Always changing

The baby is always changing. That is so obvious, but it’s amazing how fast things happen. So many changes so quickly means that I feel like I’m meeting a whole new baby every couple of weeks or even days, and it’s exciting. But it also means that I’m saying good-bye to the old baby, with his tiny baby-ness and his blobby silliness.

He sort of, kind of, maybe sat up by himself earlier this week. He can sit, hunched forward, hands at his sides and touching the floor, perfectly balanced for about 2 seconds before listing to the side drunkenly. 🙂 And after weeks of munching intently on his hands and our knuckles, he’s sprouted two tiny teeth on the bottom! Wow! I need to get a picture to post soon. I think his left tooth emerged on Monday then the right one came in on Tuesday or Wednesday. The edges feel like a dull saw blade as new teeth do.

He’s also been more intentional in his grabbing lately. I read that he’s most likely developing a sense of depth perception about now, and that along with better motor control means that he can grab things better than before. Before, he was just flailing his limbs randomly toward (or even away from) the objects of his desire, but now he looks at them and slowly tries to bring his hand or hands to them. Oddly enough, he’s been doing this with my hand and fingers. We sometimes lie under the mobile over our bed and sing a simple song I made up that goes, “This is a circle, this is a circle, squiggly little worms, squiggly little worms. This is a kitty cat, this is a kitty cat, with triangle ears, triangle ears,” etc. It’s mostly nonsensical but I point at various different pictures while singing these lines. Lately, as I am gesturing at the pictures, he’ll slowly bring his hands up and grab my hand, then ever so slowly, bring my hand to his face and open mouth, at which point, he’ll release my hand instead of chomping on it, then start over again. He seems to enjoy this game and that is good enough, even if I don’t understand it! 😀 He also does this with my elbow while I change him on his changing pad.

Ooh, another thing he does is now blow raspberries on my neck and on my cheek. Right before the teeth came out, he often pressed his mouth/jaw against whatever was close by, like my hand, his fists, my neck, the bed (which is quite alarming to me, as it looks like he’s trying to smother himself against the bed), etc. While doing this, he just spontaneously figured out he can blow little fart sounds on my neck. It’s hilarious! At least to me.

It’s like I’m trying to capture all these memories on paper (and in photos) as fast as I can, knowing that these phases are passing and that he’ll keep changing, and I’ll eventually forget some of these tiny, adorable details. Yeah, well, it’s exactly that. No one else might care to read this, but it is some comfort to me that I’m writing these things down so that I can remember.

He’s just amazing. I love him so much.

Two Shorts

Conversation 1:
About a month ago, Seppo and I were rocking the baby to sleep in our darkened room, with some Brahms Lullaby and assorted other pieces playing in the background.

Me: *eyes rounding* Oh my God! I know why you always fall asleep at symphonies!
Seppo: Oh my God! Me too!

Conversation 2:
The day of the baby’s 100th day celebration, Joe, our housemate, called Seppo shortly before the starting time. He was calling from his work, and from what I could tell from Seppo’s end of the conversation, he was asking if he could bring anything, as he was coming back home from his grocery store.

Seppo, to Joe on the phone: … Sure, maybe bring something for the parents?
Me, to myself in my head: The parents? Did someone invite their parents to the party? What the hell? That’s obnoxious!
[Five seconds pass.]
Me, out loud: Oh my GOD! WE are the parents! Our friends and us! GAH!

The Continuing Adventures of Mr. Bebeh

Let’s see… He’s a champion drooler now. He’s been drooling like a leaking open faucet for about a month. It seems early, but from the way he eagerly chomps on everything in sight, it seems as he really is teething. Wow! He’s got a pretty hard bite.

His mornings have been quite different from the last time I wrote about them. He wakes up closer to 6am now but is also not as consistent as he used to be. For instance, last night, he woke up at 3am and went back to sleep around 6 or 7, not quite sure when.

We had his 100-day celebration! Here are a couple of pics from the actual date:

Totem!

Here he is, dressed up and nowhere to go, a couple of days after his 100th:

We had a small gathering. It was remarkable in that it was a small gathering but FULL OF BABIES. I mean, like 10. I hadn’t even realized I knew so many babies. It was pretty crazy. Most of them were 1 and under, which a couple of bigger kids in the mix.

Sadly, I failed to take any pics during the gathering with the kids. But here is the baby with a rice-cake-cake. You heard me: rice-cake-cake.

And yes, those are arms you see holding the baby up. My mom’s, to be precise.

I wish this pic wasn’t so unfocused because it’s adorable.

He’s super-long! He was over 26″ tall two weeks ago.

He really wants to eat his feet nowadays but he can’t really reach them in most positions. Here is one that sort of works:

I am going back to work in two and a half weeks, which means we are spending a lot of time looking for childcare. It is a heartbreaking process, made worse because there are so many people who have so much negative to say about our decision. Sucks.