3 months old

Hi sweet baby!!!! Last weekend you turned three months old and I'm in complete awe about it. Every time I get you dressed I have a moment of genuine confusion as to why the 3-6mo clothes are fitting you, and then it sinks in and I still feel confused.

Thank god you're everything that we thought you would be. The yin to Charlotte's yang. She's all energy and flames and bursts of light, and you're like a little sailboat. Just peacefully riding the waves up and down and smiling throughout all of it.

I spent 9 months saying to you: You have to be calm. You have to sleep. You have to give me an easier delivery. I'm non-negotiable on all of it. Thankfully you're a good listener. 

Daddy predicted this years ago. When I was pregnant with your sister he said "I think we're going to have a girl first and she's going to be mouthy and sassy and fierce. Then we're going to have a boy and he's going to be emotional and soulful and calm." He's a smart one, that daddy of yours.

While I'm in no hurry for you to get older or reach your milestones or be less of a baby, I'm in a huge hurry to get to know you as a person. I learned from my first go-round with parenting that that is by far the best part. 

Right now you smile all the time, sleep through the night like a champion (since 10 weeks, with absolutely no effort on our part), don't like to be left alone, love to be held, and have no tolerance for dirty diapers. Except the smiling thing, all of these little indicators are different from the way Charlotte was as a baby.

Charlotte adores you and talks constantly about "when Everett is older" and how many things you'll be able to do together. Read books, play outside, go to the beach... her list is endless. My biggest wish (and parenting goal) for you two is to become friends. Genuine friends who respect, protect, and love each other. 

The blessing of a sibling is one that can only be truly understood once you're older and you look around and realize that no one else in this life will have a shared history with the two most important people in your life - your parents. No one will really understand when you pick up the phone and dial her number and say "Oh my god, mom is insane..." And then you'll finish that sentence with something that other people could understand on an intellectual level, but not on a gut level. Not the kind of understanding that produces the doubled-over laughter that only siblings can share in regards to their parent's own brand of crazy.

Because, like everyone else in life, daddy and I have a whole lot o' crazy. And one day I hope we can all sit around the table, glasses of wine in hand, and laugh and laugh and laugh about all of it. The way that Charlotte ran off to Europe to follow her crazy poem-writing boyfriend... the way that you secretly had a girlfriend for months before it occurred to you to tell any of us... the embarrassing way that daddy is willing to do Happy Dances in front of all your friends... the way that I always say accidentally inappropriate things and make you want to crawl into a hole.

We just started our life together as a complete family of four and there is so much awesome to come that I can't even take it all in.