On Our Way To Crazy

Dear Campbell,

I want to start this month by telling you that you are awesome. You are hysterically funny, you are the cutest thing I’ve ever seen ever, you make crazy faces and squeal with the best of them and give heart-melting smiles.

I am putting that out there first because this is my fifth attempt to sit down and write this post today. I love you, and I would carry you to the moon and back, but maybe you let me sit you down for more than five seconds at a time every now and then. Or nap for more than 20 minutes. Just a thought.

Your dad and I have become expert baby-calmers. Or we would have, anyway, if any one thing worked more than twice in a row. The current list of tricks we try to use to help you settle down is as follows:

• turn on the faucet
• look in the mirror
• look outside
• go outside
• soothing sounds giraffe
• laying flat and looking at the ceiling fan
• diaper change
• clothing change
• remove all clothing
• sing
• sing “I’m Sexy and I Know It” (‘girl look at that baby’)
• make faces
• let you suck on our fingers
• put you in the carseat and swing you around
• put you in the carseat on the dryer
• put you in the carseat and go for a drive

Any one of those things, or combination of those things, could help you settle down at any given time. The problem is there’s no way to know which one will work when, so it’s a constant guessing game. You keep us on our toes, kid.

This month has been really fun because it feels like you know us now. There’s a difference in your response to just anyone verses one of us. You follow us around the room with your eyes. You brighten up when we come into your line of vision.

You love to grab my hair and your dad’s beard. You have a ninja death grip, girl, and have pulled more than a few hairs out of our heads. I like to think you just want our faces as close to yours as possible and that you’re not actually trying to cause physical pain.

Month four is also the Month of the Feet. You didn’t know you had them before, and now you can’t get enough. You love to lay on your back and pull your feet up to your mouth, one in each hand. You regularly have all five toes on one foot in your mouth, and you like to lick the bottoms of your feet. It would be weird if it wasn’t so freaking cute.

One of my favorite things about you is how you fully feel whatever you feel. If you’re happy, it’s smiles and laughs and squeals and arms waving. When you’re hungry, it’s both hands in the mouth. When you’re gassy, it’s both legs in the air, aiming that thing at whoever is closest to you. (Sorry.) When you’re relaxed, it’s all four limbs stretched straight out and wide eyes taking everything in. When you’re mad, it’s full-scale gut-busting screams that stretch until there is literally no air left in your lungs. You are not a mellow baby. You are loud and proud, my girl.

And even though I am exhausted, I could not be happier. Life is harder, more complicated, more work than it has ever been before. It’s hard to get all of my work done in the time you are with the sitter. It’s hard to function on such fragmented sleep. It’s hard to take time every day at work and at night when all I want to do is sleep to pump milk for you.

But it is so, so worth it. You rule, baby girl.

Love,
Mama