Walking through the front door of my aunt's house, being greeted by my baby was the absolute best feeling in the world.
Not only was she crawling now, but she was making a lot more noises that sounded like actual words.
She was growing up.
Hearing her scream at me with the biggest smile on her face, dragging her chunky little baby body across the tile brought the biggest grin to my face, crouching down as I encouraged her to come get me.
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"Hi cutie!" I squealed, scooping her up and tugging her tight. "Mommy missed you! You're getting so big" I kissed her cheek, making a smacking sound, her giggle being the best sound ever.
It was hard the first two weeks to get back into the swing of things, not only was the jetlag messing with me, but I missed hanging out with Gemma all day, so going back to work definitely hurt my heart a bit.
Towards the end of June I finally got Gemma into the stitch onesie I had gotten her when I was pregnant, taking loads of photos and videos of her crawling around in it before it got too hot.
"You can't deal! Look how freaking cute she looks!" I cried out to my Uncle Garret, watching her explore the dog toy bin. "She fits in with the dogs!" I laughed, her little claw hands pulling out a squeaker toy.
The highlight of my day was finding her passed out in it, immediately taking the photo and sending it to Colby, telling him our little monster was tuckered out.
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July fourth came and went, it was a quiet day, a small family barbeque in the back. Lexi and Landon had flown in for the weekend so it was nice to see them again and hear that Cynthia has been doing okay.
It sucks that I've lost touch with such an important person in my life, but I knew that sometimes we just all needed to take personal space, and give each other room to breathe.
On the first Wednesday in July, Gemma got to experience her first ever tornado siren, which scared the crap out of her.
Her nap time always landed at 1pm when they would go off, but we were working on changing when she went down, so this time we weren't so lucky, and let's just say we spent the next few hours consoling her shaking little body, wiping away the fat tears that were rolling down her bright red cheeks.
