Advice for my seven month old

My Little Pretty Princess,

You are amazing. You brighten my day, and you always make me smile. Every day I feel like I'm noticing something new you're learning. You're starting to crawl backwards, but you like to roll to whatever you want to get. I'm sort of dreading you starting to crawl because I know you will be into everything and we just don't have our place fully baby-proofed yet. Taking your seven month photos was so hard because you just wanted to play and didn't want to sit still. I know this is just a glimpse of what's to come. I'm going to need to get my helmet and knee pads out to keep up with you.

Dress and headband $16 from Sumo's Sweet Stuff

You have an obsession with paper towels. You love to try to eat them, and napkins. I try to keep them away from you but you always seem to find one somewhere. You like to make little spit wads.

You are getting the hang of eating edible things too. I've been making your baby food and you love squash and sweet potatoes. You also love banana when I give you some. And broccoli, cucumber and Mum Mums, you'll pretty much eat anything you can get your little hands on. Sometimes I just hand you a bit of whatever I'm eating and you'll gnaw away at it for awhile. But no matter how much you love the food you still love nursing more. Now that you've started solids it's easier to keep up with pumping enough for you though, which is a big stress reliever. I'm very proud of the fact that we haven't needed to supplement.

You got your first two little teeth last week. They are so cute, we danced and cheered when we saw your first one pop up. You second one seems to be bothering you a little more but we've been giving you a bit of medicine to help. You haven't bit me with your teeth yet. I'm hoping we nipped that bad habit in the bud while you were just gumming it. I'm afraid we'll wean once you bite with your sharp teeth.

You still love my singing, and you love taking pictures, which is good because I love taking pictures of you. You're so photogenic and you love the camera.

Chair from Pottery Barn Kids

I love bragging about you, which is funny because I didn't think I'd be "that mom" who just loves to go on and on about her baby to nice people who ask how you're doing but I do. I show off your pictures, and talk about the things you're learning.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how we're going to raise you and the type of person I hope you grow to be. Your dad and I are both the oldest children and someday you'll be an older sibling too. There's a lot of responsibility being the first born child. Younger siblings look up to you, and you're the practice run for us as your parents to see how we like to do things. Don't feel bad if we're hard on you, know it's because we love you so much. We truly just want what's best for you. It's so hard for parents to see their children do something that could hurt them, or be bad for them. Ultimately it's up to you to make your life's decisions but we're here to help you, hopefully make the best ones. Remember we're not perfect, but we're trying our best.

Every night we read a chapter of your children's scriptures together and we say a prayer together. You watch your daddy read so intently like you understand the stories, and you look at the pictures. I hope we can keep this up and that you'll feel the Spirit in your life daily and that that will help you blossom into the marvelous woman I know you'll be.

Ok, enough deep mommy talk, there will be years to lecture you. Just know I love you more than you know. More than I knew I could love, and it's the best feeling in the world. I've never worked as hard as I have these past seven months my entire life, but I've never been this happy.

I love you. And I'm so grateful for you.


Mommy