Sweet Adelaide

It has been exactly 6 months since I last blogged. Which actually surprises me. It feels like it has been about 6 years. And to be honest, I haven't *reallY* missed it. But I randomly decided to read my old posts and it made me wish I had been blogging these past 6 months, simply because it reminded me of where I've been. And sometimes, we all need a reminder of where we've been to prove that we are actually headed somewhere (whether good or bad). So here I am, hoping to ignite a passion in myself once again for blogging. (my lighter fluid seems to leak everytime I fill it up, though..)

The past 6 months have been quite full. But it's the past 2 months that have been the most interesting (and for the thousands of you that follow me so faithfully, you can probably guess why ;) Our whole "life as we know it" turned upside down and backwards as the addition of the world's cutest baby was made to our simple little family. On September 17, 2011 at 11:15 am, our hearts grew twice their size as we held (and were peed on!) by little sweet Adelaide Sophia. She has transformed everything we thought we knew about life. You always hear people say things like "just wait, it's different when it's your own kid" (esp in regards to bowel movements) and "you'll feel differently when you have your own" and "you don't know real love until you have a baby" And while I've believed most of these things to be true, I never really believed any of them to be true. Poop is poop. Worrying is for the birds. And I know real love, duh! But now that Ada (which is pronounced A-duh, rhymes with beta) is here, poop is not so bad, worrying is a constant battle, and I know a new kind of love now. I always assumed that when you have a baby, the love you already have in your heart sort of just transfers over to your baby and you can control how much of it transfers (hence why some people "stop loving" their spouses and idolize their children) But that's not how it is at all. Rather than transferring love, I have a whole new deeper capability of loving. I still love God deeply. And I still love Sam wholeheartedly. But now I have another kind of love for my beautiful baby girl. What a beautiful, incredible thing God has gifted us with in this!

And speaking of Ada, I have decided to dedicate a portion of each post to her, as sort of a letter to her now for her future self to read and remember (even though she isn't capable of storing memories long term yet!) how much her mommy loves her and the things we experience together in these early years. So feel free to forego reading it, since it's really only meant for Adelaide. Or read it and be jealous that our daughter is the world's greatest. Your choice ;)

And now, to my sweet Adelaide,

We sure have come a long way these past 2 months. It's hard to believe that the sweet little girl snuggled into her daddy's arms right now is the same little girl that snuggled into my heart that Saturday morning. You have grown and changed so much. Since I am starting this 2 months into our relationship, occasionally I'll "flashback" to moments before now that strike me as memorable and note worthy. But for now, I'll dote on all the amazing things you do. For example, this past week was our first week learning to cope with being apart - you in Ms. Donna's room at the daycare and me around the corner with my preschoolers. We had our difficult moments, times when I was feeding you and ran out of time before you ran out of milk and I had to stop you and let Ms. Donna finish (not fun to see you cry and give me that look like "why aren't you feeding me, mom??") and we've had sweet moments where I get to just snuggle you and savor every sweet smile. But overall, we survived and, dare I say, thrived! Ms. Donna said today was the best day you had all week. You slept a lot, smiled a lot, and generally seemed to enjoy yourself. Which warms this mama's heart! It's still tricky trying to figure out the whole feeding thing, since you seem to just eat whenever someone offers food and ask for it when they don't. I have a hard time trying to find the balance between being a good, concerned and proactive mother and not wanting to spoil you or become too obsessive about everything. There is a very fine line, as it turns out. But just know that in all things, we seek the very best for you and pray that your daddy and I make the best most Godly decisions for your life, and that when we don't, we have the humility to admit our mistake. You are most treasured, little one, and every moment spent with you is a gift. It's funny, in the first few weeks, you spent most of your time sleeping or eating, and when you weren't doing either of those, we were doing everything we could to try to help you sleep. But now as you get older and stay awake longer, our efforts are focused less on getting you to sleep and more on getting you to smile. I can't tell you the joy it brings to us both when you bust out in a big, toothless grin. You really are the cutest little baby ever (no offense to all the other babies reading this, I'm sure you're cute, too ;) We look forward to watching you grow and learning how to best serve you and love you. Until next time, remember that we love you very much!
XOXO

p.s. You are a fantastic little sleeper. Thank you for that :)
p.p.s. Sorry for those times I ate spicy food without thought to what it would do to your poor digestive tract!