This is the first installation of what I hope will be monthly letters to Kate about the things she is learning and doing as she grows. Some people have scrapbooks; I have a blog. What I don't have is any original ideas, since I am stealing this concept from a couple of my favorite bloggers. I hope that one day, Kate will enjoy reading these, but it's more likely that she'll be mortally embarrassed that I preserved my rhapsodies about her cute little baby butt on the Internet, to be available via Google for all time. That's the beauty of parenthood, though. This is my child to traumatize as I see fit. She, in turn, can start a support group for Children of Bloggers and vow to write her own children's stories only in invisible ink or something. This first letter is a bit late, since Kate was one month old on the 8th, but cut me some slack. I had a baby a month ago!

Dear Kate,

Congratulations on one month of life on the outside, baby girl. You have accomplished quite a lot in the last 30 days or so. Mostly, these accomplishments have come in the form of projectile pooping. Your daddy and I think that if it turns out that you are a space alien, we will know that your mission involves pooping on as many Earthlings as you can hit. In fact, your first act outside the womb was to poop all over the doctor and nurse who were examining you. For a while, we thought your grand plan was to poop exclusively on medical professionals, since a couple of days later, you nailed the nurse who was weighing you at the pediatrician's office. But since then, you've pooped on me, your daddy, and both of your grandmothers. So far the score, as far as we can tell, is Baby Kate 7, Everyone Else 0. So good work. You're making the mother ship proud.

When we were waiting for you to be born a little over a month ago, one of the things I was most anxious to find out was what you would look like, and what your unique little quirks would be. On the other side of your birth, it's so much fun to be learning those things. One thing we can say for certain is that you love to wave your hands. From the minute you were place in my arms, you've been waving your hands around in front of your face in these elaborate patterns that look like you're either doing an obscure form of Tai Chi or trying to cast a voodoo spell to make us do your bidding. I routinely have to pin your hands down by your side to get you to eat or you'd sit there, fanning your hands around, until you starved. This makes me smile because there are quite a few people in your family, including me, who wave their hands around a lot when they talk, and unless I am sadly mistaken, it's starting to look like sweeping arm gestures are going to be part of your conversational style, too.

But perhaps the most unusual thing about you so far is the way you sneeze. There is no way I can really describe it in words, but after you sneeze, you make this sound halfway between a dramatic sigh and the word "Wooooo!" The first time you did it was in the hospital, and your daddy and I wanted to find something that would make you sneeze again, just so we could hear it. We still laugh every time you sneeze, and on the few occasions when you sneeze without making the Wooo! sound afterward, we feel cheated, and worry that you're going to outgrow this particular thing and never do it again. It is the cutest thing I have ever seen a baby do, even if I am a bit biased in your favor.

Speaking of your daddy, one of the other great joys of the last month has been seeing him fall completely in love with you. Your daddy spent a lot of time before you were born telling people that he was convinced he would be bored to tears by the infant stage of your life, and was eager for you to reach six months or so, an age when he felt you would be more interactive and fun. People told he wouldn't feel that way once you arrived, but he wouldn't listen. This is now the man who walks through the door at the end of the day and demands that you be immediately handed to him so that he can hold you and talk to you and catch up from the hours he had to be away from you. This same man just yesterday saw that an outfit you were wearing was getting a little tight and said "Oh no! She's getting so big! I can't believe she'll never be this little again." And this same man who professed to be so bored by infants sings made up songs to you when he's changing your diapers or getting you dressed, both of which skills he has mastered with surprising agility in the last few weeks. I think it is safe to say that you have successfully wrapped your daddy around your drool-covered pinky finger. I fear for the day you can talk and ask him for things. There will be no stopping you.

As for me, I have become that woman I was always a bit skeptical of. The woman who oohs and aahs over her baby's every feature and claims to be endlessly fascinated by a little eight pound person who basically eats, poops and sleeps. The woman who will, if she doesn't catch herself first, tell other people all about how the other day? You smiled! You smiled and it was probably because you had gas, but it was so cute! I used to think these women needed to get a grip, or at the very least get themselves a tin foil hat to shield them from the mind control beams that were clearly taking over their brains. And now I am one of them, and I am sure people want to break into open snoring when they talk to me. But I can't stop myself. Anyone would want to tell people about the best thing that ever happened to them, and therein lies the reason your daddy and I have become such utter saps in a matter of days: You are the best thing that has ever happened to us.

So congratulations on your debut month on the earth. If you are a space alien, we ask that you be merciful to us, your hosts on this planet. We have lost our tin foil hats.

Love,
Mommy