Emerson,

When you were first born, it took quite a while until the days started to blur together. As you grew and grew it was suddenly no longer days that blended together, but weeks. And then to my surprise, months. So here we are again another month older, another month taller, another month smarter.

One thing that remains constant is the pure joy of watching you discover the world. Watching your personality develop. Watching you digest the information around you, and filing it all away in your ever growing brain.

At ten months old you’ve begun walking more and more. You grow more confident in your steps every day. You are squatting like a pro, and you still like to steal the dog’s toys. You feel very passionate about us leaving the room, and you enjoy clinging to a pant leg while we’re trying to make lunch, or make you a bottle.

Window watching is still a favorite and we’ve begun to explore the outdoors with the warmer spring weather. You’ve begun to finally babble, and while your sounds are limited, their cuteness knows no bounds.

This month, you’ve also started signing back to us! You will vaguely sign, “all done,” when you’re through eating. You throw both little hands up and break out in a goofy grin as if to say, “look Mom! I know what this means, aren’t you proud of me!?” to which the answer is always yes.

Your nighttime sleep has been interrupted by what we are assuming are your top teeth coming through. You’ve been a tad crankier, restless and have sprung light fevers the last week or so. Luckily I’ve also taught you how to “snuggle” on command. Naps and nighttime are so much more cuddly now. After story and formula milk, we “snuggle,” where you’ll smoosh your face deep into my shoulder usually making a soft “hmmm” sound.

This month you’ve developed a love of rough housing. One of your favorite games is being “pushed” over. It’s especially funny to you when we play “push the baby” on the big squishy bed. Hilarity and giggling fits usually ensue.

Your fine hair is getting even longer. It now hangs right in your eyes. We try to keep a bow or headband on to control the crazy do. Just recently we’ve begun putting in little ‘whale spouts,’ or ‘unicorn horns,’ as your Daddy would say.

As always we look forward to the next month, bringing you closer and closer to your first birthday. My little ladybug, you are growing so quickly before my eyes. I already feel like I’ve forgotten how tiny your body used to be in my arms. Don’t grow up too quickly now.

Love,
Your Momma
  

Yesterday our Mayor declared a “State of Emergency.” Yesterday, the National Guard was called in. Yesterday fires were started, windows and cars smashed. Buildings destroyed and looted. Loved ones were hurt, and community leaders rose up for peace. To all our family and friends, we wanted to let you know that we are safe. We tucked our little baby into her bed, and played classical music to dull the helicopters, sirens and our own trepidation. We have heavy hearts, but we’re safe.

Yesterday the city was filled with sadness, pain, and anger. A family had to say goodbye and bury their son, and a community was hurting. I can’t even begin to imagine the emotions they needed to process. I can’t even begin to imagine the hurt, pain, and suffering these people have gone through. My heart was heavy hearing the updates yesterday. Peaceful protests, turned riots. Children with so much hurt, so much anger, that they felt it necessary to cause more pain, chaos and suffering because they felt it was the only way to be heard.Yes, my heart was indeed heavy.

It aches knowing all of those young men and women -those adolescents- they were babies once. Much like the little girl I snuggle every night, they were babies once. They have mothers. Like all mothers, we want better for our children. We don’t want to see them struggle, we don’t want them to feel pain, suffering and live in a world of hate. We want a better world for them than we had for ourselves.

I can only believe it starts with our children. All children. We have a duty to them, to teach them what is good and what is right. We have a duty to instill hope in a seemingly hopeless situation. We need to fill them with kindness until they burst. We need them to learn empathy, and compassion for those different than ourselves. To see people instead of race, optimism in place of pessimism, and to love instead of hate. As adults, it starts with us. We need to strive to be better for our children, so this world becomes a better place. It starts with us, and it starts with our children. It starts with our babies for they are our future. In the words of a great man:

Yes, my heart is heavy for the mothers of those children. My heart is heavy for those families in the communities affected. My heart is heavy for the place my child calls her home. Our home. My heart is heavy indeed.

Sometimes you just can’t remember to bring the camera everywhere, or a moment pops up where the closest way to capture a moment is with your phone. It’s hard these days to get a decent phone picture of Emmie, as she is constantly on the move. Never the less, I find these blurry, motion heavy photos to be a sweet reminder of how hectic our life truly can be.

Spring has finally sprung! Yellow daffodils have opened their cheery little faces, and colorful purple crocuses are speckling the green lawns! The air smells sweet and the wind is warm. Yes, spring is here.

We took advantage of one of these lovely sun filled spring days by taking Emerson and her Grammy to the park. We went on a nice stroller ride/walk and then decided to let Emma try the baby swing for the first time.

At first she was indifferent, concentrating too much on the other kids in the playground and working hard to process all the different sounds and sights that were occurring. But when Grammy tried to grab her hands she really got into it, letting out big belly laughs.

!

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A while back I had posted about Emerson and Oliver’s relationship. It’s still growing and blossoming. It’s quite amazing to watch the bond between these two develop. At this stage, they’re best buds, but mainly because they like all the same things.

Favorite activities of both dog and child include, but are not limited to, staring out the window, staring out the front door, chewing on dog toys, chasing after balls, getting into the bathroom trash and crawling under the kitchen table.

They make quite the pair. We can already tell these two are going to be trouble. Sometimes we catch Emmie sneaking pieces of her breakfast, lunch and even dinner over the side to a waiting, salivating Oliver.

There’s certainly nothing like seeing Emerson get so excited when Oliver jumps up onto the couch to window watch with her. Or when Oliver does his classic, “drive by kiss,” and Emerson turns her head and puts her hands up. Although, yesterday she accepted kisses open mouth and all. Blegh.

Oliver takes it all in stride. His fur has been pulled, his paws have been “eaten”, his toys have been stolen and he’s literally been crawled over… and he offers her nothing but love. He surrenders his heart and his toys no matter the situation. He’s such a good boy with Emerson and he’s been making us proud!

Back around my birthday, my Dad came down to visit me. Alright, alright, we all know he was coming to visit with Emerson. Thanks to Apple’s ingenious FaceTime, we’re able to chat with Papa Whelan frequently. Even though Emmie couldn’t remember the last time she was with her Papa, she certainly wasn’t shy when he arrived!

Anytime she saw him, she immediately would give him a big goofy grin and speed crawl to get to him. They read books, watched it snow (on my birthday ugh!) and laughed hysterically when Papa would make a ‘pop’ sound with his mouth.

I’m so glad that we have ways to keep Family close, even when hundreds of miles separate us.

Lately Emerson has been fighting taking her naps, and she is quite the independent bugger. She doesn’t like to be told that she can’t do something by herself. If she’s upset with you, she’ll start to holler and smack one hand over the other in a funny little hand tantrum.