Dear Bella, it's been half a year

Halfy birthday, darling. The world has carried us almost 300,000,000 miles since you took your first breath, which seems impossible to believe. As hard as I have been trying to slowly savor your short time as a baby, you and time just barrel on by. The weather here is back to cool dampness you were born into, except the trees are now orange instead of pink.


There's a sense on familiarity in it, a deja vu, and yet we're traveling into unmarked territory. We're wrapping up in blankets, getting ready to snuggle in for the winter instead of breaking out into the summer light. Day by day you change ever so slightly, and yet when I step back to look at you, you're almost foreign to me. A giant baby sitting up on her own, a giggly little bug branching out into the world.

Snoqualmie Falls at five and a half months

Snoqualmie Falls at four weeks old

I really can't imagine you as anything but a baby. In my day dreams maybe you're walking along, maybe you're playing in the kitchen cabinets, maybe you're chit chatting with your stuffed animals, but you're always a baby. I can't quite wrap my head around this growing up stuff.

My sweetest moment of the month, we were nursing in the tub and you looked up at me. And kept looking. I searched your eyes, you studied mine, and time meant nothing in a moment of intoxicated peace. I didn't want to breathe or move, nothing to interrupt the moment. We look into each other's eyes all the time, but you're a perfunctory squiggly nurser. On, chug, squirm, chug, squirm, off. You concentrate on the colors of my shirt, the contours of my arm, or I watch you stare off into eternity, lost in thoughts no one will ever recapture. Getting to connect with you while you are so calm, studying me with such intensity, it was wonderful. I'm trying to savor it in my mind, unsure that it will ever happen again.


This month you re-met your grandma. I doubt you remembered her from 6 months ago, but by the end of this week you guys were two peas in a pod. She loves your little sea anemone hands, arms continually swimming, fingers fluttering in some invisible current. Yesterday we smothered her in hugs and dropped her off at the airport, and you've been complaining ever since. Still, we have a lot to look forward to this month! You're laughing and chatting and sitting up on your own now (on your new potty, no less!). You'll be getting your first taste of food soon, and I hope it's as exciting for you as it is for me! The election is this coming, and although you won't get to vote for twenty more years, every decision I make is for you.


Don't grow up too fast, kiddo. Stay small and help me enjoy you for all it's worth. Some day you might be able to tell me which flavor car is best, but for now I'll enjoy the mystery.