Dear Ingrid,

You spent almost your entire 6th month as a charge at the campus daycare center. I was nervous about taking you, worried about how you’d do with feeding and sleep, and I knew I’d miss you, but daycare was a good place to have you while I worked on campus to finish my own schoolwork. In fact, daycare went so well, that I actually felt guilty at pulling you out — yes, me, your pretty damn crunchy mama, who nurses you and wraps you and curls up face to face with you in the big bed in the early morning, I felt guilty.

You are such a social butterfly, always grinning from ear to ear, so happy to see people! of any kind! that having hours on end of not only people, but also of babies, well, that was okay by you. You and other babies about your age would sit and look at each other, and reach out to hold each other’s hands, or to grab each other’s sleeves or to bang excitedly on the beadpath toy.  In fact, on your very last day, you were craning to see your caregivers over my shoulder as we left. The caregivers all said that you were a happy girl, and I’m so glad that you are a happy bug.

Today, you went with me so that I could present & defend my portfolio to complete my master’s degree. My advisor held you on her lap, and you would bend yourself sideways and in half to try to catch the eyes of students as they came in. The staff in the education building were so excited to see you, too — they watched me grow big as I was carrying you, and just a few days after I waddled out for the last time as a GA, you arrived. I found out about you the weekend before I started at the university as a full time grad student, and it’s sort of fitting that you were there to see me finish my degree.

In your own world, you still like to sit, and you still could care less about rolling or crawling. You WILL roll, but only out af frustration, really, and you haven’t yet figured out that rolling could be a way of getting nearer to the cat. I’m sure you will soon.  You seem to still be working onthose top two teeth, just when I think they are going to come through…. they don’t. I’m sure it won’t be long for that, either.

I’m so glad to have this time with you. This afternoon, I wrapped you up so we could go shopping, and it felt so good to have you tucked up close to me again. With the busy-ness of this last month, you’ve had a lot of time with your daddy, but we haven’t been out hardly at all! I’m so happy to be done with my work and school, and while I am looking for a job, I’m going to treasure the next few days and weeks, where it’s just Ingrid and Mama, cuddled up together in Target once again.

Your aunt kate is coming on Friday, to celebrate your first christmas with us. Grammy and Grampy will be here, too, and while it will be busy, it will be fun, and made so much more special with you here. When we bring you in to bed to sleep, usually every morning by 5, and when you’ve been sick, all night for a few nights, you like to reach out and touch one of us, for reassurance, I think.  And as you’ve gotten bigger, the cat has started to cuddle up to you, too, so that sometimes your daddy and I look across to each other and if the cat has wormed her way in, you almost always have a grip on her in some way, as you sleep. A sleeping Ingrid, clutching a sleeping fatkitty’s tail, well, it’s pretty damn cute.

We love you so much, and you are growing so fast. I can’t believe you’ve tipped past the half-year mark, and I know, I KNOW that your first birthday will come upon us like a freight train. I hope I can remember the sweet moments between now and then, and forever after.

Love, Mama