dear monkey

 

dear monkey,

you are already two months old and this mama is loving every second, every minute, hour, day, week, month of your sweet life. as i write this to you, you are in your daddy's arms doing your "i'm hungry and tired cry". we call this the "warning cry" - the one you do right before you get really pissed. it's breathy and pathetic. it's so cute. daddy is heating up your bottle and walking around with you cozily in one of his arms. you are patiently waiting as your bottle heats up in the warmer. you are about to have your last feeding of your day and our night time routine is about to begin. daddy will feed you your (typically) one bottle of the day, we'll swaddle you up, and i will take you to our room and put you down in your little arm's reach bassinet. i love that we have a routine at night now. you've been doing so good - giving me a good 5 hours of sleep. if only i could go to bed when you go to bed, i'd get as much as you! you wake up around 5 and we do a quick feeding and you're usually super easy on me and are back in bed within 30 minutes. 

you are growing so fast. we had your two month appointment on friday and you now weigh 11 pounds, and are 24 inches long. you are in the 95th percentile for height, 25th for weight, and 70th for head. tall and skinny with a big bed. that's our boy! you had your shots and we decided to not go with their recommended schedule. we just couldn't see pumping you full of vaccines so instead of doing the 4, we only did one prick and one oral vaccine. you had a not so fun reaction later that night - swollen leg and screaming cries which lead to a frantic call to daddy and tears of my own. after a tylenol dose and some rocking, you were soon conked out and much more relaxed. i felt awful, needless to say. 

we had a fun week and obviously took a few pictures along the way! 

 

 

We recently got the full gallery of images from your birthday. jessica at one tree did put together a slide show a few weeks back, but it's obviously really personal and i wasn't quite comfortable sharing it broadly. there are some images that are just so special to me and really capture how amazing your birth was.

i love this one so much because i love seeing your daddy's hand giving me comfort and support. i love your daddy's hands in general - they are strong, and he's got great nail beds. and as far as i can tell, it looks like you lucked out in that department and got his and not mine!

 

i of course didn't see this moment when it happened, but i can imagine there were a few of them. i know how hard it is to see someone go through the kind of pain i went through during labor. i had a moment just like this with auntie's mama when she was in labor. the only people that really get it are the people that are there watching it. you just need to hug someone who gets it. i love that your gramma and auntie looked to each other for that support. 

i can remember auntie telling me in between contractions that my body looked amazing. i also remember thinking she was crazy. i felt anything but in that moment but when she said it, she was genuine and sweet and encouraging. seeing this image now, she was right. i'm amazed at how i looked in the water. as big and as bloated as i remember feeling (among other things), this image is anything but that to me. it's you and me kid, in the last few hours together like this. it's incredibly special to me. 

to me, these four images really encapsulate what it was like on the outside. as i've mentioned earlier, i rarely opened my eyes. i had really no idea what was going on around me. this was what was going on around me. i'm blessed to have such amazing people to support me. i couldn't have done it without them. you, little boy, have the most amazing people that love you.

this picture of auntie is in the slide show jessica made. it's about halfway in. it's the image that just "gets me". i can't help but cry when i see it. i don't know exactly when it was taken, but when i see it i immediately know the emotion she was feeling that day - the same emotion i described in your birth story; the same emotion i felt several times as i watched her bring ali into the world. 

this picture of daddy says "relief" to me. i know this is just when christine is telling me it's time to push. he's so happy that this part of the journey is ending and the best part is just beginning. he's about to meet you. look how excited he is!

this is another picture that just "gets me". it's how your daddy and i brought you into this world. i felt so secure and supported as we locked together like this - both physically and emotionally. i will never forget that feeling and this image will always remind me in case i ever do. 

i love this series of images. it's right when i'm meeting you for the first time. you are the most amazing thing i've ever seen. i was just so elated. i had never felt so happy in my life - happy, tired, proud, relieved, empowered, in love, honored, lucky... the list goes on and on. i was just the happiest i had ever been in my whole freaking life. plain and simple.

 

 

 

and of course i love these - when you and your daddy meet for the first time. i love seeing the way you are looking at him and how happy and proud your daddy is.

 

 

i love seeing this one - it may look like a phone with a text on it. but it's of a text from auntie lindsay who couldn't be there. seeing this reminds me that she was there - rooting me on every step of the way.

sweet boy, i think i'll probably cry every time i see these pictures because it brings back the most incredible day. you are so so so loved. thank you for every day with you and for showing us what life is really all about.

love, 

mama