Dear Jemima,
What a big growing girl you are! I feel like this month really brought the transition from little baby to big, chubby baby, and I love it.
In the past month...
- You are so smiley and responsive now, and your awake times are normally happy. You have fallen out of favor with getting strapped into your carseat, so that will often make you sad, but when you are held or one of your brothers sits by you in the baby swing, you give lots of contented smiles and coos.
- I can barely squeeze you into the 0-3 month sleepers, you fill out the 3 month sleepers, and I need to sort through and find the 3-6 month sleepers, because you are definitely ready! We saw another baby at a birthday party this week, and it was the first time that you looked like a big baby girl, not the little bitsy one.
- Normally I'll feed you once in the night (maybe 1:30am, maybe 4am) and then sometime 6-7am. You might have a little awake time then, or you might sleep all the way until 9:30am. You have a couple hours of morning nap and then a solid afternoon nap. Evenings can still be a little rough, sometimes you fall asleep for a bit around 6, but then we start the bedtime routine around 7:15 or 7:30pm. If I feed you around 6:30pm and then also when you're going to bed, you seem to settle right down and have a good sleep.
- At last you seem to be outgrowing the avalanche spits! You still certainly spit all the time, but not emptying your whole belly in the middle of a feeding. I'm very grateful for that.
- You like to be outside, and you like to be warm. Even on the 90+ days of summer, you seem to relax when we go outside. You are often happy in your swing, looking around and enjoying your brothers' antics.
- You are so attune to your surroundings. You're still sleeping at night in the living room, but we have to be really careful not to go traipsing through before you're deep asleep. You definitely notice when there is activity around! During the day you nap in our room, and you're doing a good job falling asleep in your bed.
- You got to meet your Auntie Krista this month during our vacation in Iowa, and we had a big family celebration of Grammy's 70th birthday. I'm so thankful that we could all be together!
These have been busy days, sometimes a little breathless and stressful. We are looking more and more toward the coming of autumn and start-up of school. And my limited resources are so evident. You are a beautiful baby girl, and I think you'll grow to be strong and bright and capable. But no matter how "able" you may be, the most important things, those of eternal value, will still be impossible to accomplish or produce on your own.
Our world is constantly saying, "You are more than enough. Just believe in yourself. Love you. Follow your heart." But this is foolishness. Our hearts are twisted and sick with sin. Even when we want what is right and good, we are unable to create it.
The hope that we have does not spring from ourselves but from the Savior who rescues us. We have been made precious because God has placed His great love on us through Jesus. And when we know ourselves to belong to the great King of kings, we may be secure and content and fruitful in the place where He has put us.
But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Corinthians 12:9)
When we trust in Jesus and are made new by His life springing up in us, we have more than our own puny resources. His own strong Spirit and power rest on us.
I pray that you will flourish in the secure love of Jesus and look to Him for what you need all the days of your life.
Momma
