Adeley Belly

Dearest Adele, 

Due to your present lack of English vocabulary, I never get to have real conversations with you. Although your baby sounds are sweet and entertaining (video above is from July), our daily back and forth is limited. Because of this, your little post gets to be in letter form, straight from me to you. 

Someday you'll read this and get a tiny sense of how I feel about the baby version of you, and I'll give you the chance to defend yourself against my wild accusations and embarrassing photo posts. But for now, you are my baby. Your wardrobe, diet, and reputation are completely under my control, and I'm going to take full advantage until you can stop me. Mwahahaha!

Adele, you have no idea how obsessed I am with you. You are clearly a special, special baby. Two specials. Maybe more.

I feel things differently with you than I did with your brothers. The love across you three is absolutely equal, and each of you fills a unique and matchless place in my heart. But with you, I feel like my insides could burst with every hug. Call it a female bond, if you want. Or predestined friendship. I'm pretty sure it's magic.

You are so snuggly and happy to just sit with your cheek against mine, your hands on my face or in my hair, and let me kiss you as much as I want on your perfectly full cheeks. Your smiles stop people in their tracks. It is physically impossible for people not to become happy when they see your smile. I can't wait to see what it will look like when you're older, but I have a feeling it will be just as bright and you'll get your way WAY too much because of it. 

You are just positively irresistible. You love people, ALL people. Never once have you cried because you were with someone you didn't seem to like. You are 100% flirtatious. Daddy will tell you when to knock that off.

While we're talking about your flirting techniques, let's not forget how you like to make fart noises with your mouth in church, spit when you're angry, flip off the camera, and play with your toes like a monkey. Your baby charm school lessons start tomorrow!

Your brothers are infatuated with you, too. You melt them, and make their voices get all high and soft in your conversations together. Jude's adoration for you is expressed with sudden bursts of violence, while Josh gives you very light, gentle kisses all over. You're incredibly patient with them poking into your personal space.

The only time you're ever upset is when your tummy hurts or you're tired, and that's pretty obvious. You're just a good communicator. I feel like we understand each other pretty well already. It's like you know when I need extra snuggles, and I know when you just need to be left alone to sleep.

This is what you look like every single time you wake up. Biggest smiles and cutest little kicks in the world.

You get really mad when I'm feeding you baby food and you realize you just ate the last bite. Like, REALLY mad. You could eat for hours on end, but I'm trying to pace you. Below is your first solid food feeding. You loved that cereal, and your faces were hilarious. Now you eat all kinds of stuff because I've finally learned how to make baby food from real vegetables, and it actually tastes good!

Is it possible to overuse the word obsessed in a baby post? Because that is really the most accurate word I can think of to describe how your family feels about you. Especially your daddy. He is purely smitten. Your most adoring fan. Just SO happy to see you every day. Every time you hear his voice, you turn to find out where it's coming from and give him the biggest smiles.

You like to give the number one sign with your hands a lot, and cross your fingers like you're hexing people. You arch your back when you're laying across my legs so you can look at things upside down. You roll all over the place and grab everything in sight. Now, at seven months, you're sitting up like a rockstar and you just cut your first tooth on bottom. You are still not good at sleeping through the night, so maybe you could work on that, yes?

(Side note: this video monitor is the most awesome piece of baby equipment I've ever had. Not necessarily the brand, just the product. Every mom needs a video monitor!)

Your Grandma Sara has diagnosed you with FOMO (fear of missing out). Whenever there are interesting sounds (kids playing, dogs barking, a TV show, anything), you pop your head up and scan the room to see where the ruckus is coming from, and then shout around until someone invites you to the party. This is your concerned face when you realize that someone is having fun without you.

You are just all around pleasant. A happy companion. This is how good you are -- I'm actually typing this as you lay across my lap and play with my arms. There's no way your brothers would have ever let me type two-handed while they were within a five foot radius.

You like to take selfies already.

Those are your six month stats from the doctor, but you're bigger than that now. Since it took me a few months to publish this post after starting it, you're now much bigger than most of these pictures, too. The longer I wait to finish, the cuter you get and the more pictures I take, so I better just do it! Or you could stop growing and stay my baby forever. I'd settle for that.

I love you to pieces, baby girl. Please be my best friend always.

Love, Mommy