Dear Charlotte,

WE LOVE YOU!  Love you love you love you love you love you!

Today, you are ten months old and let me tell you this: the last month has been CRAZY.  You know what your tenth month should be called?

THE MONTH OF THE STINKY FEET.

I blame this on your sudden surge of mobility.  Now that you have overcome that pesky traction problem you had with our wood floors, you are ALWAYS on your hands and knees.  The tops of your feet are perpetually filthy and picking cat fur and plaster flakes out from between your toes is a seemingly endless job.

On the up-side, though, I have not needed to trim your toenails in nearly two months.  You keep filing them down by wriggling all over.  It’s pretty damned cool.

Speaking of wriggling all over, last week you crawled down the hall, pulled yourself up on the bathroom cabinets, tugged the bag of toilet paper rolls off the counter, and ripped one loose.  Then you chased that roll of toilet paper all over the house, unraveling it EVERYWHERE and shrieking in pure joy as you went.

And I let you.  This entire month has been consumed by some sort of freak developmental explosion for you and every day, I feel like I wake up next to an entirely different baby than the one I laid to sleep the night before.  When I saw you thumping down the hallway delighted by the mess of toilet paper you were making, all I thought was that THIS MOMENT is why your father and I wanted a family.  So I let you.

Always remember, my love, that you can learn a great deal making a mess.

For future reference, sweet pea, you can also learn a great deal cleaning up a mess.

These days, you are always in five places doing ten things at once.  You are standing peering out the window.  Then you are crawling across the kitchen floor to pet the cat.  Then you are sitting in the playroom, babbling to yourself as you flip the pages of a book.  Then you are cruising along the wall and taking your first unsteady steps across a doorway to reach another wall.

Then you are squawking at me to give you some love.  Oh, Charlotte.  You don’t have to squawk at me.  I am always, ALWAYS, willing to give you love.

But before I have a chance to scoop you up and tickle you, you are rolling the bottom tray out of the dishwasher.  You are crawling over my legs and into my lap, a toy in one hand and a book in the other.  You are laying flat on the ground kicking your legs in eager anticipation of me blowing raspberries on your thighs.  You are reaching for the doorknob, hoping I’ll take you to the mailbox for the seventieth time today.

You are happily slapping your father’s hand because he asked for a high five.

It is hard to believe that you are the same little love bug that squirmed about inside of me for so long.  You will always be our baby, of course, but your father and I are beginning to catch glimpses of the toddler you are becoming.  Watching you grow is, I admit, a tiny bit heartbreaking.

But, Charlotte, my sweet, you know what?  There is nothing else I would rather do.

We love you and your stinky feet more than bears love honey, (and everybody knows that’s an awful lot),
Momma and Daddy

***  I am guest-posting at Mom-Nom’s blog today about that one thing we all hate.  Enjoy!