Another monthly post from Josh for your reading pleasure...
Austin and Summer,
When I was a kid, I used to have a recurring dream. It was the only one I ever had, and I
could never figure out why I had it.
I would be running (which was odd, because I never ran any distance
longer than a fewer hundred feet at a time back then) and my legs would get so
tired that they essentially stopped functioning and I would have to grab only
stationery objects and propel myself forward in order to keep going. If I had a psychic with a crystal ball
analyze those dreams, she probably would have told me that it meant I was stuck
in a rut and desperately trying to work my way out of it. But I was like 12 years old, happy as
can be, without a problem or worry in the world, so clearly that wasn’t the
case. What’s odd is that ever
since I started actually running, that dream has never made a
re-appearance. I guess I’ll never
know what those dreams meant or if they meant anything at all, but I’ve been reminded
of them watching you two recently.
You’re just on the brink of crawling, but instead of actually being able
to move yourselves along the ground to wherever you want to go, you’re still in
that stage where you lie on your stomachs, push with all your might with your
arms and legs, but the only thing that happens is you flop around like a seal
going nowhere. It’s pretty damn
cute, but we know it’s not going to last for long and any day now your mom and
I are going to be chasing you around the house as you crawl in opposite
directions from one another, wreaking as much havoc as possible. Ahh, good times on the horizon.
Onto other news from this month, you’ve both become champion
eaters. Summy, you even eat the
green stuff at this point, although every so often you do some really dramatic
gagging motion/noise combination to let us know that you’re ready for the sweet
stuff now, please. You’re just
like your mommy, except that she’s old enough to just skip straight to the
Krispy Kremes without having to fake it on the veggies. Austin, you’re pretty much like
daddy. You’ll just sit there
quietly awaiting your next bite, not really caring so much what it is as long
as it’s going in your stomach.
You’ve also become experts at sitting up. Watching you guys “play together” while
you sit up and grab different toys is an amazing treat for me and your mom. The best part of it is how your
personalities shine through.
Summer, since the day you were born, you’ve been our sweet, soft little
princess. I literally used the
word “dainty” in the email I sent to everyone to announce your births only
hours after we met you. I don’t
think there’s a word in the English language to better describe you. When you pick up a toy, you’re like a
girl from finishing school picking up her afternoon tea. You hold it ever so softly, as if it
might break if you grabbed it hard.
Austin, you’re a boy’s boy.
You’re like a wrecking ball, smashing and grabbing everything in your
path with full force. Your
intentions are sweet as can be, but it’s pretty funny to watch you both sit
with the same bucket in between you and have Austin grab it out of the way and
dumb everything everywhere while Summer sits sweetly across from you and can
only watch it all happen.
And the newest phenomenon in our happy little household is
that our beautiful, sweet baby girl now wakes up in the morning with her face
smelling like a combination of urine and sweaty old shoes. It’s subtle enough that you can’t smell
it unless you kiss your face, but when you lean in for that kiss, man it hits
you like a ton of bricks. Somehow
it hasn’t stopped me from kissing you a million times a day, but if this keeps
up we might have to start you on the perfume a few years earlier than
anticipated.
One last thing about our smelly little princess. This month, you developed some serious
“stranger danger” issues. Unless
you are very familiar with the people around you, you tend to cling to me or
your mommy, and there have been a fair amount of waterworks when new people are
around. One really sweet byproduct
of this is that every time we leave the house, right when we walk out the door
you bury your head into whoever is holding you. It’s kind of like you want an extra bit of protection as you
go out into this big, new world.
Hopefully soon you’ll realize that we’re here to protect you, but every
once in a while it’s nice for us (read: your mom) to get a break from
holding/watching you all day long.
We promise to keep you safe if you promise you keep us sane.
I’ll check in with you guys again next month. Thanks for keeping us feeling
young.
Love,
Daddy
P.S. You both
also started to get teeth this month.
Austin, you currently have one and Summer has two. There’s not much exciting to write
about teeth other than that they exist, so this is really just meant to
document something important that happened this month. And that’s all. Goodbye again until next time.
