i think i say this every month, but the time… is passing… so quickly. i put those elipses there just to extend time for a smidge of a second. because time with you, is priceless to me.

every day is a gift. i am learning so much about you, and i think you about me. i am amazed, often, at how you know who i am, this humbling responsibility wakes me up to the reality of my legacy in you. you are a reflection, an extension of me, and i pray sweet liam that one day you’ll know the Creator that made you in my womb, and that you will worship him with us, freely, by your choice.

five months of absolute delight is what you’ve given us. don’t get me wrong sweet liam, there have been days where we wondered if we would make it out alive. especially about two weeks ago when you refused, REFUSED to nap, so instead of staying home for you to nap, i would go on errands, and you would fall asleep in the car, and i would sit, in a parking lot, somewhere in this town just so you could nap for longer than 30 minutes. it was a trying time, one that i don’t care to relive anytime in the near future. i think they call this wonder week 19, unfortunately, we have another wonder week around the corner, oh 26, i dread you!

that whole rolling over thing at month four really revved you up in your sleep, too, so much so that we didn’t know how to get you to go to sleep… we tried… everything. but now, you’ve settled into yourself a bit, you seem like you’ve got the sleeping on your belly or on your back thing down. and now that you’re consistently sleeping through the night (hip hip hooray!) i wish i could too.

you’ve been HUNGRY like the wolf! at one point i wasn’t enough for you, which made me really, really sad, but you’ve taken back to me now that you started eating rice cereal. learning to feed you from a spoon has been fun for me, and also really messy as opposed to our previous feeding times.

you are also slightly a drool monster, we couldn’t own enough bibs! you soak through three or more a day. it’s quite impressive. niagra falls should be jealous.

our friend laura beth, let us borrow their exersaucer which you just love! a few other things that you really love are the baby bjorn, especially with daddy, road trips, pulling hair, tummy time, milk!, and grabbing mommy’s mouth, nose, or whatever you can get to.

i suspect you are only days away from starting to crawl, you’ve already been in position too many times to count.

you love the sound of my voice and crane your neck to look at me wherever i am in the room, and i just love the affirmation of love that is inside that gesture.

i love hearing the beginning of your learning of language, those little sounds you are making, i love repeating them back to you, and you back to me, i love our conversations.

we’re amazed by you little L, and how you change, grow. we love your little personality, and how you enjoy us. it’s so heart-warming.

i can’t wait for you to read these… one day.

i love you. 

love,

your momma

Is time flying? Or is it just me? Regardless, you, little bean (which I affectionately call you, along with a myriad of other names) are growing up at a rapid speed, faster than the speed of light, it does seem. You are causing my heart to grow, and the capacity by which I knew what love was. You are redefining a lot of things in life for me, which is causing some growing pains (for me & you) both. I am thankful that you have learned to stretch your sleep out at nighttime, and even naptimes.

Many things are getting better, including me as your momma getting used to you being in my life. For the longest time I would wake up in the night and remember, “oh yeah, we have a baby!” but I don’t seem to really do that anymore. I remember that it’s you, and you in all of who you are. I know you now. That’s the biggest difference of this month from the prior 3 months. I know your cries and what they mean, I know your smiles, your laughs, your snuggles. I view the hardest times as gateways into the best of times with you. I know that these little mental leaps and learning that you are doing, are leading into the next thing. Which for you this month has been pulling yourself up, supporting your head, and the biggest one, rolling over! Your rolling over had caused the most difficulty. Your daddy says it’s like a super hero with a brand new power, that he does not yet know how to control. It’s exactly that, your superpower.

I love you sweet Liam. I love all of you. I love being your momma.

love,

your momma

dear liam,

my sweet sweet smiling baby. there is so much to say, and so many things i want you to know about that happened in this 3rd month, but this is just a letter and not a novel, so i’ll try to keep it brief. you are such a sweet baby, you smile at the sound of our voices, and it just warms my heart. this month was the month that things seemed to click with you and i. from the moment you were born i knew that i loved you, but it was in this month that i really felt it.

i can’t get enough of you in fact. your daddy, can’t really either. there are times, in fact, where he’ll say, “don’t you want to just go wake up our son and watch him do tummy time?” to which i say, “no.” but in my heart i really want to see you, and cuddle with you, and watch you smile.

you dressed up as a glow worm for your first halloween, to be honest, i’ve never seen such a cute glow worm in my life.

today is thanksgiving and i must say that you dear liam have brought my heart to a whole new level of thanksgiving. i can’t even imagine loving you more than i do right now, but i am sure that you will show me how.

around 8 weeks was when we crossed our threshold with you. you are now starting to sleep longer at night, which is giving both of us better sleep, and for that we thank you. your on a little schedule now and for the most part you take fabulous naps now. we also starting swaddling you with one arm out, then both, and that’s how you are sleeping right now as i type this. you’ve started talking to us and laughing so sweetly as we tickle your belly. you are much more aware of things around you, and i think this helped calm your crying. although, don’t get me wrong, you still have your cry fits but, you seem to redeem those quickly by your smiles and little laughter.

you also hugged me for the first time this month, or what i translated into a hug with your little arms around my neck.

i love having you in my life, i’ve loved getting to know every ounce of you. thank you for coming into our lives and warming them up, and for bringing us so much joy, laughter and love. my heart is full.

i love you sweet baby liam, i can’t wait for you to read these letters, one day.

love,

your momma

We’ve made it 8 whole weeks + to get to our two month day of celebration! I honestly cannot believe that we’re here. The first month seemed to go by oh so slowly, and was so overwhelming in so many ways. But you’re a trooper, and your mom and dad have learned a ton just watching you grow. And my, how you have grown! You’re little belly extends over the diaper creating the only cute love-handles I’ve ever seen!

You’ve been busy in your 2nd month of life. You have taken trips to your grandparents in Cary, and to Charleston, South Carolina, your first time out of the state! You did amazing. Everywhere you go people seem to take to you, and you get many compliments. Just today your grandmother SuSu told me that you are “the cutest thing she’s ever seen” I’m not sure how to take that since she birthed me, but I’ll take it as a compliment, anyway! I’ll say though, I have to agree; you are stunningly cute, and oh so cuddly.

You are currently learning how to fall asleep on your own, we’ve discovered how amazingly short your wake-time really is, an hour at max, and I think you are one of those sweet babe’s that will need their sleep. You are admittedly, just like your momma in that category! Let me just tell you, you’re fighting those naps, increasingly as the day goes on – it’s okay though, we’re persevering. Lately, you’ve stopped loving falling asleep on your own at night… we’ll get there.

Oh, and on that whole sleep through the night goal, no, we’re not there yet, but you’re doing better and better, you’re making it 7 hours at a time, which a lot of books I’ve read, say 7 hours = “sleeping through the night.” But a 7 hour plus a 5 hour stretch is what you’re giving us, and it’s glorious compared to those early days. I’m getting used to waking up with you at 2am, I’ve actually come to enjoy the time with you that I get to just sit and cuddle with you while you gulp down what seems to be the only meal you’ve ever eaten in your two-month-life, each and everytime.

Your daddy and I just love you to pieces. We love your sweet smiles, and you are getting to be so vocal lately, we laugh at some of the things we think you are saying. In fact, sometimes I think you respond to me with words, maybe it’s just deliriousness, but I really thought you told me to go to Michael’s (craft store) the other day, when I gave you choices of what to do.

So ,not only in this 2nd month did you get to spend a week at your grandparents, you also somehow fetched a new wardrobe for 3 months and beyond at the carter’s outlet, I had so much fun picking out clothes for you, and I can’t wait to see you in them. In fact, it may be sooner than we would imagine because your 3 month clothes are already a little tight. That’s okay, it’s cute, and this is about the only time tight clothes get to be cute, so I say, let’s enjoy it!

Oh Liam, thanks for turning our lives upside down and back again, I’m loving every second of you.

love,

your momma

liam in the hospital, day 2 of life: photo by scott piner

oh liam, you’re here. you’re really here. out of the womb, in this ever-bright and stimulating world we live in. i’m happy you’re ours…we have sweet moments with you, cuddling with you while you sleep, seeing you stretch and your face turn all shades of red when you do. we love your little faces, your little smiles, your cute little coos.

lots of people say these moments are the best, and i guess in some ways they are. they are tiny moments. sweet moments. and some loud moments. and in all honesty, there are the hard moments, those that make me wonder where my life went, and what i did to it.

i look back at this month and remember very little about our first sleepless night together, you were so brand new. our time together started in the midst of hurricane irene, and will forever make our future children’s birth days pale in comparison. i look back at those first moments in the hospital, how amazed i was that your perfectly-little developed self was formed inside my body. such a miracle of life. i remember being amazed at your first ultrasound at you jumping and flipping all around, and oh, how you grew, how God made you, so wonderful.

you had lots of visitors in the hospital, you are so loved. you came home in the rain and winds of irene, we lost power for a good 16 hours, and i remember very little of that hurricane, or of lack of power. what i remember most was trying to feed you through the night every two hours. i remember the frustration we both experienced when it didn’t come so easy.

yesterday you cried almost the entire day and napped for less than two hours, your daddy and i realized this is the end of ourselves and the beginning of humility. i prayed hard for you before you were born, but these days, i pray even more, mostly for you to sleep, and for you to not develop colic.

you’ve peed on your daddy several times during diaper changes, and i am convinced this is where bathroom humor starts for guys. you think it’s so funny every time we talk about it.

you went to church for the first time 2 weeks ago, and oh wow, who knew they would open with bagpipes, in the loudest opener i can ever remember, but you survived, and from that moment on, i was so sure we could survive church with you.

and now, with your first month under our belts, i can say that we’re so glad you’re in our lives. your little smiles make it all so worth it. i know one day, in the not- so- distant future, you’ll think we’re lame, you’ll wonder why it was your lot in life to have dorks for parents, and we’ll smile and remember when we held you in our arms and you cooed in your sleep.

there is so much you have yet to experience, next week we’ll travel to cary to spend time with your grandparents. your first roadtrip! then we’ll go to the mountains in october (your second road trip), perhaps if only to see the leaves change and to eat really good food (which, you, too will get to experience, but in milk form).

we love you sweet liam, we are so glad you’re here. but please, please, let’s make it a goal to sleep through the night for this next month.

love,

your momma

I can’t wait to meet you. Today I am more excited than yesterday and I have a feeling it will progress like this until your sweet little arrival. I can’t wait to see what you look like, what your little personality will shape into, and how you will grow. I’m so thrilled I get to be your momma and experience your first breath of life in this world.

this is when we first saw you

I can’t wait to share you with others, to see friends and family surround you with love, as they already have! You should see all of the goodies in your room, just for you! You also have 3 piggie banks, don’t worry, we’ll walk you through that when the time comes.

Your daddy and I pray for you daily, and thank God for how He has formed you inside of me these past 39 weeks. I can’t wait to finally reveal your name that we’ve kept a secret for quite awhile now! People are so curious!

Your grandparents are excited to welcome the first grandbaby on both sides into the family! Your aunts and uncles are giddy, too! You will be a little celebrity, I think.

I am nervous about being your momma in some ways because I have never ever done it before. Thankfully, I was raised by wonderful parents who have taught me unconditional love and have great friends around me who have lots of experience in raising little ones, and I’m so glad.

You will be here soon sweet baby. Your daddy and I can’t wait to meet you.

love,

your Momma