Dear Zachary,
Congratulations, baby guy, you've made it through the fourth trimester!
This month has been full of developments that have, thankfully, made my life easier. Whereas you used to want to be held all the time, and would only sleep for a couple hours at night before wanting to eat again, you have now graduated to being able to spend up to twenty minutes happily kicking it up by yourself on your activity mat, and sleeping 4-5 hours for one stretch during the night! This is huge, as twenty minutes is practically an eternity (it seems) where I can actually wash dishes, put laundry into the machine, and clean the litter box. And now that you're better at sleeping at night, I feel like a normal human being most days. Maybe I've gotten a little too used to that, though, as last week when you had a couple days of growth spurt, I was almost offended at having to wake up every other hour again...
Last month I wrote about how it was starting to sink in that you are really a permanent part of our family. Well, this month I'm starting to realize how much I like you being in our family, nay, how fiercely I love having you in my life. When they say that having a baby changes you, they're right; I never used to get what the big deal was with motherhood, but when I read two motherhood-centric books this month -- Amy Tan's The Valley of Amazement and Lois Leveen's Juliet's Nurse -- I was surprised by how strongly I identified with the mothers depicted, and how heartbroken I felt as I empathized with these fictional characters' losses. For all that I sometimes wish I had more time to myself, I can't even imagine what it would be like to have you taken away, baby guy. Sometimes when you're sleeping especially well (six hours and not a peep?!), I panic and have to check on you to make sure you haven't died of SIDS or anything crazy like that. When I went shopping last weekend for a couple of hours on my own (the longest I've been away from you!), I missed holding your little warm body, kissing your cheeks, and smelling your head. For someone who's fairly unsentimental, this is a new experience.
I've always inwardly sneered (okay, outwardly, too) at the Christmas song "Mary Did You Know?" for being ultra cheesy, but this Christmas, I find myself being less disdainful and more touched by it. Maybe it's just the new cover by Pentatonix, but I've a sneaking suspicion that it's actually my grinchy T heart growing three sizes (one size per month you've been alive?) bigger, but I just don't know how Mary did it, short of supernatural empowerment by the Holy Spirit. When I cuddle you and think about Mary giving up her baby to death on the cross, when I delight in your laughter and think about God sending His son to earth in the form of a tiny baby, I'm floored all over again by the Christmas story. What an incredible thing to have God with us, to have a high priest in Jesus who knows what the whole human experience is like. Maybe it's selfish of me not to want peace on earth and all men to have goodwill toward each other, but to be honest, my wish this Christmas is for you to grow up to know the Savior personally, to be able to experience the joy of Emmanuel.
love,
Mommy
Likes:
- Reading books. This makes me so incredibly happy! In the last month, you've come to really enjoy reading together. You get extra grinny and babble up a storm when I read to you. Your favorites, based on amount of noise made, are the Sandra Boynton board books, although Goodnight Moon is also up there.
- Song time. You are most likely to laugh when I sing you songs that have hand motions (which I make up a lot of the time). Favorites: The Wheels on the Bus, Little Bunny Foo Foo, The Wise Man and the Foolish Man.
- Looking at yourself in the mirror. You little narcissist, you! Tummy time becomes much more bearable when you get to see yourself in the little hand mirror.
- Bouncing. You love kicking your legs, and you love kicking off of things even more. Helping you bounce is a surefire way to get you to stop crying.
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| Happy early Christmas! Daddy got you a jumper so that you could hopefully burn off some of that excess energy. |
Dislikes:
- Putting down drowsy but awake. We've been working on sleep training the last couple of weeks and you are seriously pissed off every time your head touches the bassinet. It doesn't matter how close you were to nodding off, there is no such thing as shush-patting you to sleep.
- Your swing. You slept in it for a month or so, then started associating it with that awful time of day when Mommy and Daddy left you alone in the dark, so now even though we've transitioned you to sleeping in the bassinet, you still arch your back and cry when we put you in the swing for "amusement."
Other Notes:
- You now laugh regularly. Not a lot, but at least a few times a day, just enough that it makes us do ridiculous things in hopes of getting a laugh. Congratulations, you have learned how effective behavioral conditioning is on an intermittent reinforcement schedule.
- People regularly comment on how mature and alert you are for only being three months old. As you continue to nap poorly during the day, the latter adjective becomes more and more likely to evoke hysterical laughter from your parents. If only you would be a little less alert!
- You discovered your hands a few weeks ago and have been enjoying their unique flavor ever since. It was seriously difficult trying to get pictures of you this month without your fists jammed into your mouth. This is only a small selection:
- We took you to 婆婆 and 公公's house for the first time for Thanksgiving, where you finally met your last two uncles, Fenxi and Gummy. Nobody was particularly impressed or interested.
- At least your big brother Walnut has gotten more used to you! He no longer leaves the room when you start crying (sometimes he'll even come whine at me when you start crying in another room, as if to say "Excuse me, but did you notice he's crying again? Aren't you going to do something about it?"), and he'll even come hang out when you're in my lap.
- You rolled over from tummy to back for the first time this morning! Unfortunately, we have been unable to get you to do it again. You're probably regretting rolling over in the first place, as it means that you keep getting extra tummy time as we try for a repeat.
- Since it's your first Christmas, Mommy tried so hard to get some good pictures for a Christmas card. Looking up ideas on Pinterest + no actual understanding of how to use the manual settings on the DSLR = ridiculous pictures of you looking like a creepy, otherworldly baby.
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| I SEE YOU WHEN YOU'RE SLEEPING. I KNOW WHEN YOU'RE AWAKE. |
Okay, let's not finish on that note. Here's one showing you having entirely too much fun being naked and surrounded with shiny lights:
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| Joyful joyful! |
