Cognosco

Dear Albie,

I am a few days late in writing your monthly update, but given that you can’t read the calendar yet, I think we’re okay.

You have changed in so many ways in the last month that it simply blows my mind.

First of all, you have started to like the car…most of the time. And I don’t even have to play the hair dryer sounds. I occasionally have to reach back and pop the pacifier back in your mouth, but there are also lots of time that you will just chill without your pacifier, talking to yourself (or things I can’t see) and being a generally happy baby. My SIL gave me a great tip to clip the pacifier to your car seat, so that when you do demand it, I can find the clip, follow the ribbon, and pop it back in your mouth (I promise I only do this at stop lights). It was a great tip, because trying to find the pacifier was a nightmare.

Sometimes when you get fussy, I can actually play music and it will soothe you. The first thing that seemed to speak to you was Thom Yorke’s “The Eraser”. He’s the guy from Radiohead, and your fondness for him makes your mommy proud of your stellar taste in music. You may tolerate other things, but you seem to genuinely like his music. So, I tried some Radiohead. You liked that too. And most recently, you seem to dig the Flaming Lips. My friend KC says that at this stage, some songs just make a baby go “What the fuck?” long enough to stop fussing. I think she’s right. For a long time, you seemed to have no interest in “what-fucking” and really just wanted droney things to drown out ANY possibility of thought. I have to tell you, that hair dryer sound was getting old…

I still swaddle you to go to sleep, but you sleep for regular 6-7 hour stretches. I am so lucky. Then after I feed you, sometimes you want to be awake for an hour or two, and that’s okay. I take you back to bed with me, and we just cuddle through the early morning and I feel like I really have the best of both worlds. You sleep in your own bed to start, but I still get baby cuddles. And since your reflux has gotten better (or my oversupply has chilled out?) I can actually lay in bed and nurse you occasionally in the morning and we just snooze on and off for awhile. It rocks.

While we’re on the topic of sleep, you appear to be a power napper. It’s really rare for you to sleep during the day for more than 45 minutes to an hour, but you sleep fairly frequently. Sometimes I force encouragee you to have a longer nap just so I can lay down longer. Because really, when you wake up right after I’ve fallen asleep, I really just feel sort of sick…

You have made great leaps in terms of your level of neediness. I can put you in your swing unswaddled (!) and you will even sleep there, unswaddled (!). I can even put you in your little infant chair/rocker thing, and you are content for stretches varying from 5 minutes to an hour. In fact, there are now times that you will fuss when held, and then be happy to be put down in your chair (!). It kind of freaks me out. It kind of made your dad and I sad…for about 12 seconds. Now, when you do want to be held, you pretty much insist on facing outward. You love to smile and babble at the hot pink pig rattle that hangs across the archway on your chair, and sometimes you hold great conversations with the cow as well. You have also been known to smile and laugh at pretty much every light fixture in the wall. It cracks me up.

Speaking of babbling, you have always been a rather chatty little dude, but in the last 4 weeks, your range of sounds has exploded so that it is no longer all grunts, but rather a wide range of babble-speak. You tend to be consistently chatty early in the morning and pretty much any time you are on the changing table. Since you have always been vocal, this is not surprising. What is surprising is when you have long stretches of silence. This usually occurs in new situations where there are a lot of new people or a lot of new things to see. I went shopping at Trader Joe’s one day, and you were completely awake and silent for the entire hour (it takes me a long time to exert self-control at Trader Joe’s), facing forward in the sling and staring at all of the people and colors with great interest. It was awesome.

You no longer have a jiggly head, which is kind of sad, because now I can’t sing you your Jiggly Head song. I also can’t jiggle it to soothe you, but now rocking kind of works. You have great head and neck control. The doctor was actually kind of shocked at how much control you had, and that was almost a month ago. You aren’t really rolling over yet. Not reliably anyway. You can of course go side to back, but back to side is still difficult (it’s hard to haul all of that fat around). You have, on occasion, rolled from tummy to back. But it was one fluid, quick motion that scared the bejeezus out of you. So I’m not sure if that counts.

You like to stand up. A lot. Most of the time when I’m holding you now, you want to be standing, which is fine by me.

You have lately taken to eating your hands. I think you are trying to find something to suck, but haven’t quite figured it out yet. Sometimes you will insert your two middle fingers into your mouth, but it usually makes you gag. Then spit up. Then get upset. At which point you repeat the whole process…

We have had no more green poop. Instead, you have what daddy and I call “Buttsplosions”. It is just what it sounds like. Your butt explodes. And whether you’re wearing a cloth diaper or disposable diaper, there is hell to pay if not promptly attended to. The cloth diapers tend to leak out the legs. The disposable diapers result in shit climbing up your back. Oh, the joys of motherhood.

While on the topic of bodily functions, you spit up a lot. But you no longer seem upset about it and are what the doctors call a “happy spitter”. Supposedly, this peaks at four months. God, I hope so.

You did, indeed, have a growth spurt around 12 weeks. You went through a few days of marathon nursing that made even me question if something was wrong with my supply. And then I realized how old you were and went ‘Oh, it’s that growth spurt. Duh.’ And felt much better. I have also figured out that your extremely fussy periods actually do correspond to something called “the Wonder Weeks” which are developmentally challenging weeks where there’s a lot of stuff going on. So far, week 3, week 8, and week 12 have been hell, and these are exactly the weeks that are mentioned.

My favorite change in the last month is that you have decided to like the stroller. Initially, you hated it. Then daddy tried to take you out in it on a lark a few weeks ago, and you loved it. Don’t get me wrong, I love wearing you, but you’re kind of heavy dude. Especially for long stretches.

You also really love your bath time now, as well as diaper changes. I’m not sure what it is about diaper changing time, but 90% of the time you smile and talk and laugh. In fact, there have been times when you haven’t even needed changed that I will go through the ritual just to reset your fuss buttons.

This last month, in short, has been fantastic. You are finally starting to turn from a confused fetus into a baby. It has been an absolute joy. I am so looking forward to all of your forthcoming stages, even as I already lament the ones in the past.

Things I have learned:

• Just because your baby hates something the first time you try it doesn’t mean s/he will always hate it (e.g. baths, strollers, car rides, infant seats, being tossed in the air, zerberts, etc.)

• Fussy days always pass, even if there are several of them in a row

• No matter how crappy any given phase is, I will long for it in retrospect

• Amnesia (birth amnesia, sleep deprivation amnesia, fussy baby amnesia) sets in ridiculously fast

• I, apparently, produce straight cream

• A dry diaper = a baby waiting to whiz in your face

• Well-rested is a relative term

• Oxytocin from breastfeeding is apparently much stronger than many chemicals released from recreational drugs. I know this because I have not been willing to skip breastfeeding for a few days (despite the freezer full of milk) in order to do a little partying. My husband was stunned. So was I.

• Babies really are tons of fun