember the bottle if i had a prettier diaper bag. i think that's the problem.

you're happiest right after you've been fed. which, by the way, happens about every 3-4 hours if i'm lucky. you were going a little more than four hours right after your one month birthday and then you decided to have a growth spurt and went all the way down to two hours. you go a little longer at night and we basically feed you only once in the middle of the night, usually around 4 am. you eat again between 6-8 and after i keep you in bed with me and we sleep. don't tell your doctor. we always wake up to your daddy coming home from the gym and sneaking a picture of us and then the three of us spend some time cuddling before it's time to get up and get on with the day.

EXCEPT. except, sweet boy, last night, on the eve of your two month birthday, you slept from 11 to 6. ELEVEN TO SIX! this isn't the first time you've slept through the night, though. the first time was at seven weeks. just one little teasing of what life used to be like, way back when (way back when i wasn't pregnant because sleeping when pregnant is not a real thing) and then you were promptly back to waking up every 4-5 hours or so. but that was a good two month birthday present to us. you eased the pain of your growing up by letting us get a full night's rest. so thank you for that.

at seven weeks i quit my job so that i could stay home with you. oh, how i love spending my days with you. and just last week your daddy officially got hired at church to be a part of the college ministry and we are so proud of him! we. you don't have a choice. i make all decisions on your behalf. anyway. i get to stay home and raise you. the day after i quit my job, one of our favorite people on the planet said to me, "God will honor that and bless you immensely." so i know that was the right decision. also because the amount of time that i've been away from you in two months is three hours. three hours.

at some point you lost almost all the hair on the top of your head. it didn't fall out, it was just gone. it's back now, and growing fast. you never lost the hair on the back of your head though, and so you sort of have a baby mullet going on. 

this week one of your daddy's coworkers lost her daughter in a super tragic accident. i held you a lot tighter that day and cried a lot of tears as i rocked you and prayed for your safety and your days and my heart because when people say that a child is a mama's heart walking around outside her body, it is true. and so you're going to get a lot more kisses and extra tight hugs and that's just how it's going to be.

as for me, i no longer feel (as) guilty putting you in your bed to sleep. by bed, i mean anything but your crib. you aren't a fan of laying flat on your back. which yes, that means you're still in our room, next to our bed, in the rock and play. the night before you were born, your daddy was setting up the monitor and these were his exact words, "i want him sleeping in his crib on night two. night one he can be in our room but i don't want this to turn into months and months and months in our room." HA HA HA HA. we laugh about that a lot.

it's kind of hard to comprehend how things will be when you have this new life to take care of. i keep you in our room so that i can listen to you breathe. so that i wake up the moment you do. so that you're near me if something happens. so i'm near you if you need me. but i know i'm going to have to wean you (and me) of that soon. even though a) that doesn't sound fun, and b) i don't want to.

you make me super nervous when you sleep because you're a burrower. we swaddle you and you somehow tuck your face under the blanket, and sometimes your whole head. the first time i woke up and peeked into your rock and play only to see your face smashed into the blanket, i died for about three seconds while i ripped the covers off your body to check your breathing. now i carefully make a little extra room in your cocoon for your little burrowing face.

you just keep getting better, maddox. you were so much fun when you were a squishy new born who loved to sleep skin to skin as much as possible. and now you smile and are developing a personality and recognize our voices and our faces. you're so smart and you're insanely strong. you are so much fun to be around and we are so proud to call ourselves your mama and daddy.


i love you,
mama