A Letter To My Daughter

Dearest Kinsley,

Today you are three months old. In the grand scheme of things, three months is not much time, but it is hard to believe that it has been that long since your mom and I brought you home from the hospital.

Since you’re only three months old, I don’t expect you to be able to read this for at least another few weeks, but I thought I would write you a brief letter to commemorate your quarter-year birthday. This will also help me to remember what you were like at three months, because it is alarming how quickly you are growing and changing (the first time you outgrew one of your newborn outfits was pretty traumatic for your daddy).

Over the last three months, our lives have changed completely. We have a hard time being on time to anything, and frankly, it’s usually your fault. Our plans center around your feeding schedule—what time (or whether or not) we can leave the house for something depends on how recently you’ve eaten. How pleasant our evenings are and how much sleep we get at night rests almost entirely on how fussy you are. Nevertheless, all of these changes are fine with us, because they mean that we get to have you!

You’re getting to where you can hold your head up for a while when you sit up, and you also smile a lot at Mommy and even laugh a little bit when you’re in a good mood. You still love to spend a lot of time in your bouncy seat, but when you’re really upset, nothing calms you down more than Mommy or Daddy walking around with you and whacking you on the back (I never would have guessed how much you like to be pounded on the back!). I’m not sure how well you can see yet, but you always like to turn and look at lights, and sometimes you’ll turn your head to look at us when we talk to you. For the last few weeks you’ve gotten to where you usually sleep through the night (which is awesome!) but occasionally you wake up and have to be soothed a little.

Here’s a confession I have to make: one of my favorite things is when you are crying and fussy and whoever has you can’t get you to calm down, but then Daddy holds you and walks with you and you are no longer upset. I know that at this point you are largely unaware of who I am, but it makes me feel special and I can pretend that you prefer to be with your Daddy over anyone else! But my favorite thing of all is when you lie down with me on the couch and take a nap. You won’t do this very often because you usually prefer to sleep in your bouncy seat during the day, but when you take a nap against my chest I love it.

Your mom says that I am a pessimist, which means that I always see the bad side of things. Maybe she’s right because lately it seems like I have been frustrated and discouraged a lot. But here’s the thing—no matter how rough or difficult my day has been, coming home and getting to spend time with you always cheers me up. I delight in you.

I am so blessed that God has given me the job of being your dad. There’s no job that I would rather have.

Happy Three Months! I love you!

Daddy