Hi Peanut,

You’re officially a year and a half now. I don’t know how that happened. In my mind, you’re still a baby, but then I see you running around, trying to catch your brother, and pulling out the coloring books and Crayons because your favorite thing to do is “coyor” and following multiple-step directions and…you’re just so big.

But you still fit on my hip, tucking your legs around my waist, wrapping your arm around my shoulder. It’s one thing I distantly remember savoring with Henry, knowing that it wouldn’t be long before I wouldn’t be carrying him around anymore. And now I find myself treasuring the same way you fit on me, knowing just as before that it doesn’t last long.

Your hair is growing in (yay!) and the curls in the back of your head are bopping everywhere in the heat and humidity. Just last week I was able to make a teeny, spiky little pony tail on top of your head—that’s the hair that’s been the slowest to come in—and it made me smile all over again that my lifelong wish of having a daughter came true. One of the things I have looked forward to most about having a daughter is doing your hair—braids, curls, twists, pig tails, the whole bit—and though it’ll be a while yet before anything more intricate than a single, pointy ponytail can be done, knowing that we can spend time together doing your hair someday makes me so excited.

You continue to be a daddy’s girl and you shriek with joy when he comes in the door. You can hear the garage door from anywhere in the house and immediately go on alert, “Daddy? Daddy?!”

While you still love to read books and will gladly bring an endless string of them to us to read to you, you have also picked up a love for coloring. The shelf with the colors and books is easily accessible to you and barely an hour goes by that you’re not dragging everything out. Your fine motor skills blow me away because you hold the colors, skinny or chunky Crayons, in your right hand exactly as I hold a pen to write. I don’t know how you learned that, but when I first saw you do it, I actually took a picture to make sure I wasn’t imagining it.

Teething has been a beast to conquer. We’re still not there, though we’re in a bit of a much-needed lull right now. Where before you’d sleep soundly all night long, now you wake up at least once during the night or wake up super early in the morning, always crying. As soon as I pick you up, you snuggle your head into my neck and rest, and while I love the feeling of your little head snuggled against me, your body heavy against my chest, I am also excited for this to pass and to have you feel good enough to sleep all night long again.

My darling girl, I know there are so many adventures to be had in the future and I am looking forward to every single one of them, but I’m more aware than ever as we begin our approach to two years old, that every day is a gift and the moments I get to share with you now are ones that will change and morph as you continue to grow.  So I’m treasuring them, soaking them up, licking the plate clean, in an effort to not just “get through the day”, but to lock away memories of you exactly as you are in this stage of life. Little, but also big. Tiny, but fierce. Ornery and funny and clever and wild. I will spend my lifetime treasuring who you are, my child.

I love you so very, very much.

Mama