The Luders Family

[FROM DAD]

We’re so excited to see you growing up before our eyes – you’re six months old already! For a Christmas baby, we think it’s very important to celebrate the half birthday to make sure you get all the attention you deserve – so we’ve had a lot of fun (and cake) celebrating with you this week!

Your sixth month has been a big one – your personality is really emerging now, and you’re such a happy, loving baby! You love making eye contact – any time we look and talk at you, you just beam. You love getting cuddles, and accordingly you get frustrated whenever you’re not getting cuddles. You’re still not sleeping through the night at this point, and we’ve realized that it’s not always hunger – sometimes you just want to be pulled out of your bassinet and lay next to Mommy or I for some cuddles before you fall back asleep. You also love your sister, and Rosemary loves you – it’s been precious watching you two bond and enjoy each other, although sometimes her love for you is a little bit aggressive!

We’ve continued to explore foods with you this month, and you’ve found your first edible love – sweet potatoes! You laugh and smile when the spoon is in your mouth, and you cry whenever you’re not actively being fed – so you fit in perfectly with our family!

You’re starting to get a lot more dexterous as well. You love your toys, even when they frustrate you to no end – you coo and/or yell when you get your hands on busy bee or your crunchy books. You’re starting to get more interested in stuffed animals like your blue donkey – mostly just shoving them in your mouth, but I do think the donkey’s mane reminds you of my beard and soothes you to sleep! Sometimes you love rubbing your face back and forth until your paci falls out, which displays a certain special type of dexterity – we’re hopeful that your next development milestone is being able to consistently put your paci back in your mouth.

You’re also a little bit more mobile this month – bouncing in your jumperoo and desperately kicking your legs on the ground to try to crawl. We unfortunately can’t say that you’ve mastered moving forward, but you are very effective at kicking yourself backward! You’re sitting up some now, and Rosemary loves to yell “baby fall” whenever you get tired and slump over. All in all, you’re turning from a cute lump into a cuter baby who’s growing up too quickly! We love you so much Reid!

Ever since Rosemary was a little baby, she has always enjoyed watching Sesame Street. One of the first words she said clearly was “Abby” (Abby Cadabby). Along with Elmo, she always gets so excited to see Abby, so we decided to throw her an Abby Cadabby themed 2nd birthday party! In lieu of traditional party favors, I made fairy wands and bought wings for all the babies to wear and play with during the party. The weather was beautiful, too, so everyone was able to play outside. We all had so much fun and Rosemary spent the whole time smiling and playing with her friends and family!

OK, cue the waterworks. You are twelve months old tomorrow. It feels like just yesterday we were meeting you for the first time! But before we get too sentimental reflecting on this past year, I’m going to stop myself and clarify that this is your twelve month post, not your one year post. That’s coming later. This is just to catch us up on the goings on since last month so we can focus on being sappy parents reflecting on their baby becoming a toddler in the next post!

My favorite thing you learned this month is to lean in for a kiss. Oh, how it melts my heart. I can make kissy noises and you’ll stop whatever you’re doing and lean your forehead towards my lips. Sometimes I can even say “give me a kiss!” and you’ll lean in! I think you are starting to understand the phrase “give me a hug” too, because sometimes you’ll bury your head into my chest when I request a hug. I had been a little sad for a few months because I thought you were becoming the type of baby that just doesn’t seem to like cuddles. But lately, you’ve been a lot more affectionate, and we all love it. You still like your space (you really are our kid), but we’re glad you’ll come in for a kiss too!

You’ve also learned to really love games this month. I can’t count how many times a day we play peekaboo. I’ll be driving the car and you’ll start making noises to get me to look back. Then, you’ll quickly put something over your head (or nothing – sometimes you just lift your arms up), and smile and smile when I say “Where’s Rosemary?”. You also like to play while I’m sitting on the couch. You’ll stand at the end, duck down, and then pop up over the armrest. It’s so cute! A more recent game for you is Patty Cake. You always liked when I said the rhyme, but now you’ll prompt me to say it by clapping.

We always thought we would have a walking 12 month old, but here we are right before your birthday, and you just aren’t ready yet. And that is just fine. You certainly seem to understand the mechanics of it – you love to walk with your push walker, or really anything that you can push on the floor, but you just don’t seem comfortable letting go yet. You’ve been standing for months now, but don’t want to stand on your own yet. I think you’re more cautious than we often give you credit for, even if you do love to climb on the fireplace!

When I think back to our first monthly post and now, it’s crazy the difference one year makes. Back then, it was big if you could hold your head up for a few seconds, and now you are so close to walking and talking. I didn’t think I could love you more then, but time always proves me wrong there. Happy twelve months!

Well, Rosemary, this is the last of your monthly birthdays before the big ONE. I can barely believe it. I’m going to spend the rest of this month holding onto my little baby as much as you’ll let me and trying to convince you to stay tiny forever. So far, it isn’t working!

Your nap schedule has pretty much stayed the same since last month, which is awesome. I feel like I have a different baby around now that you’re napping. You were always good, but we were both so exhausted. By the end of the day, you were crying  tired little tears, and I was a zombie from trying to entertain you for that long without a break. Now, though, you are the happiest little baby. You wander around our den giggling up a storm, content to play with the same toys over and over and over again (sorry, baby, mommy got tired of them about a day after they entered our lives, so I let you enjoy them on your own while I watch more and more, ha!). I could not be more grateful for these naps!

Speaking of naps, one of my greatest joys is getting to cuddle you while you sleep in my arms. It doesn’t happen super often – maybe once a day – but when it does, I’m in heaven. If you do fall asleep in my arms, it’s usually while nursing, but yesterday you fell asleep after eating and I watched your eyelids get heavier and heavier until you fell asleep. It was the cutest thing I ever saw. I don’t know what will happen once I stop nursing you before naps/bedtime, but I hope you let me rock you to sleep sometimes!

The moment I’ve been waiting for finally arrived this month….you said MAMA!!!! I know you don’t know what it means when you say it, but I loved it. You do this thing where you practice different volumes of speaking, so sometimes I’ll look over and you’re just mouthing “mama”, and then next you’ll kind of whisper it, and then it’ll be a full fledged yell. It cracks me up, especially the whisper.

Another funny thing you do is play peekaboo in the car. You’ll make these little noises to get my attention and then lift something over your head (blanket, stuffed animal, whatever you have). Then once I say “where’s Rosemary?”, you’ll lower it and laugh laugh laugh. It’s adorable.

You started pulling up a few months ago, and I was convinced you’d be walking by your first birthday. But I think you have other plans. I try to walk you around holding your hands, and you just cry and dead weight. I think maybe it’s because it’s not on your own terms – you’ll walk behind your push walker just fine! Or maybe you just want me to pick you up for a cuddle. Who knows! You’ll walk on your own time!

You still just have the one tooth, but it’s been coming in more and more! Everyone gets so excited when they see it. People also get excited to see your smile because it is, seriously, so goofy. I got some good pictures of it this month. Everyone (myself included) reinforces the habit by making a squinchy face back to you. You have a “normal” smile too, but the squinchy smile is so Rosemary to me.

This month, you started swim lessons and you love them! I wasn’t sure what you’d be able to do at this age, but they already have us fully submerging you after just two lessons! At first, you are very surprised by the submerging, but after a second or two, you have the biggest smile on your face. In fact, you smile all the time in the pool! You splash and kick the whole time! I’m excited to join the neighborhood pool this year.

Chris has been traveling during the week, but we’ve been having a lot of fun over the weekend together. It’s been super warm for February, so we’ve been visiting parks each weekend. I think you like the fresh air, and I enjoy the change in scenery.

Rosemary, I can’t even believe you are almost a year old. I’m scared that we’ll blink and you’ll be leaving for college. I hope that you always know how much we love you and how happy we are that you are in our lives. Happy eleven months!

 

 This February has been unseasonably warm, so we’ve been able to spend a lot of time outside with you! Last weekend, after church, we decided to walk around Piedmont park and the GT campus looking for cherry tree blossom (which I’ve actually learned are pink magnolias, not cherry). Either way, it was really fun and relaxing, so much so that you were almost too sleepy for Georgia Tech!