Three months

11 weeks

My precious Katherine,

You're three months old, my little lovely, and yet every day I still feel amazement that you are here - my very own daughter.  It feels like a dream sometimes.  I love to just look at you and take in all the tiny perfect details - rosebud mouth, big slate-blue eyes (your momma's eyes), sweet curling lashes, miniature fingers and tiny feet.  I drink in your very existence, which is a little miracle to me.

My funny Valentine

Last week, you weighed in at 8 lbs 14 oz, well more than double your birth weight.  You're about 20 inches long now, and I'm sure you've grown 5 or 6 inches since birth.  You're starting to sleep longer stretches at night; in the past week we've had four nights where you let me enjoy a blissful 6 to 8 hours of sleep in one go!  You really are quite a good sleeper, when you finally agree to bedtime sometime around 11 pm, and you're happy to sleep in 'til 10 or 11 am.  We spend many mornings cuddling in bed until nearly mid-day.  It feels decadent, indulgent and (dare I say) lazy, but these early days are rushing by and someday I'm not going to wish I'd gotten more done instead of spending many quiet morning hours holding you.  I do rather wonder if I've created a monster, though; what happens when we have to join the real world again?

A good napper?  Not so much.  I've tried to get you to nap on your own during the day, but you just will not do it for any significant length of time.  I think you might have managed an hour on our best go, and our most successful naps are the blissful afternoons when we curl up in bed together.  However, you will happily sleep for hours and hours in the baby carrier.  This often results in toast crumbs and other detritus collecting in your hair because I haven't quite mastered the art of eating neatly with you cuddled up to my chest.

We ventured into London for a whirlwind sight-seeing day, and you were good as gold in the carrier for hours, sleeping through a train journey, the Underground legs, a tour bus ride, a river cruise and a route march when we found our planned return tube stop closed and had to hustle to an alternate in order to catch our train for home.  I thought I would pay for all that well-behaved daytime sleep overnight, but you kept to your usual overnight routine.  You're so laid back... since we don't yet have a daytime routine, you don't mind if we switch things up.  I couldn't ask for an easier baby.

You've become quite the little ray of sunshine, readily beaming huge gummy grins and sweet smiles as your eyes follow us around the room.  You stick out your tongue and coo and sigh... and sometimes cry.  I rarely let you cry as a newborn, but on those unavoidable occasions, it was always the reflexive howl of a little person that didn't understand her own discomfort.  But now, you have a grizzling wee wail that is often as not traded for a smile as soon as you see me, and I know without question that you are trying to communicate.  For now, my little duchess, I am happy to acquiesce to your every wish.  Enjoy it while you can, for the world is a cold, cruel place and we can't always get what we want.

When I do soothe your cries, like when I reach to stroke your hair at night in your moses basket, I feel like a baby whisperer.  But the fact is that you are extremely good-natured.  Except when you need to fart... then you become quite mercurial, alternating from grin to grimace in rapid sequence, punctuated by a little toot with an almighty stench. (I sing "Smelly girl, smelly girl... what are they feeding you?")

You've started to grab my shirt while you nurse, like some minor street thug about to rough me up, as if to make sure I'm not going anywhere.  But rest assured, sweetie, I am here for you.  It's awesome that I am your favorite person.  Before motherhood, I anticipated how special you would be to me but I never realized how it would feel to know I'm so special to you.  I am the center of your world... and you, my darling, are the center of mine.

I love you with all my heart,

Mummy