September 11, 2016

Dear Baby,

It’s so hard to believe that in 7 days I will have a one-year old. As with everything that comes up for us, I meet this countdown with mixed emotions. I am so happy and proud to be your mom and so sad that this time is over. You will never be my newborn baby again and with all of the ups and downs, that is something I will always miss. You were the yummiest of yummy and this journey was made completely perfect because of you.

We celebrated this countdown with a house call from a doctor this morning to investigate your latest “thing.” The more that you grow, the more you show yourself to be a hilarious force to be reckoned with. You, my baby, are a funny little girl. Prior to this latest thing- which I’ll get into shortly- other things you have done are as follows:

1. Sideways head- we say “sideways head” and you laugh while tilting your head.
2. You hiss like a snake when we ask if there is a snake in the room.
3. You play hide and seek and love to be chased and scared.
4. You love to rock out to music with your arms flailing around.
5. You cannot sit silent in a conversation- in fact, most involve you in the background screaming with a huge smile on your face.

We laugh a lot together and the best part about that is sometimes you just laugh at me laughing at you laughing.

Your silliness is what makes you, you. So with that, when you began doing your latest thing we thought it was just typical you behaviour.

Here’s what happened. You would laugh at whatever you were laughing at and then make a gasp noise. This happened when you were laughing or really excited so it happened often. We thought nothing of it until you developed a fever. Then the googling started and the fear mongering began and we went from it being an adorable new quirk to a possible lung issue in five seconds flat. Thanks again, WebMD.

Thankfully, there is a house call doctor around who came over to check you out. Turns out that what we thought was a cute new thing is just that. A baby playing with her wide range of voice noises.

But this whole incident reminded me of 2 things. The first is never to google fucking symptoms of anything and the second is how much we love your silly little things. Being a total goofball is one of the millions of reasons that I love you so much and the nuances that make you, you. This week is all about celebrating the little one year old girl you are about to be and your silly spirit deserves some serious praise and recognition.

Like is so serious and it can be so hard but a playful nature is such a good way to temper it. If you can laugh and bring laughter to others as you do now, then you will always be able to find joy in the darkest of times. Find people in your life who make you laugh and bring out the fun side of you.

And I am ALWAYS up for a game of hide and seek- you get your love of being surprised from me (thank god since you certainly don’t get anything physically from me- hello Dad’s twin, sorry about your bum chin.)

6 more days to go.

xo

Mom