Dear Luke

One more week from now you will be 7 months old. Oh where, oh where has the time gone? 

Your smile is emerging more and more every day and you have a Rodriguez mouth. You love to squeal and make high pitched babbling noises, just like your mama. Those two dimples continue to deepen and add a dashingly handsome quality to your sweet, little face. Your two front teeth are planning on making their debut any day, which explains your obsession with gnawing and drooling on everything. Your little legs kick when you are excited and happy to see the people and things you love. Splashing in the ocean and eating the sand is your newest hobby, followed by some serious Micheal Phelps-esque kicks in the bathtub. Apples and bananas reign as your all-time favorite food, and you can finish an entire bowl in under 5 minutes flat. Rolling and scooting is your main mode of transportation these days and you are so close to crawling on all fours. And that bottle you love so much? You can hold it on your own!

Your dad and I love you so much it gives us butterflies in our stomachs just thinking about your beautiful, precious life. Watching and caring for you is the most rewarding job in the world. It gets hard at times, especially those nights when you think you should be playing instead of sleeping. But in the morning when I go to pick you up from your crib and I am greeted with that enormous, gummy smile, it all makes sense.

Struggling with my post-baby body image, I have a new-found love and fondness for the extra inches on my hips and the few stretch marks acquired from growing and nurturing you. Instead of treating them as an enemy, I finally embraced them as a symbol of you, forever branded on my body to remind me that you are a part of me and I was lucky enough to bear you. It truly is a gift which I am incredibly grateful for.

I love you, my baby Nugget!