Dear Truett,
Saturday you turned four months old. Sigh. There are so many things I'd like to tell your father and me three months ago. Like, it does, in fact, get better. MUCH BETTER. It's true, all of it. We were in love with you from the moment you came shooting out in a haze of MY GOD THAT WAS HARDER THAN WE ANTICIPATED, but as you've grown, and as we've come to know you better, things have fallen into a rhythm of sometimes still difficult but mostly just sublime.
You roll over now with some regularity but still only from belly to back. We put you on your back and encourage you to roll over onto your belly but you just grin up at us and then I end up kissing you something like four thousand times and bam! lesson over! I think you know exactly what you are doing.
I remember talking to a friend when you were about four weeks old, a friend who had her baby three months ahead of us, and she said it gets easier partially because they begin to give back, smile, laugh, coo. At the time it just sort of seemed like some tricky and unreal promise but now? Oh my GOD NOW. You LAUGH. You laugh in that way that makes every person in the room whip around and say what is that I hear? A LAUGHING BABY? Must. walk. over. and. plaster. silly. grin. on. face. MUST NOW.
You still don't sleep through the night and I kind of dread that question from people because I dread the look on their face when I say nope! Still up a few times to nurse. To be fair, you have nights when you only wake up once and you're always back down easily but still. They look at me like, UH OH, you'd better work on that. But I don't want to. I have no desire to push you to sleep longer than you are comfortable with or frankly, to do anything before you are ready. I'll tell you why even though this is a little soul-baring. A little embarrassing.
When you were several weeks old but still teeny teeny tiny I came to this place where I felt like I couldn't stand the crying anymore. It wasn't that you were TERRIBLY fussy but we were getting so little sleep then and that newborn cry, well, it's just hard. And you lose perspective after many nights of no sleep. Plus, since you are our first we had no idea when to expect things to get easier. Or even if they would. So I prayed. I know, I know, I'm a black-hearted heathen but I do in fact talk to God sometimes. And I asked that if I couldn't figure out how to fix things for you, that I at least be given the ability to deal. It worked. For whatever reason it totally worked. I think I am remembering telling this story once before in a letter to you but this time, with honest context. That night I woke up at about three in the morning and fell in love with you like you wouldn't believe. It was as if I'd been hit by a two-ton wrecking ball of love and I was all, little baby, you can wake up as many times as you need. I don't care, I just want to savor every single second.
And it's been that way ever since. Whatever you need, whenever you need, I'm here and willing. Excited even, when you get up. Because (cue Aerosmith) I don't want to miss a thiiing.
