An Open Letter to August

Dear August,

Here you are again. My, how 12 months have flown by. When we last saw you, I had a baby that looked like this:

Now, he looks like this:

Amazing, right? Time just keeps marching on and you August, just keep coming back.

I'll be honest, I wish you would stay away. It's nothing personal, in fact, before I became a mom I used to get excited for you: you're my birthday month!

You taught me the love of presents.

Still August, all the presents in the world can't make up for the fact that you bring with you the end of summer. Summer with my boy. Summer at the zoo and trips and pools and cuddling in the morning.

You bring with you going back to work and going back to daycare. You see, June and July start to lull me into a false sense of security, and you August, you take it all away. It's rude of you, to be quite frank.

Expect me to be a little sour with you August. All 31 days of you. I will probably perk up around the 19th, but after that, it's back to being Debbie Downer.

I encourage you to take a vacation next year, August. Take your friends September through May with you and convince the calendar to skip right to June again. Consider it an early birthday present to me.

Yours truly,
gin

To read my open letter to August from last year, click here.

An Open Letter to Kuntry Kitchen,

Dear Kuntry Kitchen,

I drove by your establishment on our way home from a weekend trip with the family. I saw your sign and was completely disgusted. I was driving and hubs was playing a game on the iPad, so neither of us could take a picture of your offensive restaurant sign. Below is a sign I found here, which concerns me because this means you might be part of a chain.

Here's why it was offensive to me: first of all, the first syllable, kunt, is very close to a word that is extremely offensive to all women. Just because the first letter is different does not make it okay.  The thought of this ugly word is not appetizing, so how you think you're going to get business is beyond me.

Second of all, you're probably not a teacher (or educated at all, for that matter), but there is a thing in literacy education called "print awareness." Basically, this means that when a child is first beginning to read, he or she is aware of the print around them and using the familiarity of said print is able to understand what the word says. Therefore, a child can "read" words like McDonald's, Snickers, Stop and other words that they see in their physical environment. This is an extremely important step in their literacy development and you, my friend, are messing it up.

Here's why: you are on the access road of a busy highway. Many children are gazing out the window due to sheer boredom when they pass your establishment. They see the word and ask mama and daddy what that says. They tell the child Country Kitchen. Child now associates the word kuntry with country. Child now has to relearn (in a sense) the word country.

This is not hypothetical; it happens in real life. I blame Winnie the Pooh, that chubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff, for my misspelling of the word honey. You see, Pooh labeled his beloved honey pot as "hunny," therefore causing me to think that hunny was the proper spelling.

It's not and neither is kuntry.

I'm going to wrap this up but I need to throw in one more reason this sign offends me. You, good sir, by misspelling the word country, are inferring that people who live in the country can only spell phonetically and thus would not be able to understand the word if it were spelled correctly. As someone who was raised in the country, this offends me. I am offended on behalf of my family in the country, who don't need to spell anything phonetically before they grace your establishment with their presence.

I imagine your food is not great either, with it's beens, stakes and gravie. And let's not forget the biskits.

Good day,
gin

Six Months.

Dear Toph,
Today you are six months old. For the first time in my life, I know what it feels like for time to speed up and slow down at the same time; for six months feels like a long time ago but I know it was just yesterday that we brought you home from the hospital.

Half a year, bud. That's how old you are today. Your smile lights up our day, your laugh melts our heart and your easy-going nature is such a joy.

You have turned us into this really awesome trio; a new family unit. I won't lie, at times it was hard for our duo to adjust to being a trio, but you make it all worth it. We think you are amazing, and you became our center of gravity the minute you were born. Rest assured, everything we do is for you. You are never far from our thoughts and you drive every action and decision we make.

You are a busy guy these days; you love to jump in your bouncer.

And you equally love your doorway jumper.

You are trying like crazy to crawl:

You have the most kissable cheeks in the world.

You grab at everything.

You sit up so well.  You rarely cry.  You love to look at books.  Your favorite foods are squash, peas and breastmilk.  You hate rice cereal.  You wear size three diapers and have about a month before you outgrow your 6-9 month clothes.  You nurse like a champ, except when your non-existent teeth hurt you.  You only take a pacifier in your crib and we think we can talk you out of that pretty soon.  You are popular at day care.  You can hold your own bottle.  You are trying to pull up on the ottoman.  You think the cat is fascinating and want him so badly.  The cat does not share the sentiment.  You light up when your daddy comes home.  You don't like it when daddy makes scary faces in an attempt to be funny.  You just learned to sleep on your tummy and at times have a hard time adjusting to the new position.  You hair sticks straight up and you have the sweetest cowlick on the top of your forehead.  Your eyes are brown like your daddy's.  In fact, almost everything about you, right down to your personality, is just like your daddy.  We got lucky because if you were anything like your mama when she was a baby, I'd have to delete the "rarely cries" part.  You can be put on a pallet on the floor with a few toys and be fine there for an extended period.  You love your rattles and you love your bear Uncle Kris gave you.  You love to practice standing on mama's lap.  You are in a great mood when you wake up in the morning.  You look precious in footie pajamas.  At night when you wake from teething I'll rock you back to sleep and I try to memorize exactly the way you feel in my arms.  You fit perfectly against my chest and in my arms.  No matter how big you get (and your pedi predicts you'll be a big boy) you will always fit perfectly in my arms.  They were made for you, my boy.

You are my baby, my six month old baby. You've brought so much joy to our lives.  I love you so fiercely.
Love
mama