Saturday, November 2, 2013

Happy Seven Months: A Letter to Arlo

Dear Arlo,

You're seven months old today, and while you haven't quite figured out the crawling thing, you're always on the go. You roll, scoot, and army crawl all over the place now—and if you see something across the room that you want, you will get it. You may not take the easiest or most direct route, but you always make it to your destination eventually. I have never seen you throw in the towel, and I'm so proud of your determination.

When you aren't playing on the living room floor, you're jumping around in your jumperoo. You're such a hilarious maniac in that thing! Sometimes, you jump with such intensity that I swear you're going to go airborne. Usually, a grin is plastered on your face, but once in awhile, you're clearly on some kind of serious jumping mission, and you stare straight ahead, stone faced, and jump like nobody's business—usually hooting and hollering up a storm.

You love the sound of your own voice, and I can't really blame you. I love it, too. A couple days ago, while you shouted at the top of your lungs, I thought of the first tiny coos you made all those months ago. I remembered your daddy and me recording your sweet little "oohs," actual tears streaming down our faces—because we'd never heard a sweeter sound. Your voice was so soft then that if we'd been in another room, we wouldn't have been able to hear it. That certainly isn't the case now. You were so loud a couple weeks ago that your daddy had to go to Grammy's house to sleep before he went to work because your babbles were bouncing off every wall in the house. I smile every time I think of this.

Your daddy forgot to mention it in last month's letter, but you sprouted a bottom tooth a couple days before you turned 6 months old. There was never a change in your mood, so we didn't even realize you were teething. About 10 days later, your second front bottom tooth came in, and your ultra-rosy cheeks were the only indication that anything was going on in there. I hope you remain this unfazed by the teething process, even when your bigger teeth start to come in. I'm in no rush for that, by the way. You look adorable sporting just those two bottom teeth.

We had a nice month. October was always my favorite, but in recent years, it's become so riddled with sad milestones and memories that I've come to dread it. You breathed a breath of fresh air back into it, though. We went to a local farm to pet goats and pick out a pumpkin—and you found the pumpkins much more entertaining than the animals. We dressed you up as a fox and celebrated your first Halloween. You and I cozied up under a blanket in the evenings after your daddy went to work, staring at each other's faces and keeping each other warm. During the first half of the month, before the temperatures dropped so low, I bundled you up and took you for walks. I intentionally rolled your stroller over piles of leaves because you liked the sound of them crunching beneath us. Or maybe I did it because I liked the sound. Either way, you gave me back my October.

Love,
Mommy




2 comments:

Katy G. said...

Holy crap, how is Arlo 7 months already?! I'm totally going to cry when he hits a year old lol!

Nicole said...

Well said as always. Made me sad to think Braeden's small coos are on their way to louder noise - he is almost laughing- which I was super excited for but somewhat sad now ; ). The last line had me tearing up per usual .