To My Dear Daughter

My dearest Josephine Marie,

You are almost eight months old already! You have the softest smooth skin, wonderful wispy golden hair and eyes that look a lot like mine. Right now you have only the bottom two teeth which make your huge cheeky smile extra silly and adorable. You are a beautiful baby, and even strangers tell me so, so I know it’s true.

You are intense in every way. You love your daddy and me- you have a really great attachment to us both, leaning into me with shy smiles when new people approach and exploding in happy giggles and thrashing limbs when daddy comes home. Despite your stranger danger shyness, you love to stare at people and erupt into giddy screams when they make eye contact.

You don’t do anything on a small scale. You are so vivacious! You are passionate about people, plants (you love grabbing leaves and especially flowers, and delight in ripping up grass) and animals (especially dogs!) You love feeding yourself, exploring new items in your very nimble little fingers and you love reading with me, especially fun rhythmic books like Horton Hears A Who or The Pout Pout Fish.

You are a mover and a shaker! You are working on crawling but would much rather stand, walk or better yet bounce exuberantly with your powerful legs. You have an amazing attention span for a baby your age and can remain focused on long books or novel experiences. Your daddy says that it is strangely obvious that there is a little person inside of your body, straining to push out and be able to make her mark on the world. Whereas other babies sit or lay quietly, you are rapidly and relentlessly exploring and experimenting with the world around you, grabbing life vigorously by the horns. You are such a determined and tenacious girl already, and it makes me so excited to watch what you are going to do with these wonderful gifts. Watch out world, here she comes!

A fair number of these qualities do make you a more challenging baby. Your zeal for intense movement has kept me in shape, as I am constantly swinging, spinning and tossing you through the air. Your strong and healthy attachment means that you hate watching me move away from you and would prefer to be held at least eighty percent of the day. Your intensity means that you feel your emotions and your needs strongly and suddenly, which is difficult to accommodate. At the same time, I am empathetic to your overwhelming feelings since I have always been the same way! My hope is that you will continue to voice your needs well and to advocate for yourself, and later for others. It seems like this baby stage has been difficult for you to navigate, but my suspicion is that you will be relieved when you are finally able to move and exert influence over things as you wish, and when you can finally express all of the thoughts and opinions you have bottled up inside you. Just like your entry into the world, your first eight months have been dramatically difficult, but similar too is the relentless tenacity you and I possess to get through it.

Someday I hope that you will be able to understand the tremendous amount of sacrifice and suffering I have given for you. I am finally almost finished weaning from the pump, and am trusting God to provide the last of the milk that you need via frozen donations. It has been a long and torturous process, not at all the way that I had hoped our breastfeeding journey would go. I am still dealing with physical and emotional repercussions of such an intense labor and terrifying delivery, and though I would do it all again for you it doesn’t change the fact that these are heavy burdens. I love you so passionately but have been battling with postpartum depression and with grief over just how difficult these first months have been. You and I are both blessed beyond belief to have your daddy as a strong and steady anchor, and to be closely surrounded by such loving family and supportive friends and community. It really does take a village to raise a child and to support a mother.

I love you so much my little Josie Bean. I will continue to hold your fun, passionate and sanctifying little self close to my heart forever and always.