Dear Miles,

I’m still on a high over the fact that you only woke up once last night.  If I currently weren’t sick as a dog, I would probably be doing cartwheels right here in the living room as I type this.  I will settle for a vocal woohoo in to my Kleenex.  This past week, I found myself in tears at the 5am feeding.  You were waking up every 2 hours and this has been going on for at least a couple months.  There seemed to be no end in sight.  I was changing your nap schedule, adding solids, adjusting the temperature in the room, breathing in to my pillow while I slept so not to disturb you.  I had finally had enough.  It was time to move you out of our room and in to your own room.  You will eventually be sleeping with Liv but if you think we’re loud, you will no doubt think your sister is loud.  Seriously, your sister is the garbage truck Friday morning.  Moving you in to another room seemed to do the trick – fingers crossed.  I still remain a skeptic.  This all seems to be a little too easy if you catch my drift since nothing with you is that easy. 

You are perfecting your grasping skills by grabbing anything that is within 6 inches of your face including the very sensitive skin on my neck.  Now, as your Father knows, I’m terrified of ageing.  One of the reasons I’m terrified of ageing is because I fear I will develop one of those turkey gobbler necks that you see frequently on elderly people.  If you are not familiar with the turkey gobbler neck, it is the extra skin that hangs loosely off the front and sways back and forth as the recipient talks or moves.  You of course go right for the death grasp on this delicate neck skin and pull.  Every time I pick you up, you go for my neck.  I repeatedly have to remove your hand from my throat and every time you do this, I visualize the horror that is the turkey gobbler.  I think some extreme measures need to be taken either in the form of me wearing turtlenecks year round or you wearing zip-tie handcuffs.  I’m a little claustrophobic with turtlenecks so guess where that leaves us??  I can promise you one thing – if I develop a turkey gobbler, I will withdrawal every last cent in your college savings to fund my neck rejuvenation surgery. 

I receive a weekly newsletter from an all-things-baby website that gives me rough developmental milestones you should be or are close to achieving.  These updates act as a reminder to me that I don’t work with you enough.  Case in point, the most recent update I received discussed how you might be able to now pull yourself up in to a sitting position from lying on the floor.  Well, being that you spend 75% of your waking hours in your bouncy chair and the other 25% in my arms, I don’t foresee this happening anytime soon.  Then the realization sets in that maybe I’m not giving you enough time to learn these things.  When it was just Liv, it was all about her and she was achieving these milestones quickly because my day was spent interacting with her and just her.  Your sister is still rather a strong force that requires a great deal of my time so I feel sometimes you get a little short-changed.  I’m telling you, you will need to be a brut when it comes to sharing time with your sister or sharing anything else with her for that matter.  Your sister is a stubborn mule who is smart and sneaky.  You have your work cut out for you if you’re going to survive because she is a tank and a half.  She walks in to walls like it’s nothing.  She will steal your attention from me with no guilt and you will still be sitting in your bouncy chair hungry and sad.

You’re approaching the age that I love the most – the age where you can sit unsupported, can’t crawl and can’t talk.  A generally happy baby if there is a sufficient supply of toys around you.  At least I’m hoping this time is as enjoyable as I remember.  If I have learned anything it is that the saying is true, that no 2 kids are identical.  I’m discovering you and Olivia are night and day.  I can generally count on the fact that what ever worked with Liv will not work with you.  This has become my parenting mantra – do the exact opposite of what I did before. 

You continue to have a whole slew of quirks including being sensitive to every food I give you except pears, the ability to spit up every where except the burp cloth that is a half inch away from your face.  How you are capable of doing this, I will never know.  You spit up anytime you stand, sit or just plain be.  Your face lights up anytime Olivia says hello to you and it’s nearly enough to make any living person’s heart melt.  You remind me a great deal of my late Grandfather.  My Grandpa had a very recognizable sneeze – it was a very boisterous sound that made all his table lamps turn on – the lamps actually had the Clapper installed on them but shockingly, my Grandfather’s sneeze had a decibel high enough to mimic a clap.  You produce such a husky little sneeze for such a little person that it always makes me giggle a little bit.  You’re adorable with a milk mustache and you have made me believe that maybe Oedipus wasn’t such a horrible person.  I’m not saying I want to marry you but I can understand where the guy was coming from . . . maybe.

I find myself being much more protective over you than I was with Liv.  You appear so much more fragile than Liv ever was and this has triggered some major protective instinct in me.  You’re doomed because nobody will ever be good enough for you because of this protective nature.  Although, if you can find someone who can deal with half the crap you deal me, I might give that person a slight nod of approval.  Just the thought makes me a little weepy so I retract that last statement.

Love,

Momma