Dear Radley - Month One

Dear Radley,

So it makes one short month since we welcomed you into our world and you blessed our special little family with your sweet spirit. I am finally feeling like I am close to having coherent thoughts as both of us have come quite a ways in the last 4 weeks or so and have finally left the couch and the comfort of pajamas, though both served their purpose for our recovery.

I am simply astounded that I could be so lucky as to have 2 wonderful well behaved babies as I watch you in the wee hours of the morning. As of this day, your one month birthday, you spend each day doing one of 4 things:

1. Sleeping & Eating - which you do 90% of any day
2. Observing - which you do about 7% of any day
3. Crying - about 3% of a day...usually just before you take a big poop or have gas
4. Pooping - usually a once a day event.

I do not know how I got so lucky to have such a good sleeper, but can I just say Thank You! As you sleep your day away, I look at your little man hands and your long body and just marvel in who you are and who you may be and I know that these moments will be gone so fast that I file them away consciously in my memory to hold onto forever. I can hardly believe you are here already and that it has already been a month. I can tell your first year I going to seem much faster than Maverick's and I just want to remember it all.

You are so good for your momma's soul and restoring my faith in what can be. To be completely honest, I wondered my whole pregnancy how I could ever love you as much as I loved your big brother. Ok...I knew I could love you...it just seemed completely impossible to me how that would work. And here you are...and oh how I love you. It is true that love multiplies...there is always room for more. You and your brother make me want to get up each day and fill it with as much beauty and joy that I can in the world so you both know what is possible in the world.

But getting back to your arrival here with us...You were SOOOO big at 10lbs 4oz and 22 inches...that I could not imagine having to continue the pregnancy for another 2 weeks to your due date, though a 4th of July birthday would have made for some great parties. Thank goodness some of the doctors finally agreed with me and we got a special front of the line delivery pass to your special day of June 23, 2009.

Your arrival was marked with an extended hospital stay for me, much drama and much airline reservation changing for your Aunt Jen and Cousins, a good bit of health drama, testing and results and finally an unexpected C-Section that has been quite a challenge for me to recover from. OUCH! However, so much like with Maverick, I can remember vividly...even under heavy sedation...the sensation of you leaving my body as you were pulled into this world. It is a moment that I will never forget. I also will not forget the cacophony of voices as your entered this world about your size! You were one BIG baby and the exclamations in the operating room were very funny as they all got their first glimpse of all 10 pounds plus of you!

They took you away to the NICU pretty quickly and me to recovery, so I did not get to see you for several hours, which was hard, but I knew you were well taken care of by your Aunt Jen and we would be together soon. And we were...and it was grand. You were a champ and got cut loose from NICU much sooner than I did. I was so happy that your stay there was short!

Now we are all home together, it is so fun to learn about you. I really enjoy figuring out your little quirks and nuances that make you, you. The most significant thing about you to date is that you like to be held a lot and you like your sleep. You do not like to sleep alone at all however, which makes things challenging, but you do sleep a lot which is a bonus! I have learned to celebrate the sleepy times and not wish them away like I did with Maverick as I know your awake times will come soon enough. However this sleep thing definitely gives me a challenge when it is time to get you to wake up enough to eat. I am considering giving you baths more since they seem to make you more alert (aka ticked off!). You see, much of my life right now is spent trying to get you to wake up enough to eat a full meal. Many times I can spend up to 15 minutes undressing you, jostling you, tickling you, putting cold water on you, and basically doing everything short of hanging you upside down by your toes to get you to wake up, all to no avail. Here you are snoozing away

and here you are yawning & stretching just to emphasize how uninterested in eating you were. I think you are mocking me when you do that.

Here is another picture of you after I had just changed your clothes and you are doing the squinched up heartbreak and anguish face to show me how unhappy you are about that parental decision. I think you have the pouty lip thing down alarmingly well for an infant. I think I am going to be in trouble when you get older an want a puppy.

And lastly, I confess, that I have succumbed to the lure of the pacifier yet again. You, unlike your brother, are a sucker! And although I do not necessarily think that you are interested in actually eating, you do appear to enjoy having something in your mouth. And though I am fairly certain you would prefer me as a human pacifier, you and I are reaching an understanding that at times, the paci is just going to have to do. Plus it is entertaining to me that it is so big next to your tiny baby face.

Your umbilical cord has gone and you are gaining and thriving every day finally returning as of this morning to your birth weight. I look at you and wonder how you ever fit inside me...unthinkable really.

Now Radley, when your brother was born I could not wait for him to get older so we could play and interact more. Now, with you I find myself wanting you to slow down so I can savor each and every newborn moment. How is it one month already? I love every single day of your tiny newness and learning who you will be. I get excited as I see your big brother grow into an individual with likes an dislikes, opinions and his own sense of humor and I am so excited to see that develop in you too but for now, I just am fascinated by your newness and the blessing you are in my life.

Maverick made me a mother. You, Radley, make us a special little family and I love you so very very much.

Love,
Mommy