Seven

Dear Matthew,

Seven months old. Are you off your rocker? You seriously have to be kidding me. Not one. Not two. Not even five or six. You are seven months old. And who cares that the average baby crawls at eight months. You decided to do it just after six months and have mastered it. Last weekend you went from crawling to sitting to crawling again and now my life is over because, well, you're completely mobile.

You spent a good portion of last month in San Diego and, to be completely honest, you went totally berserk. If I tried to put you down you went ballistic. And by ballistic I mean that you would shriek these ridiculous guttural cries where your tongue would wag and your throat would make gurgling crazy sounds. It was charming. I really shouldn't complain though because you were an angel for all the really important stuff. You were perfect at your uncle's wedding and amazing during the retreat weekend. So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Getting to San Diego this time meant flying on a plane and you were a smiling little angel. You conked right out after take off which caused passengers on their way to the restroom to stop and oohhh over your cherubic face. The flight back was not quite as pleasant but it wasn't terrible. You were a little fussy but it could it have been a whole lot worse.

While we were out in California, we saw your birth father and your birth mother. The meeting with your birth father didn't go quite as well as when he came out to Utah but you were perfectly happy. Considering that the meeting came at the end of an extremely long day, involving three hours of traffic just to go 30 miles, that was pretty impressive. The next day we saw your birth mother, who you hadn't seen since you were two days old. You were happy and content that day, too and I took the sweetest picture of you asleep on her shoulder.

You haven't cut any teeth yet but, what with all the gnawing and tenderizing you've been doing on my fingers, I think they are on their way. I haven't seen too many smiles that are bigger than yours and I'm enjoying these last few moments of your toothless grin.

I love you. I love you. I love you. Even crawling all over the place and riding the dog and getting into absolutely everything. I love you. Happy seven months, dear one.

And really, I just wanted to show off that picture because seriously, can it get cuter than that? He always sucks on his lower lip. It's his trademark. I also don't think there's a better picture of a chubby little baby hand that's ever been taken. Ever. The end.