A letter to my busiest baby

Dear Charlotte,


You have become Grandpa Hatch’s little buddy. Whenever you see him, you shout “Babah!” and rest your cheek on his leg. I got a great picture of you two together, watching a storm blow outside, on Sunday.

We went to a second egg hunt at Grandma Sawyer’s church on Sunday, which you seemed to understand much better than our first egg hunt, in which you were completely uninterested in the eggs or the process of egg hunting. With this egg hunt, you were supposed to find one egg in each of the six colors. You had your own take on it, and just picked up every egg you found, regardless of color, and handed it to me, where I praised your effort and threw it behind me so you wouldn’t know I had rehidden it for another child to find.

Food wise, you seem to really like cheese, oatmeal, anything sweet like granola bars and fruit. You usually will eat whatever we are having for dinner, but are finicky about meat. Sometimes you’ll eat it, especially if it’s hot dogs, and sometimes not, if it’s something like smoked turkey breast or chicken. You love milk, of course, and have started to sometimes ask for it by name “Mick”, but you still would rather point to it and whine, a phase I hope is fading quickly with our encouragement to “use your words”.

You are very sweet with your baby brother, often laying your face on his belly. With your sister, you often play together joyfully and it is one of the things I lock in my brain, as a moment to remember, when I see you playing together happily. Sometimes, though, you engage in hitting. This has happened frequently as of lately. I know that Ruby never went through this phase, but as one of my coworkers noted “Well she just didn’t have anybody small enough to hit, did she?”. True. We also had a biting incident where Ruby bit you on your fingers. Never Fear! We have engaged a set of 5 simple rules that we have posted in the kitchen and try to follow and explain when you do something wrong what it was and why we should not do it. I tried to state them in a positive way, what to do, rather than what not to do.

They are:

1.) Be Kind (Don’t tease, be nice, share, wait your turn, be patient)

2.) Listen

3.) Don’t Hurt Others (No hitting, pushing, biting, etc. Also don’t hurt others’ feelings)

4.) Talk Nicely (try to think of a nice way to ask for something or say how you feel)

5.) Use Your Words



You are obviously a little young to understand any of these, but I think you are getting a handle of what it means to do all of these things, even if you test your boundaries to see if something is wrong(again).

You are such a beautiful baby, with smiling, bright eyes, chubby cheeks, and a playful grin when you have mischief on your mind. You love animals more than any baby I’ve ever seen, and light up when you see Molly the cat,l or when you notice horses or cows outside the car window. I love you so, and sometimes when I look at you, you are so sweet and cute, I just get so overwhelmed with happiness it fills me up and I have to squeeze you. Honestly, I hope I remember every single one of these little moments for the rest of my life. I would (and do try to) get a picture or a video of you doing cute things, but you are so quick, I almost never capture the right moment. Ah well. You just cannot be troubled to hold still. Life holds too much for you to explore, and I can’t blame you for that. Just know that when you are getting married and want to know why I don’t have more pictures of you smiling and less pictures of the back of your head, it is because you were too busy exploring to take the time to stop and say “cheese”.

Love, Your Momma