Dear Tabitha,
I am a second child too, and your Daddy is the third, so we definitely know what its like to be the "younger" sibling! And so I totally understand it if, you bring up the fact that I missed your second letter....but believe me when I say, if the current circumstances had happened with Ransom I would have missed a letter then too!
That being said, let me catch you up on the last month of your life! We've moved to Texas! Now you're in your home state and we're so happy to be here! When you were 9 weeks old, your brother and Ms Deb and I took a two day trip from Georgia to Texas, and then a week later you and I took one more day trip to our new home in San Antonio. Can I just stop and say that you were a DREAM BABY!?! You literally slept and sat quietly in your carseat the WHOLE WAY unless you were hungry and then you'd wail a little bit until we stopped to feed you! What a sweetie you are!
On our way to our new home in San Antonio, we stopped in Nacogdoches for a week. You got to see your Spicy and Papa and Nana and Grandpa and Mimi, you got to meet your Uncle Josh for the first time and play with your cousins and Aunt Anna and Uncle Ryan. But my favorite day of the trip was definitely when we went to Bethlehem Mission and we got to show you off to our church family there. You were so surrounded by love and it was so striking to me that these were the people who prayed so hard to keep you in my tummy and for your heart to be healed. You, my dear, are so loved! And many people exclaimed that God must have great things for your future. And indeed He does! But even now, in your present days He is using you to remind others of what He can do! That is a very cool gift to have!
We are now in our new home and your first week here was not your best...you had a bad head cold and you can put any pig to shame with your awesome snorty ways! But, don't worry, its very cute ;-) But now we are settled in and hopefully creating a normal schedule again. For my own reminder here's what a normal day for you looks like:
You wake up around 6am and ask "sweetly" to eat ( scream). I then feed you and lay you back down and you usually sleep a little more until 9am when you eat again. This is when I "officially" get you up for the day. You watch your brother play or eat breakfast or come along with us on some morning adventure, and you usually take a nap around 10 or 10:30. So far you're still happy to take a nap in your car seat if needed, which I know Ransom and Mommy are both happy about! You wake up from your nap around noon and eat again ( as you can see, you're living the 3 hour eat/sleep schedule dream right now). Then you're up for another hour and usually go down for a nap again around 1:30. You are usually pretty good about going down for a nap, but you usually cry a little before each nap time. But never longer than 30 minutes ( but believe me, 30 minutes seems like a looooong time when someones screaming). But once you're good and swaddled and have your paci , have had your cry-you go right to sleep. The schedule continues on at 3pm and 6pm eating times, and then you go to bed around 8pm. You often have a rough time going to sleep at night and we start the sleep process around 7:00 but you usually take a good hour to get nice and settled-you'll sleep on and off between crying from 7-8.
I will then get you up at 10pm for a "dream feed" and more settled into the night. After that feeding you go right back to sleep until 3am when you wake up and eat again. I'm hoping beyond hoping that you'll drop this feeding soon. Mama wants to sleep through the night again one day...but I'm not pushing you! You're still my tiny little thing and I figure you need as many meals as you can get!
I hope that now that we are more settled into our new home I will do better about sharing about your days. You have a wonderful little smile that lights up your whole face. You like to follow your brother around the room with your eyes-he is definitely the most interesting thing going on around here! And he is very sweet to you and loves giving you kisses and asking you if its ok if he plays with your bear. He also likes to lay on blankets with you and pretend that you're riding a boat or a trolley or a plane or whatever other kind of motor vehicle he feels like "riding" with you. I know the two of you are going to have great fun together!
Love you with all our hearts,
Mommy
