Dear Merritt,

Usually I begin composing these letters to you just as soon as I finish the one before it. I've previously had the kind of time on my hands where I can scribble something about you in a moleskine here and there and have a bounty come time to sit down and write.

Not this month, busy boy. The bounty is there; the time is not.A couple of weeks ago, in a matter of fifteen seconds, you destroyed the entire interior of a restaurant. You grabbed a knife and in the time it took for me to get that away from you, you emptied a couple of pints of water onto the table and into my lap and as I attempted to sop them up you ate a menu. Consumed it. Gone.

Little has changed since then. Only progressed. You almost always have an electric cord in your mouth. Or a blowtorch. Or Hudson.At the tender age of seven months, you have agency. And a strong sense of it. You make choices and impose them on the world. Most of your choices revolve around what's in our hands. You choose for it to be in your hands/mouth, or we choose to listen to you when we don't allow it in your hands/mouth.

Your crawl is now knee over knee and terrifyingly fast. I lose you. Or more accurately, you lose me.

Eating cords? Racing? Disappearing? I believe you may be equal parts robot, cheetah, and ninja.

No sooner than you mastered legitimate crawling, you were pulling up. Actually, the events coincided. I was loading the dishwasher and you beelined for it, text book crawling (the first time I'd seen you do something other than the army worm), then pulled yourself right up on the dishwasher door and yanked the bottom rack to you. Sadly, you didn't load it.

But you did make my eyes sparkle. Because most everything you do makes me well up. Full disclosure, it's been that way since the beginning. Like when you smiled at me during an ultrasound.

How you greeted me after a nap three days ago:Grown. In your big boy carseat:Boy Genuis. Reading:Not tolerating the paparazzi: Rocking what your Grumpsey refers to as Redneck Lederhosen:I remember putting those robot leg warmers on you when you were 3 days old. I picked you up and they fell right off your tiny, Shar Pei knees. Now putting them on you is like stuffing a sausage casing.

I remember when you slept all the time. Now you savor wakefulness. That's the polite way of saying you don't sleep. There's too much to see and do and put in your mouth and pull up on. I don't blame you.

I remember (when you were in the NICU) wondering if I was ever going to hear your voice. Back then you didn't make a peep. Now you squeal with delight up and down every aisle of the grocery store. And to Funky Cold Medina. And whenever Hudson enters the room.

I remember when you couldn't pull focus on me. Now, I swear, you see all the way to the bottom of my soul.What I can't remember is ever before feeling this full, this content, this calm.

In the midst of all your busyness, you are my serenity.
(And on the rarest of occasions, my Serenity Now!)Love,
Momma