Hi babe

Dear Lochie,

First of all, I love you. I loved you before I knew you.

I’ll tell you a secret though, I thought I wanted a girl. I told your dad that we should find out the sex of the baby because if it was a boy I needed to get used to the idea. I didn’t want to have even one second in the delivery room where I was like, “Oh really…?”. Took me about a month. You were still a fetus and I mourned ponytails and tutus and mary janes and makeup and dresses and then… I stopped. I started to get excited for a boy. Boys are delicious. Boys love their moms. Boys don’t make you feel like the “old version” when you walk down the street with them as a teenager. By the time I’d been pregnant for 5 months I was feeling super psyched. We called you Ginger the whole time I was pregnant. As you know there is a high ratio of RED heads in our family and we thought for sure you’d be one. You were born with jet black hair. Black. Full head of it. You looked Inuit. Definitely not a Ginge. You were super squished and kinda red – too red according to the doctors – something to do with too much sugar, but you were perfect.

To be honest I was a bit nervous of you. When you have your own baby someday don’t feel too terrible if you aren’t sure what to feel when it first arrives. You love it sure. But you don’t know each other yet and that kind of love has to grow. This “I loved you right away. I just knew my life was different.” stuff is a bit overwhelming and frankly, confusing. It’s wonderful finally having your baby, but it’s also a huge shock to the system. Especially if it’s your first. I think if I could have another child it would be different as I’d know how it was (mostly) going to play out and I could relax and enjoy it more.

But as it was, I had no idea what I was doing. I think I handled it pretty well except for a few minor exceptions. 1, Yelling at your Granny as she laughed hysterically at your dad and I attempting to put this little 8 pound boneless blob of you into the carseat and failing miserably. 2, Collapsing on the floor of your nursery because I “didn’t have any clothes that fit” you and “what kind of mother doesn’t have clothes to fit her child?”. Your granddad went out the next day and got tiny clothes that you grew out of in like 3 days but at least I stopped crying.

YOU, however, then cried for the next 4 months straight. I swear if you weren’t eating or sleeping you were wailing. Your Aunt Mimi reflected on the “grating” nature of your cry once almost to her own demise. I literally bounced you on an exercise ball for 4 straight months. On the plus side, baby weight – gone! On every other side…Holy #^&*!!! What the hell is happening?! Who are these frikin’ babies in restaurants or Mommy and Me’s or, God bless em, movie theaters? I literally never went out (except for one of our 3 daily walks) because I couldn’t take the random advice from strangers. “He’s probably just hungry.” “Oh, is he wet?” “Does he have a binky?” On that last one, so help me, you would not take  a passie for your life…until you were 1. Then you wanted your passie at all times and getting it away from you was something else all together.

At 4 months I told your pediatrician the if he told me it would “get better soon” one more time I might literally die. He told me to start you on solid foods. I did and you stopped crying. STOPPED. Just like that. It was like the baby I knew was in there  had arrived and all he needed was mushed bananas.