Dear Missy Jem,
What a delightful month it has been! We are enjoying you so much, as you continue to grow and change!
These days ...
- You are a cheerful, peaceful girl most of the time. We do not normally cause a scene during Sunday school or church. Especially if Mom or Dad can hold you, you just enjoy hanging out and absorbing all that goes on around you.
- You have become a terrific raspberry blower yourself, and you entertain yourself mightily with buzzing your lips and laughing at yourself. I hope that I can always picture your little self stretched out on the floor, arms and legs sticking straight out as you concentrate on the marvel of blowing bubbles and spit all around!
- You took a real fancy to the Bumbo seat and enjoyed being upright and observing all that went on around you ... until that was supplanted by the real party of the exersaucer! Your brothers really, really love piling your tray with toys and admiring your strong legs bouncing up and down and turning around.
- When I am holding you, you grab hold of me too. With two big handholds, you're pretty much ready to go anywhere with me. It's one of my favorite things, even though you have a strong, sometimes painful grip and also leave my neck and shoulders kinda scratched up.
- You have teeth! Actually, your first little razor tooth popped up before you were 6 months (but I forgot to mention it last month). Your brothers assure me that there is another one now, but I haven't seen it yet. Thank you for not biting me. Too much.
- You have begun to squeal and laugh out of a general sense of goodwill. It really tickles us when you're lying on the ground, kicking and entertaining yourself, and out of the blue give us your loudest happy squeals of laughter.
- Your 6 month clothes are pretty cozy, though you're still getting good use out of the fuzzy fleeces and footed pajamas. This month I actually managed to get you socks and shoes!
- My ACTUAL favorite thing about this stage is your big, open-mouth slobber kisses that you sometimes bestow. Melts my heart.
- We still get up generally once a night. We vacillate between making it to 4-5am (the good days) and the more painful 1am wake-up (the norm of late). But either way, you generally sleep in until 7:30 or 8am before you really start the day, and then have an hour long morning nap and sleep about 1:30-4pm most afternoons. You're ready for bed at night by 7:15pm, but alas for being 5th-born, it is pretty regular that you are kept up a fair bit later than that by our activities. You are a trooper though.
- You are pretty easy-going with people holding you, even when they aren't Mom or Dad. But sometimes after a few minutes you look around, notice the unfamiliar face, and get the most tragic lower-lip pout, preceding a wail. (Maybe it cracks me up just a little bit, in a sad kind of way.) But if Mom or Dad rescues you, no harm done!
- You eat! You are intrigued by rice cereal and happily eat it down (whenever I get around to fixing some for you).
- Peekaboo and pat-a-cake are highly entertaining games for you.
We are in the midst of Advent, and hearing the familiar promises from Isaiah 9 lately has been so deeply comforting and hopeful.
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.
We, too, live in a land of deep darkness. You needn't look very far to see the confusion, despair, and brokenness of the world. And it's not just out there. Every day brings evidence of the sin-sickness in our own hearts. We are not able to fix even ourselves, much less the troubled lives around us.
But God didn't send us to destruction as we deserve. One of the sweetest Advent verses of all paints such a vivid picture of His rescue:
Because of the tender mercy of our God, ... the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. (Luke 1:78-79)
What a gift it is that we celebrate at Christmas! The Sunrise of God Himself, sent into the darkness to free us from the shadow of death. What a Savior! What a hope! What a gift!
Let us adore Him, my little miss.
I love you,
Momma
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