9 months in, 9 months out.
What a difference only 9 months can make.
You now have 4 teeth total. Your two bottom middle and two top side teeth. Fangs, just like your sister's came in.
You've also got 5 days of crawling under your belt. The first day or two you moved at the hilariously slow speed of a three-toed sloth. It was pretty stinking cute. And it also brought me some relief. You are so much more content to be on the ground playing now that you can move. However, the relief was short lived. Your speed and curiosity have begun to exhilarate. And a curious little girl you are. There will have to be some changes made in this household and pronto.
Lulah, the last couple of months have challenged me.
Learning to balance the needs and wants of two very different individuals. Just thinking I had a pretty good handle on a routine, when someone decides to totally change it up on me.
I fight to remember to slow down and soak up the moments of your first Christmas season.
But also not feeling like a failure when I have days I don't slow down and soak up moments, but rather just try and make it through them with everyone in one piece. Remembering it's not so much plans, activities and events that will be remembered, but a happy, loving, laughing, patient Mama that will be.
It can be hard.
But it is so good too. I mean really good. And I know that's what I will hold on to.
I thought I would share something I wrote two nights ago (the day you actually turned 9 months).
Tonight I was tired. I had plenty of things I needed to work on once you girls were in bed, yet my body was screaming for sleep as well. Your Papa Daddy (what Lucy now calls your father) had to work late. So just us girls. We all seemed tired, but nobody wanted to go to sleep. Ready for my 3rd attempt to get you down, I got your sister settled on the couch watching Charlie Brown and went to lay down with you in bed. This time didn't take too long. Finally, I thought. One down.
PJ's on, books read, I take your sister to her room to lay down. She sings me a new rendition of Jesus Loves Me that she wrote. She throws her arms around my neck and tells me she had a great day. I agree with her. Then she starts moving and twisting and I ask her what in the world she's doing. "I trying something new Mama." After she settles back still, I realize she's laying with her feet on her pillow and her head by my knees. "I just tryin' this out Mama." Of course she is. Who doesn't try this at some point? Helping her back to her pillow, 15 minutes later and she's asleep as well.
Before I get up, a thought hits me. Lying there thinking about the time it takes me to do bedtimes and adding up the minutes that could have been working on things, and wishing you girls would just fall asleep faster...and then I thought, man, I get to lay down with both of my babies. I get to hold my daughters as they fall asleep. I get to hear their sounds and learn their movements as their minds and bodies unplug for the night. Who wouldn't count that as joy?
Lulah, I do. I count it all joy. Maybe not in each moment. I'm working on that. But I can tell you that when my head hits my pillow, it's joy. All of it. The hard and challenging and exhausting, it's joy. Mothering my two daughters, it's joy.
And baby girl, the reason we can have peace, hope, and joy in every circumstance and at all times? We will celebrate His coming in only 5 days.
I can't wait to tell you His story.
Love,
Mama
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