admin October 8th, 2008
Dear Son,
Yesterday you turned three months old. You cannot realize until you have your own child how much you have changed in these few short weeks. You have become a handsome and engaging little kid, and I have to say that I have more fun with you each day.
First of all, I want to go ahead and say thank you. Thank you for sleeping like a champ every night, and thank you for not having colic. You have no idea how much those two things have positively affected our relationship. We’re still working on naps, but naps are cake compared to some of the horrible times I know my fellow mothers are having at night. I understand your reluctance to take naps. I never wanted to miss out on the day either.
Supposedly babies are at their worst in fussiness at 6 weeks, but yours was the worst instead at 9. Everything that I had learned to soothe you failed. The mom with the confidence that she could quiet your crying within seconds melted away. I thought that perhaps it was due to your immunizations, but a call to the nurse confirmed that in the absence of other symptoms, shots shouldn’t be affecting you one week later. (By the way, you took those shots like a champ.) Finally I wrote an email to my friend A, and she suggested what I had suspected, which was that you were bored. I had thought that surely 2 months was too young to start getting bored, but boy was I wrong. Tired of looking at my sorry mug all day, you wanted something else to do. So, I started holding you so that you could see out, and bought you a play gym, and you have been a happy baby ever since. That thing and those birds on the mobile over your crib are your favorite things in all the world.
You have also had some digestive problems that I had sought help for through my facebook friends. One of them has suggested saving those conversations to embarrass you with much later, so if that happens, let me just apologize now. I am sure that if you are reading this, you have learned to poop at night if you need to, and gas releases just fine from your butt without having anything placed up in there. Most likely, you have learned that last one a little too well.
I finally think I have figured out that you don’t do well when I eat dairy, so I’m saying goodbye to all things made with cow’s milk, including yogurt, ice cream, and worst of all, cheese. When you are a teenager and ask me what have I ever done for you, giving up cheese will be the second thing I say, right after that horrible 9 months without booze. If when you get older, you fall in love and marry a woman, and you two have a child together, do her a favor and do without alcohol the entire pregnancy. If you do this, I know you will call me one day and say, thank you, I had no idea how bad it was until now.
In the last month you have gotten strong enough to begin to hold up your head, which has allowed you to do all kinds of new and wonderful things. One of your Dad’s favorite things to do is to boost you over his head, tummy side down, and pretend you are flying like superman. He’s great at the wooshing noises. I have to say that there is nothing more attractive than seeing your husband run your baby all over the house like a loon. You also enjoy sitting on my lap every morning on the porch looking out at the trees. Today I think you heard rain for the first time, and you seemed enthralled. I hope you always appreciate the wonders of the outdoors.
By far, the best part of these last two months has been your smiles. There is nothing in this world like going in to get you after a nap and seeing you look up, recognize me, and grin your gummy grin all across your face. I love to sing you songs or dance you around, or show you those wonderful ceiling fans, just to get a few grins out of you. And just about the time that you are getting tired of me, your Dad comes home and you seem to think, “DAD! It’s Dad! Oh my god! Dad!” And then you melt him with a grin, just like you have been doing to me all day. It seems to me that adults lose this ability to be so completely happy. Well kiddo, every day you help me remember.
And one more thing, little baby. Just the last few days, you have started doing this thing where you emit these horrible, loud, high pitched screams or grunts or screeches, and then you look at us. You seem to have figured out that when you make these noises, we immediately run to you, thinking that surely you are about to die. And then after we do this, you give a smile, but not one of your big wide smiles, so help me, it looks like a smirk. I am starting to think you know what you are doing. I think you have already started to test us. And if this is true, then that means that I will really need to be on top of things to be a good mother to you.
When my mom had talked on and on about how smart you looked when you were born, I thought that she was just being a doting grandmother. But more and more people are making these comments, people who don’t tend to make things up just to be nice, and I myself have started thinking that I agree with them. This means, little baby, that you are smart and precocious just like your parents. This is something that your father and I knew could happen, and talked about at length even before I got pregnant. Both of us gave our parents some real challenges as kids, and we could only imagine how if that combined you would test us. Now that it appears to be coming true, let me say this:
Bring it, little baby. Bring it.
Truly, I can’t wait. Happy Birthday.