Happy Half-Birthday, Dear Charlotte

Oh my sweet baby Charlotte, I don't know where to start. 

I want to write you this letter, want to mark the exact center of your first year of life, want to capture this moment in your (fleeting! super duper fleeting!) infancy. 

Yet. Also. I have been delaying writing this letter. I know the calendar says you're six months old, half a year, closer to toddlerhood than newborn freshness.  I think I know that it's true, but I don't think I'm ready to believe it.

Because here's the thing, baby girl.  This infancy thing, it only happens once.  It goes by way too fast, and we mommies and daddies never seem to appreciate it enough.  And that's in the best of situations (which this... well, yeah, hasn't been). For everything good and wonderful your presence in this family has brought, the last six months have also been really hard for me. One crazy chaotic spell after another. It's not how I would have planned or chosen to spend your infancy. And that makes me feel something like sad, when I want to feel something like excited. I'm sorry for that, Charlotte. So sorry.

While I rejoice in you, as the brightest spot in my world many days -- most days, actually -- I am also a bit brokenhearted that so much of your babyhood has flown by in this weird and difficult daze. I'm so sorry, baby. I'm sorry that I'll always have to remember your first months alongside memories of my own mental health being... what it's been.

But know this: as fast and furious and chaotic as things are, the part about you being in our family has been wonderful. Beautifully uncomplicated.  Which means there are some amazing bright spots I am clinging to.

Things like your smile. Your fuzzy head. Those looong lashes framing your wide bright eyes.

Your squeaks and squeals. Your giggles. (It's music.)

Your always-open, drool-drippy mouth, showing off so many buds of teeth.  You have three. Three! Who has three teeth at only six months?  No one, that's who. Not that I'm calling you a freak or anything.  Ahem.

Your fingers curled around mind while you nurse.

Your slow chin-tucked smile when you register that someone you love has entered the room.

Your whispered gibberish, as if you have some beautiful nonsensical secret you're trying to tell me.

Your feet -- kicky when you're happy, pushed into my tummy when you're cold, and forever and always in your mouth.

Oh yeah, and your love of gnawing on anything and everything. You haven't eaten any real foods yet, but let the record show that your first solids were grocery lists and church bulletins. Yum.

Your right thumb, always in your mouth while you sleep.

Your amazing flexible disposition. God knew our family needed a nonchalant go-with-the-flow soul to counterbalance the rest of us. Shockingly (considering your colicky start, being angry at the world) you are suddenly that easy spirit. Who knew. God is weird and wonderful. (True story.)

Charlotte, no matter how crazy I get or how crazy life gets, there is not a day or an hour or a minute that goes by when I don't feel thankful -- staggeringly blessed -- that you're my daughter. 

You are the baby I longed for, when I knew what it meant to long for a baby. 

You're the glimpse of light in my hardest days, and the best joy in my good ones.

I love you, fiercely and protectively and zealously and forever.

Happy half-birthday, Squeaky C. The first of many, and it only gets better.

Love,
Mommy