Dear Radley - Month 6 & 7

I am truly sorry for how long this blog has been neglected pretty much since sometime in November. We have been travelling to Texas where I was convinced I would find time to blog with the boundless energy I'd have after traveling alone with a toddler and a baby across the country. Hahahaha. I crack myself up. That so did not happen. We are headed out again soon and my intentions are good, but I make no promises. I look forward to getting caught up soon.

Dear Radley,

It might not come as a surprise to anyone noticing the total lack of posting on this blog that most of December and January sort of ran all over me and got mostly out the door before I could collect any cohesive thoughts about them. I knew it was going to be busy, but still, here I sit on January 29, shocked that the last 2.5 months are over. I cannot even begin to cover everything you have done and how you have grown, but I can cover the highlights and post some super-cute baby photos of you so that hopefully you won't notice.

Here you are being cute with a glowball...

And cute in your car seat...

And well, just being so darn cute...

I just have to surrender and declare that I somehow managed to completely miss writing your 6 month letter. I am not proud of that fact, but I am somewhat comforted by the fact that you cannot yet count and that by the time you read this and realize I totally and completely skipped a month, I will be humiliating you in more fun and different ways that will make this seem like a minor faux pas. I hope you will forgive me. So on with the highlights...

First, lets start here....These are your toes. And I love to eat them up...

We took our first middle-of-the-night hospital-wait-for-3-hours-in-emergency trip for a pesky ear infection... this was soooo the opposite of fun.

You took a trip into a Walmart and rode for the first time in the basket instead of your car seat.

You experienced your first snow

You had your first pizza

And your first Christmas at your Aunt Jen's

Your opinion on Christmas was this::::

Way back when I last blogged to you, you were still a "laying-on-your-back" kind of baby and now you are an "army-crawling-on-the-go" baby. In the last 2 months you have succeeded in both sitting up solidly and an early crawl. And if I put this letter off much longer, you would be a full fledged crawler....so for now we will call it "almost". Though I predict within a week or two you will be "real" crawling. .

If I ever have a second to think about it, I can hardly believe you are seven months old already. It has gone by so quickly...it feels as if we just got home from the hospital a couple of weeks ago. But I know that it is true...and oh how I cherish every fleeting moment with you

Probably your most adorable and note-worthy characteristic is that you continue to smile all. the. time. And. at. everyone. This made traveling with you most interesting and made for so many more of those "conversations with total strangers" that I have blogged about previously with your brother. As soon as we were seated on any of our flights you really started to show off this skill. You would stand on my lap and put your arms up in the air and squeal and smile and anyone and everyone within a 10 row radius. And of course they all encouraged you by smiling back as you waved your arms around squealling like a miniature voodoo master, so I would turn you around so they could have a break from your spell and you promptly started drawing the attention of the people in the rows in front of us. This is cute, but exhausting when what I really want you to do is sleep.

You did do some sleeping too.

You still don't have any teeth...but are drooling and chewing on everything, so I know they are in there somewhere. Fortunately it does not seem to be causing you much discomfort, so that is a very good thing.

Probably the thing you are most excited about over the past couple of months is food! and your favorite method is feeding yourself! Somewhere around Christmas, you started eating and have embraced this with much gusto and experimentation of all sorts of foods. Like your brother you are starting mostly with real foods and some occasional oatmeal or prunes.

You are sleeping 8- 10 hours at a stretch and for that I am grateful. I will definitely keep that in mind when we have your next salary re-negotiations. But even more than the falling asleep is how you wake up. Not with a scream or crying, but happy and playing in your crib welcoming the day with your baby babble and squeals. And when I walk into your room you break out into the most ecstatic squeals and giggles and smiles. And every day, I swoop you up, cover your precious face in kisses and know that today is going to be a great day.

Probably my favorite thing to do with you at the end of each day after your brother has gone to bed for the night is snuggle you to sleep. You love to be tucked up under my chin into my neck and you sigh and relax, sometimes I sing you a little song and in moments you are out. And there we sit in the silent darkness and I count my many blessings of which you are at the top of that list. And someday, like your brother, you will have much more important things to do than snuggle up into mommy to sleep and oh how I will miss that.

I love you,
Mommy