Mabel Molanphy

Dear Mabel–

You are just so fun with your talk­ing and danc­ing, loves, kiss­es, hugs, etc. You cry some­times when Dad­dy leaves for work, ask­ing all day, “go dad­dy!? Dad­dy at work!” Some­times you bring me the phone and say “call dad­dy!” When dad­dy does­n’t answer the phone, you solemn­ly declare “dad­dy busy!” You are just too smart for your own britches—at least smarter than I. You also ask for your tias and tios, to tele­phone, along with your abue­los and grand­par­ents. You’ve man­aged to call/text a few friends/family before I final­ly put a pass code on my phone. 😉

You love to eat any­thing that dad­dy is eat­ing, no mat­ter how much you’ve *just* eat­en before he came down the stairs. Your favorite thing to ask for are “frog­gy sto­ries,” made up on the spot by mama or dad­dy, depend­ing who you asked. You still talk about your aunts/uncles and tios/tias that you haven’t seen for two months (in per­son) and refer to the things that you did. Your mem­o­ry amazes me—you def­i­nite­ly got that from your mama. You *love* to dance. As your abuela puts it, you are gringa on the out­side, lati­na on the inside. I could­n’t agree more. 

Recent­ly, I have been sewing for your more and more. As I have final­ly weaned myself from my post par­tum anx­i­ety meds, I have found parts of myself I have sore­ly missed—including my pas­sions for cook­ing and sewing, but most­ly my dri­ve to suc­ceed and work hard. I have been sewing up a storm for you, includ­ing cus­tom-made, cou­ture style panties, which you proud­ly wear, declar­ing “mama made it!” Your love to be around your friend’s baby sis­ter, Lydia (five months). When you see her, you always lay your head on her bel­ly (hug) and declare “baby ‑ia! what doing?” If she’s miss­ing her paci­fi­er, you find it and replace it over and over (and over…) as she spits it out. You just want to hold her and hug her. She’s an easy-going baby, so she tol­er­ates all your loving.

If mama is research­ing on the com­put­er, you stand next to me say­ing “lap, please!” then prompt­ly find the near­est paper/pencil and draw things while I fin­ish my research. There’s so much of your dad­dy in you. I’m so grate­ful you inher­it­ed the desire to cre­ate. We hope to nur­ture that.

You are a won­der­ful, hap­py spir­it. How blessed we are to have you in our lives, and see the promis­es of the Lord ful­filled, as you tru­ly bring us joy. Thank you, dear Mabel, for join­ing our family.

Much love–

mama

Though it’s been 7 months since swim­ming lessons, Mabel still likes to dig out her suit and put it on—usually on top of what­ev­er else she is already wearing. 😉

Hooray!! Her hair is growing.

When we had the priv­i­lege of liv­ing with Dave and Lynn, mama loved spend­ing all her free time in the kitchen. One day, the heater went out and the ceram­ic floors were so cold, mama put oven mitts in her feet to stay warm. 

While mama was bak­ing, Mabel found man­a’s mit­tens “mit­ties” to keep her feet warm. I think dad­dy pulled a mus­cle from laugh­ing so hard. 

Mabel LOVES two things at dad­dy’s office. 1) Bucky balls 2) dad­dy’s music

We try to vis­it dad­dy every two weeks. Though mama thinks dad­dy just likes to show off Mabel. 😉