Dear Rooney :: 8 Months

Oh, my dear Rooney-baby.

This month has been a big one for me, as your mom. I've cut back hours at work to spend more time with you. It has required lots of change - new routines and schedules and people. We did it all for you - but you've had to adapt, too. Your every single day is different now. You have a new day care (at which I'm hoping you will learn to sleep very soon!), and a full day at home with your mama. Wednesdays are our favorite. At least, they're mine.

Most days you come to work with me, and I talk to you as I drop you off, and plead with you to nap when I visit midday, and pick you up after the day is done, and buckle you in so I can drive you home to see daddy. We're rarely in different places, me and you. As a result, you've become so much more a part of me. Someone I've made sacrifices for and designed my life around.

Your personality is coming out more and more these days. I see a lot of myself in you, Roo. Your brown eyes. Your high pain tolerance. The fact that you don't like it when your hands are dirty. That you don't always adapt to change without a lengthy adjustment period. That you only show outward emotion when you're really happy or really sad. That you often verbalize your feelings in sighs and grunts and shrieks. That sometimes you just like to be alone. That you sleep A LOT and wake up slowly. And that you're not much fun to be around when you're tired. It's convicting when I see parts of myself in you that I don't particularly consider strengths, but I feel confident that I know exactly how you feel and how you'd want me to react.

I've grown so much in the past month. You've stretched me, Roo. There's something you'll learn about me, for sure. It's that I love really hard. When I care about something, I care so much it hurts. And boy, am I falling for you - the one who made me a mom.

xoxo, Mom

photo by Mandy Miller