5 months already...

hello sweetie,

oh buel. i cannot believe that you are already 5 months old! God has truly blessed us with you. you are such a unique, sweet, and handsome person that we get to call "son." we cannot thank Him enough for all that He has given us. lately, you're working on grabbing your feet, trying to roll over, talking, occasionally laughing, lots of smiling, and you love to stand while i hold you. you also love to chew on your hands. you are in the early stages of teething, so you chew to relieve the pain and weird feeling that is associated with getting teeth. you're going to look so different with teeth, but i'm sure you're going to look just as cute as always! you also enjoy some tummy time too! whenever you're put on your tummy, it looks as if you're trying to crawl! slow down, mommy is not ready for all that! but it sure will be fun when you're crawling around. oh and you and i are also working on trying to get you to sit up on your own! you tend to puke every time you lean forward too much. thankfully, it doesn't seem to bother you. you also LOVE to chew on things. my fingers, your fingers, your squishy book, and your ring chain. which leads me to something else...

there is another thing that you're doing a lot of and that is: DROOLING! oh the amount of drool that comes out of that little mouth of yours is impressive. its as if you were showing the whole world that you're the master of drooling. pop-pop calls it your sugar that you're just giving away! hehe! your pop-pop and gramma love you so much! your cousin evan loves it when we play the "drooling" game. i pick you up and chase evan around while yelling "droooooooooly! drooooooooly!" and then we gob some drool all over him. it's his most favorite game.

you're also becoming really good friends with your cousins, auntie sarah, and especially uncle dan. sometimes, mommy calls him your uncle d. every day we go to their house to hang out with your cousins while auntie sarah and uncle d go to work. we play hard all day and then you play even harder when uncle d is around. you and he are good friends, which does my heart good. i love to see the joy you and my family have when you're together. i truly wish you could spend time with your california family, daddy's side of the family. they love you and wish they could see you too. especially your grandma mo! one day we may live closer to them. we'll see i guess, we are here in maryland for a while. but we're trying to work out a trip to visit. someday. soon, hopefully.

oh, my boy. i love you so much. i want you to know this each and every day. your mommy and daddy think of you all the time, miss you when we're not with you, get excited when you do new things, get sad when you're hurting or sad, and smile when you smile. i love to cuddle and snuggle with you. this week i finally started sleeping in my own room so that you could have your own room too. i miss you, i miss hearing your little noises throughout the night, and i miss waking up and looking over to see you. but it's best that you're in your own room. you get your sleep and i get mine. its been good. but i do miss you, so seeing you in the morning is such a delight! you are the delight of my heart.

i guess i'll go for now. next month you will be 6 months old! a half-year old! oh Lord, please let time slow down. it is going too fast for this squishy heart of mine. :) but its such a lovely time to be with you. thank you for being you, buel. you're so beautiful. mommy and daddy love you! it's so very true. i love you.

love,
mommy.

1 year ago...

hi sweetie,

on this day one year ago, i found out that you were growing in my tummy. it was the most surreal day and i remember almost every bit of it as if it were yesterday. it was an off chance that i decided to take a test to see if i could possibly be pregnant. then all of a sudden, the test said yes! and then after a quick call to your mama joni, the second test said yes... then after lots of tears and shaking, i called daddy and told him the amazing news. "we did it!" he said. i also called and told your auntie neva! (she is currently pregnant with your soon to be friend!) oh how exciting... i was still in disbelief. i dragged your cousins to the doctors office with me to get another test done, a more definitive one. i had to wait a day for the response to that test, but lo and behold, all tests confirmed that you were there.

oh God is so good to have entrusted your daddy and me to be your parents. we are so blessed to have you in our lives and we have grown so much more in love with you than we ever thought possible. in the past 12 months you grew from a little tadpole (remember i told you, i used to call you our little tadpole), to a scorpion (daddy liked to call you scorpion!), to an amazing rolling and kicking machine inside my belly with a heart rate averaging in the 150s, to a gorgeous little boy who means more to me than i could have ever imagined. you made a grand entrance on november 18 at 10:56am. everyone you come into contact with, everyone you meet, everyone that sees you falls in love with you instantly. buel, you are one special little boy. you are so handsome with a contagious smile, sweet scent, strong and alert, and just simply amazing.

you can roll from your tummy to your back, you hold your head up and are trying to learn to sit up on your own. your favorite thing to do is to stand while someone is holding you. you also love to hang out with your cousins carter and evan as well as your friends benjamin and jonerz. you have gorgeous hazel eyes, light colored hair, you're tall and have a lovely amount of chub! you wear 6 month clothes, mostly because you're so tall and anything else is too short. you like to nap in your dog chair, you sleep through the night, you're working on getting some teeth on the bottom (you drool like a faucet and chomp on your hands!), and you love to cuddle in bed with mommy. you fit into your hat that matches daddy's! you also fit into the first onesie that we bought you, your gold star trek shirt! you giggle when something really tickles your fancy. you like to pet monster truck. you like to sit with your daddy while he plays on the computer and when he comes home from work, your face beams with so much joy and love. you try to stay awake at bedtime but always fall asleep and wake-up smiling in the morning. there have been a few nights where things were wonky and mommy had a few freak outs (mostly out of sheer exhaustion because neither you or i were sleeping!), but we're getting through it. it wouldn't be life if everything was perfect.

anyway, my sweet boy, i love you. you are so loved by so many people it is insane. i am beyond blessed to be a mommy, to be your mommy. thank you, Lord for giving us our son.

love,
mommy.