2 Month Birthday Letter

Dear Belle,
Happy two month birthday baby girl! Mama is so happy to report that in your second month of life, you have finally mastered breast feeding. God Bless America! As you know from reading your one month letter you still had yet to master breast feeding. Cows on the milk farm were feeling sorry for me at how much I was pumping to give you enough breast milk for all of your feedings. I only had to supplement you with formula that first week while I worked on getting my milk supply up. Once it kicked in, all I had to do was pump 10-12 times a day and you would have enough for all of your feedings. Yes, 10-12 times. Do the math. I was a pumping fool. Now though, I don't have to pump so much. Thank goodness. This was quite the exercise you put me through the first 5 weeks of your life. But really, here is what you should have learned, and I'm sure you did learn it, so take that lesson with you the rest of your life. Especially in your teenage years. You won't beat me. Yes, for you, taking your feedings from a bottle was much easier. You ate your food much faster and it was a lot less work for you. I was determined however. You are one stubborn little baby, but remember who carried you for 40 weeks and 6 days. I'm stubborn too. Round one goes to mom. Like I said, remember this when you're a teenager. I intend on winning those rounds too!

This month, you have also learned to smile. I can't even begin to explain how much we love to see you smile. Now, I understand why adults act a fool by making funny faces and talking at a high pitch all while doing the baby talk, trying to get a baby to smile. Adults do this so those cute little babies smile. And guess what, we all do it to you. We would all do it for hours and hours just to see your beautiful smile. Keep smiling my beautiful baby girl. It makes our day!

Guess what else you did this month for the first time? Unfortunately for your mom and dad, you didn't just stop at doing it once. This month, you started pooping on us. Sure, go ahead and giggle. It's just sooooo funny. You've pooped on your dad twice, but because clearly you like him more, you did it while we were at home and he was holding you. You saved your extra special blow out for me. While we were at a mommy bootcamp class. The class instructor invited us back to talk to pregnant soon-to-be mommies. We were there to tell them all about how great being a mommy is and to give them all the great and not so great details of labor and bringing baby home. You waited until that class to poop all down the front of me. Not only did you poop all down the front of me, but you left a pile of green poo on the floor right where we were standing. It was classic Belle. The look of horror on those soon-to-be mommies faces was priceless. Poor things, they have no idea what is coming. Just a few short months ago, I was one of them. But you are quickly breaking me in. In fact at this class, they kept calling me a veteran mommy. hahaha now that is funny. I feel far from a veteran mom that's for sure. But, I'm getting it.

Every week you continue to amaze us with your super human strength. You have always had really good neck control when you want to. Sometimes you just want to be a wet noodle and have no control over any part of your body. Unfortunately for us, you don't tell us when you feel like being a wet noodle so we have to be ready for it at all times. This month you also rolled over for the first time. You performed your roll over trick for your dad first, who then flipped you over, pulled out his camera and took video while you did it again. We did research at what age most kids roll over for the first time and it said 3 to 4 months is when kids normally roll over. Not you, you did it at 7 weeks. Wow Belle! Very impressive! Keep it up sweet pea!!

Your hair is also starting to grow. This month you went from having pretty much no hair, to sprouting some all over. Don't get me wrong, you are still bald, but you're not bald bald anymore. You just look like your buzz cut is starting to grow in. Last month you had some hair on the sides and back, but really nothing on top. You hair on top seemed to grow over night! One day I went to kiss the top of your head and there was hair there. I was so excited I took a picture of the new growth and sent it to everyone. Now the question remains, what color is your hair going to be. Some days it looks blonde/brown. Other days it looks red. Your eye brows definitely look red. Especially when you are mad or tired.

I was rocking you to sleep the other day and our eyes were locked. Right now you have these beautiful deep blue eyes courtesy of your dad. I hope that you keep them. If you get stuck with my green/brown eyes, sorry, I was pushing for you to have your daddy's eyes!! Dad claims he likes my eyes, but I think he's just being nice. :) Anyhoo, back to our eyes being locked. I realized as I was rocking you, that I wouldn't be able to rock you much longer. Sure here and there when you aren't feeling well, but in the next few months if I continue to rock you, you will start to require that to be put to sleep. And frankly, I can't start that habit because I can't rock you every night until you're 18. Ok, wait, I'm lying. I would totally rock you every night until you were 18 but you're friends might think you (and probably me too) were weird and we don't want that now do we. As you grow older you will start to develop your habits and your needs. All the books say you need to learn to put yourself to sleep. To sooth yourself. I get it. It makes sense. But it also makes me sad that soon, that will be coming to an end. And soon you'll be too big to fit in my arms, where I can hold you close, tell you how much I love you and rock you to sleep. As you get older and bigger and we start walking the fine line of what the books say and what our hearts say, remember one thing. You will always be our sweet baby girl. Our first born. The one who taught us everything we know about being parents. Which right now, is not a lot. The good thing about you being so young right now is you won't remember all of our screw ups unless I blog about them. We have a few years to figure things out and get it right. Until then though, I'm going to enjoy every moment of rocking you. You won't ever be this small again.

We have really enjoyed these last two months, Belle. Month one really did fly by and I feel like I was pretty unconscious during it. Month two however, I have been able to soak up every second. There are still growing pains, even though most days are good days, there are still days where you sleep less at night, or you don't nap or you are extremely fussy. There are days where both of us are in tears. For the most part, you really are a really good baby. I know how lucky we are. I know people who can't leave their house for months and months because their newborn cries all the time. When we are out, people stop us all the time and tell us how beautiful and perfect you are. We couldn't agree with them more.

Daddy and I love you Belle. Happy 2 months on this earth!

Love, Mom and Dad