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Dearest Meredith,

You are 8 months old – holy cow! You are changing daily. Literally. There was one weekend that when your Grandma asked me what was new I told her “Meredith can now feed her self small pieces of food, pull her self to standing in her crib, scoot around the floor on her butt, and clap” You had learned all of this in 2 days. Frankly my dear, it is hard to keep up with you.

Since that one crazy weekend when you decided to learn a myriad number of things all at once, you have continued to learn and develop. You now know how to crawl. Technically, you learned how to crawl on December 11th. However, for the first few days you did NOT crawl happily. You would whimper and whine and look at us like “why are you degrading me like this? Can’t you just pick me up? At the very least, hand me that toy I want rather than making me do THIS?” And we would point at you and giggle and snap about 800 photos. Now though, just a few days later, you crawl EVERY where, and you do it quite happily. I guess you figure it is better than waiting the 27 seconds it might take us to help you out. Funny thing though, you rarely crawl to anything that you are supposed to have. You will crawl over piles of toys and other baby-appropriate items to get to a dead lady bug or an outlet. Thankfully, for now, I am still faster than you.

While you are able to crawl, you prefer to have us hold you hands and walk you around the house. You run everywhere and then back again. You love it. I have a feeling the day is not far when you will let go of our hands and there will be no looking back.

We celebrated your first Thanksgiving this month! I was so excited. Unfortunately, you have developed a bit of an aversion to solid foods (you have had a stuffy nose for quite some time, and I think that once you feel better you will begin liking solids again) and so you weren’t interested in eating on that holiday (which my dear, is the WHOLE POINT…that and being thankful). But you did have a few tastes off of my plate of your great grandmothers mashed potatoes and her squash. So, at least you didn’t miss out entirely. We used Thanksgiving as an excuse to visit many people in the family. We spent the actual holiday at Great Grandma Hatch’s house with the extended family, ate again the next day at your Grandma Goldin’s house with your Great Grandma Goldin and Great Aunt Jean. And before returning to Potsdam we took a detour to Morris to see your Great Grandma and Grandpa Fiske. How blessed you are to have so many people who love you. It was a lovely holiday.

After the Thanksgiving holiday we had visitors come to Potsdam (this happens rarely)! The Souvas came and spent a night at our house. Last time we had seen them you and Caleb were a bit too young to care about each other, but this time it was so fun to watch you guys interact. I had spent so much time preparing for their visit. I wanted to be able to share your things with Caleb and since you had been sick I sanitized EVERYTHING. When they arrived we placed you guys on the floor together with some toys and before long, you but his hand in your mouth and he tasted your foot. So much for trying to be prepared.

Okay Meredith, Christmas is right around the corner. I wish I could explain to you what this means…but be prepared for AWESOMENESS! Everything is so much more fun with you, I can barely contain my excitement this holiday season. But, even without holidays, everyday events are so much better with you and I look forward to every minute with you. You are my every reason to be thankful. I love you.

Love,
Mommy