To Etta, at 1 month

Dear Etta,


Already, it's been a month since your entrance to our world.  Although it feels like yesterday, I can see how much you have changed during your first month.  You've already outgrown your newborn sized clothes and the itty-bitty newborn diapers.  The dark hair you were born with is thinning a bit, but you still have those dark eyebrows and lashes.  Your eyes, on the other hand, are lightening slowly from black to dark bluish grey.


When you're awake now, you appear much more aware and alert because you actually look at your surroundings.  You're already holding your head up well, trying to take in as much of the world as possible.  You wear a very serious scowl on your face most of your awake time, with your brows furrowed into squiggly wrinkles.  We do think you're trying to smile at us sometimes, and it''s hard not to look forward to that, if not just to balance out those serious faces you make.  


You survived your first surgery this month- so minor, I know, and for that I'm forever grateful, but it was still a pretty major event  in your life to have your tongue clipped.  For a being who does little more than eating and sleeping, altering how you eat is a major change.  Your latch is improving- it's definitely stronger and you seem to be taking in less air.  Every once in a while, you stick out your tongue all the way past your lips and I think about how that would have been impossible without having it clipped.  Then I often wonder if you hadn't had it clipped, if we would also be missing some of the chubbiness in your cheeks right now, and I'm so grateful we went through with it.  If, many years from now, I still have a tendency to kiss your cheeks when you stick out your tongue, that's why.  


You've had quite a first month and have grown and changed so much already, yet you're still so tiny.  I know you still weigh less than some babies do at birth (there was a 13 pounder born in Iowa this week- thank you for coming out before you reached that size.  Thank you.).  I'm trying with all my might to soak up your tininess- your miniscule finger nails, your miniature feet, your itty-bitty lips.  You are so much person, so much love wrapped into such a small package that it's hard to wrap my mind around you.  It's a good reminder that our minds can't understand what our hearts can.  I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.  


Love, 
Mama