May 22, 2011

Dear Lulu:

You were eight weeks old yesterday. Your dad and I celebrated with a photo shoot. We're trying to take nice quality pics of you on our big, expensive camera every month, so that we can look back and see how you've changed. You were a total boomah and cried and screamed for almost the entire time, and yet if you look at the pictures you look so happy! How does that happen?

We're slowly falling into a routine with you. Our days go something like this: your dad gets up around 9 to start work. You and I get up anywhere from 9 to 11. We like sleeping late! I breastfeed you (we're currently having trouble breastfeeding because of your NICU time. You just won't open your mouth wide enough, kid--why? WHY?) After you've eaten, I put you in your swing and clean up a little around the house, wash bottle parts, your clothes, your diapers. Then comes tummy time on your play mat. You like to lay on your back and bat at the toys. When one hits your hand or foot, though, you cry. I think it scares you? Either way, it's tragically adorbs.

When we put you on your back, you can lift your head up to 45 degrees and you are trying so hard to roll over. You get so frustrated that you can't manage it and you cry. You're like me in that respect: you want so badly to do something and when you can't, it's upsetting. You don't like limitations, baby girl, and neither do I.

After tummy time, I bathe you if you need it. (You usually do.) You've started taking baths in the kitchen sink on a soft blue pad and you like it even better than the old plastic bathtub. I dress you--you're finally wearing 0-3 month clothes, which is the bulk of your wardrobe, since that's what everyone bought for you at your baby shower.

If I have to run errands, I put you in your crib in your room so Dad can watch you while he's working. (You're such a lucky girl, to have your Dad be able to work at home and experience so much of this time in your life. He's lucky, too.) I come home and hold you and read to you or sing to you for a while. We feed you throughout the day, and then again right before bed. Night time is your active time, and so we have to swaddle you before we put you in your crib. It makes you go right to sleep, and that way, we can sleep, too. Daddy gets up with you in the night, usually around 4 AM. It's nice of him! I sure do appreciate it. Then he puts you down, and we do it all over again.

You eat all the time, you're going through a growth spurt, and when I can't get the bottle to you fast enough, Lu, I offer you your paci, or I put my finger to your mouth for you to suck on, and you always look so betrayed when you discover it's NOT A BOOB! And then you howl from sadness. You've had reflux pretty badly, and were put on this foul peppermint-tasting medicine to help you with it and it does, mostly, but you still have some episodes. When you gag and cry it hurts my heart. I wish they could give me disgusting peppermint medicine for that.

You've been going out on the town, lately, and meeting a lot of folks. You've had so many visitors. Mammaw and Granddaddy and Aunt Cathy and Aunt Liz and Caitlin. You've been to see Grandma and Grandpa Verdier. Aunt Kristen. Uncle Patrick came to visit you, and a lot of our other friends, who are becoming your friends, too.

Kid, you have been to so many sushi restaurants I think you might grow up speaking Japanese. You are such a good baby when we're out--I see other crying babies and I am so proud that you're not one of them. Yesterday we took you to Target and your eyes almost popped out of your head, you were so fascinated with everything going on around you. Even though it was loud and bright, you still didn't cry. Today we took you to the farmer's market. Last week you went with me to H&M--our first mother-daughter shopping trip.

And then there was Mother's Day! You and Dad got me a pair of beautiful sparkly agate earrings and an orchid, and we went out for sushi. (Again.) We took some of my favorite photographs that day: me standing out on the sidewalk holding you up by my face. You felt so big to me and your dad, but everyone who saw the pictures commented on what a tiny little thing you were.

You've also been back to the NICU, only as a visitor this time, not a patient. A few weeks ago, we stopped by to drop a letter and pictures off with the nurses who took care of you. We saw Ingrid, our favorite nurse, and she was so happy to see how big you'd gotten. We gave her the letter and pictures--of you in the hospital and of you at one month old--and told her how we named your sleep sheep after her. I have so many sad, anxious memories of your time in the NICU, but I also have happy ones, too. I can't forget it was the place where I first held you and changed your diaper and fell in love with you. Though, yeah: it did make a big difference to be able to take you home with us when we left. I can't believe there were so many nights when I had to leave without you. I still, eight weeks on, don't know how we survived that.

Your cat Malcolm likes to hang out by the mat when you're on it, and stretch out long and lean. None of the cats ever go on the mat, though, which is odd. I thought they'd be all about it and its nefarious crinkly sounds and hanging objects.

I like to sing to you a lot, Lulu. Right now, we're really into Scottish songs. The Skye Boat Song, Coulter's Candy, McLean's Welcome, and the song from the movie Darby O'Gill and the Little People, which is Irish, but that's almost exactly like Scottish, so I am counting it. (Don't tell any Scottish or Irish people I said that, though, they wouldn't like it). There's also Tammy, Tammy's in love, and Fais Do-Do and Ain't Misbehavin', which is mine and you and Daddy's special song that we sang to you every night in the hospital. We sing Rubber Duckie and Rule Britannia to you when you're in the bath. You like music--you especially like to listen to classical stuff in your swing. And I am not a delusional new mother making this up--you really do like it. You seem happy when it's on, you sleep better.

Dad and I switched to cloth diapers when you hit ten pounds. We were a little sad to see the disposables go, but it's going pretty well so far, actually, though we fear what will happen when you start eating solids. You cry now when your diaper is wet, and before you didn't--I don't think the planet-ruining diapers allowed you to feel wetness. Their terrible chemical makeup burned it up or something.

I hope you won't have issues later if I tell you this, but you are SO FAT, Lu. SO fat. I love it so much. You have a fat belly and wrist bracelets of fat and you appear to have no neck because it is all eaten up by your fat chins. When I think of how skinny and feeble you were when you were born... A baby SHOULD be fat. I like to tuck my nose in your neck and breathe the smell of you. I luxuriate in your fat. Besides that, I think you just might be the prettiest baby ever in the world.

I love your face, your emerging eyelashes, and your new eyebrows, which are finally growing in. You got Dad's long, long eyelashes (I hope you don't get his eyebrows. They are a little intense.)

Your dad and I have been watching lots of Dexter in the evenings while you sleep in your swing. I worry about its effect on your subconscious. I hope you won't turn out to be a serial killer because of us. (But even if you are, I'll still love you. And I'll help you hide the bodies.)

Lots of love, little girl,

Mommy