10 Months (a bit early)

Dear Lucy,

You turn 10 months old next week, and now, and only now, I can say you’ve been out of my belly as long as you were in it (9 months my ass!). You are truly your own little person now. You have likes and dislikes that are VERY apparent to anyone within a three-mile radius of you. Your likes include avacados, cheerios, feeding yourself, your daddy’s giant impression (fee, figh, fo, fum!), sippy cups, Elmo, dogs, cats, making your mad face, being center of attention, wagon rides, ripping off my nose, pulling my hair and your stuffed monkey. Your dislikes include getting your face wiped off, being fed baby food, cuddling on someone else’s terms, putting your hair up and being woken up after falling asleep in the car. When someone is dumb enough (how DARE they!) to do any of the above actions they will see your “mad” face, which is a combination of anger, frustration and, I believe, the need to make people laugh. Because, honestly, it is impossible not to laugh at that scrunched up face. Sorry. I know you’re angry, and I’ll fix whatever you need to be fixed, but first let me wipe the tears from my eyes and catch my breath.

You’ve started to become a mischeivious little thing, and lordy, and I can hardly keep track anymore. You are always attempting to get into trouble, of course flashing your trademark grin the entire time. You have learned to stand all by yourself and will pull up on anything in order to do so. Today you stood happily by the shelf in the living room, gleefully pulling DVDs off the shelf one by one, until you were sitting in a giant pile on the floor. I didn’t mind until you attempted to eat season 2 of Grey’s Anatomy. Lucy, we do not eat Mommy’s favorite prime time dramas!

Today you showed your standing skills to your cousin, Sloan, who then explained them to me. “I was, like, sitting on the couch and Lucy was, like, standing holding on to it and then I went into the kitchen and then I remembered oh, Lucy! So I, like, went back into the living room and she was, like standing there, and I was like, Mom! She’s standing by herself.” It sounded very exciting and a bit like Sloan needed to be twirling her gum and wearing a cheerleader outfit.

The closing of this month is extremely difficult for me, as in two short weeks, I will go from stay-at-home/part-time freelancer mom to a full blown working mother. I have spent the last month attempting to come to terms with this change, convincing myself that you will not be royally screwed up because you’ll be in daycare each day. Each morning I wake up knowing I’m one day closer to not waking up with you. Instead, you’ll be waking up with your daddy while I’m already at the office. I am making this change for our family, so your daddy can make his dream of his own business really come true. I want you to know this is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done and if I had the chance, I would wake with you each and every day. But we will make it work. I will pick you up at 3 o’clock each day and we’ll have wonderful afternoons together. Because, hopefully, it’s not the quantity of time I spend with you, but the quality that counts.

Love always,
Mama