Here's another one for your baby book: BabyLegs. Fad? Trend? The start of something wonderful? A terrible 80's flashback?
I have no idea. But I sure do think you look adorable wearing them.Love,
Mom
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Baby Legs
Dear Jack,
Here's another one for your baby book: BabyLegs. Fad? Trend? The start of something wonderful? A terrible 80's flashback?
I have no idea. But I sure do think you look adorable wearing them.
Love,
Mom
Here's another one for your baby book: BabyLegs. Fad? Trend? The start of something wonderful? A terrible 80's flashback?
I have no idea. But I sure do think you look adorable wearing them.Love,
Mom
Sunday, July 26, 2009
He's Getting So Big!
Dear Jack,
It seems like everywhere we go these days, when we run into someone who knows you, they all say the very same thing,
"He's getting so big!"
I'm actually a little annoyed with that phrase (but maybe just because I'm enjoying this little baby time a lot). Nevertheless, I keep having to agree with it....
"He's getting so big!"
Because on the one hand, I guess you are. I took you to the doctor for your two month shots (boy, you hated those) and you now weigh in at 12 pounds, 12 and half ounces and are 24 inches long. That puts you around the 75% in both weight and height for babies your age.
Even compared to the 9 pounds, 4 ounces, 22 inch baby that came into the world just over two months ago, you are getting so big.
You can hold your head up for fairly long periods of time. You can face forward in the Baby Bjorn carrier and look out on the world. You sit up well in your Bumbo chair. You can inch yourself on the floor by pushing with your feet. You follow things with your eyes and seem very interested in the world around you.
I put you in a polo shirt and shorts for church today. That's what big boys wear to church.
So, yes, you are getting so big.
But before we get carried away, Mister, I do want to point out that your big boy shirt has a line of spit-up on it.
You may be growing at an astonishing rate, but you are still a little baby. So let's not break out the college applications just, yet.
Love,
Mom
It seems like everywhere we go these days, when we run into someone who knows you, they all say the very same thing,
"He's getting so big!"
I'm actually a little annoyed with that phrase (but maybe just because I'm enjoying this little baby time a lot). Nevertheless, I keep having to agree with it....
"He's getting so big!"
Because on the one hand, I guess you are. I took you to the doctor for your two month shots (boy, you hated those) and you now weigh in at 12 pounds, 12 and half ounces and are 24 inches long. That puts you around the 75% in both weight and height for babies your age.
Even compared to the 9 pounds, 4 ounces, 22 inch baby that came into the world just over two months ago, you are getting so big.
You can hold your head up for fairly long periods of time. You can face forward in the Baby Bjorn carrier and look out on the world. You sit up well in your Bumbo chair. You can inch yourself on the floor by pushing with your feet. You follow things with your eyes and seem very interested in the world around you.
I put you in a polo shirt and shorts for church today. That's what big boys wear to church.
So, yes, you are getting so big.
But before we get carried away, Mister, I do want to point out that your big boy shirt has a line of spit-up on it.
You may be growing at an astonishing rate, but you are still a little baby. So let's not break out the college applications just, yet.
Love,
Mom
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
A Day Away
Dear Jack,
Yesterday was a big day for you. I had a summer staff development day, so you had to be away from me all day long. It was the first time we had been apart for more than an hour or so. I did better than I thought I would and you did great (in large part because of the loving care Kristi Bruton and her girls gave you).
But it still makes me a little sad that it signifies the end of our days of hanging out together, sun up to sun down. I try to remind myself that sun down to sun up we'll still be snuggled together.
It's not exactly what I would want, but until they let little babies attend Kindergarten, it's the best we'll have.
See you tonight.
Love,
Mom
Yesterday was a big day for you. I had a summer staff development day, so you had to be away from me all day long. It was the first time we had been apart for more than an hour or so. I did better than I thought I would and you did great (in large part because of the loving care Kristi Bruton and her girls gave you).
But it still makes me a little sad that it signifies the end of our days of hanging out together, sun up to sun down. I try to remind myself that sun down to sun up we'll still be snuggled together.
It's not exactly what I would want, but until they let little babies attend Kindergarten, it's the best we'll have.
See you tonight.
Love,
Mom
Saturday, July 18, 2009
A Mystery
Dear Jack,
I have a little bit of a mystery on my hands, and unfortunately, you are the only one who can clear things up.
This is how I left you this afternoon:
This is how you were when I came back a few minutes later to check on you:
Now, I have seen you inch along by pushing your feet into the blanket and I know you happily flail about with enough strength and gusto to flip yourself, so maybe you just rolled over for the first time. But any good investigator knows to check all the facts, and the fact is your sister was in the room with you at the time and may have been something of an accomplice to this rolling feat.
Since neither of you are forthcoming with information about the incident, the mystery may remain unsolved. Which irritates me because I want so badly to know whether or not to put this down in your baby book as the first time you rolled over (which I think it is) or to remind your sister to be careful of you (which she has always been).
In either case, your days of hanging out alone on my bed while I get ready in the mornings are officially over, just to be on the safe side.
Love,
Mom
P.S. Here's a video of you smiling. Since I wasn't able to capture the rolling over on film, I settled for making a video of your other latest accomplishment.
I have a little bit of a mystery on my hands, and unfortunately, you are the only one who can clear things up.
This is how I left you this afternoon:
This is how you were when I came back a few minutes later to check on you:
Now, I have seen you inch along by pushing your feet into the blanket and I know you happily flail about with enough strength and gusto to flip yourself, so maybe you just rolled over for the first time. But any good investigator knows to check all the facts, and the fact is your sister was in the room with you at the time and may have been something of an accomplice to this rolling feat.
Since neither of you are forthcoming with information about the incident, the mystery may remain unsolved. Which irritates me because I want so badly to know whether or not to put this down in your baby book as the first time you rolled over (which I think it is) or to remind your sister to be careful of you (which she has always been).
In either case, your days of hanging out alone on my bed while I get ready in the mornings are officially over, just to be on the safe side.
Love,
Mom
P.S. Here's a video of you smiling. Since I wasn't able to capture the rolling over on film, I settled for making a video of your other latest accomplishment.
Friday, July 17, 2009
In the Moment
Dear Jack,
You are two months old today and my challenge these days with you is enjoying the moment, without dwelling on the past, or worrying about the future.
In the past: You have already changed so much from birth. You are bigger, more alert, stronger. You are an infant, no longer a newborn. You can hold your head up, smile and make eye contact. I mourn the loss of those newborn days, and in that loss, I cling to everything about you today and anticipate the loss of it all... of nursing you, of midnight feedings, of an hour or more of just sitting and holding you.
In the future: I'll be going back to work in exactly a month, on your three month birthday. Between now and then, you and I have to break our rhythm of nursing which we have both enjoyed so much and help you learn to take a bottle and be soothed by someone other than me.
In the present: This is where I want to be. Nursing you, cuddling with you, sleeping next to you at night, waking up to you at one in the morning and loving it. Enjoying every moment with you without obsessing over the idea that this may be the last time I have all day to nurse you, or hold you, or be with you.
So there you have it. My goal. You and me. In the moment.
Love,
Mom
You are two months old today and my challenge these days with you is enjoying the moment, without dwelling on the past, or worrying about the future.
In the past: You have already changed so much from birth. You are bigger, more alert, stronger. You are an infant, no longer a newborn. You can hold your head up, smile and make eye contact. I mourn the loss of those newborn days, and in that loss, I cling to everything about you today and anticipate the loss of it all... of nursing you, of midnight feedings, of an hour or more of just sitting and holding you.
In the future: I'll be going back to work in exactly a month, on your three month birthday. Between now and then, you and I have to break our rhythm of nursing which we have both enjoyed so much and help you learn to take a bottle and be soothed by someone other than me.
In the present: This is where I want to be. Nursing you, cuddling with you, sleeping next to you at night, waking up to you at one in the morning and loving it. Enjoying every moment with you without obsessing over the idea that this may be the last time I have all day to nurse you, or hold you, or be with you.
So there you have it. My goal. You and me. In the moment.
Love,
Mom
Thursday, July 16, 2009
I am completely unable to title this post without making a pun about Jack wearing a certain type of fall/winter clothing. Maybe I'll try again later.
Dear Jack,
In anticipation of your two month birthday tomorrow, I just took your official two month picture. It is July and 105 degrees outside and I put you in a hooded jacket with a matching knitted hat.
I know that seems silly, but the thing is that I bought that jacket and hat when I was pregnant with your sister because I loved it and if she had been a boy, it would have been hers. Instead, my boy came two and half years later, and it's that half year that matters... your sister would have worn that jacket in January (and she did in fact wear the pink version that January that she was two months old).
This jacket is sized 3-6 months, so there is an off chance that you might be able to wear it this coming October. Maybe. But really, you probably wore it for the one and only time for this picture. And somehow, that's worth it to me. To see you and your sister, side by side, two months old and adorable with your matching jackets.
But from now on, if you look the slightest bit cold in the house, you know what I'm going to put on you.
Love,
Mom
In anticipation of your two month birthday tomorrow, I just took your official two month picture. It is July and 105 degrees outside and I put you in a hooded jacket with a matching knitted hat.
I know that seems silly, but the thing is that I bought that jacket and hat when I was pregnant with your sister because I loved it and if she had been a boy, it would have been hers. Instead, my boy came two and half years later, and it's that half year that matters... your sister would have worn that jacket in January (and she did in fact wear the pink version that January that she was two months old).
This jacket is sized 3-6 months, so there is an off chance that you might be able to wear it this coming October. Maybe. But really, you probably wore it for the one and only time for this picture. And somehow, that's worth it to me. To see you and your sister, side by side, two months old and adorable with your matching jackets.
But from now on, if you look the slightest bit cold in the house, you know what I'm going to put on you.
Love,
Mom
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Grateful to not be a cavewoman
Dear Jack,
Someday, when you read this, you will find this note to be very sweet and uplifting, or just plain morbid.
This will depend largely on which one of your parents you take after the most.
Earlier today, your father and I were talking about my impending return to work next month and I was expressing some sadness that I wouldn't be able to nurse you all day long as I had been. To which your father replied, "Because you aren't a cavewoman."
This is true, I think, because I am not a cavewoman and a cavewoman would nurse her offspring daily through to the age of two or so, I think, but wouldn't "stay at home mom" or "1950's housewife" fit better in the context?
No, because your father has farther to travel on this thought-train (and has apparently ridden it before), "And if you were a cavewoman, you would be dead..."
At first, I resent the implication that I would make a bad cavewoman. I mean, of course I would make a terrible cavewoman, but it's only because I was born in the 20th century and don't have the proper training. Surely if I had been born in cavewoman times, I would be fine.
Except that's not the point at all (continuing to the next trainstop), "...because Jack was breech and you would have died in childbirth."
This is where you will either feel a sense of sweet joy that your mother was not, in fact, a cavewoman, or a twisting of your gut that death came so very close (in a weird theoretical sort of way).
Your father, apparently, stops to think this several times a day, to savor the fact that he didn't lose either of us. (He even has, in his head, a timeline that details at which point in history both of us would have died in childbirth and at what point - say, 1900 - you could have survived being breech and I would have bled out on some turn of the century operating table, or from post-surgical infections.)
His point, of course, is that we should be eternally grateful for living in this modern age when you being breech turned out to be a minor inconvenience and not a death sentence.
He's right, of course. But I still think it's morbid.
So, here's to your mother, not being a cavewoman. And here's to your dad, who had the sense not to say any of this in the operating room when you were born, even though I'm certain he was thinking it at the time.
Love,
Mom
Someday, when you read this, you will find this note to be very sweet and uplifting, or just plain morbid.
This will depend largely on which one of your parents you take after the most.
Earlier today, your father and I were talking about my impending return to work next month and I was expressing some sadness that I wouldn't be able to nurse you all day long as I had been. To which your father replied, "Because you aren't a cavewoman."
This is true, I think, because I am not a cavewoman and a cavewoman would nurse her offspring daily through to the age of two or so, I think, but wouldn't "stay at home mom" or "1950's housewife" fit better in the context?
No, because your father has farther to travel on this thought-train (and has apparently ridden it before), "And if you were a cavewoman, you would be dead..."
At first, I resent the implication that I would make a bad cavewoman. I mean, of course I would make a terrible cavewoman, but it's only because I was born in the 20th century and don't have the proper training. Surely if I had been born in cavewoman times, I would be fine.
Except that's not the point at all (continuing to the next trainstop), "...because Jack was breech and you would have died in childbirth."
This is where you will either feel a sense of sweet joy that your mother was not, in fact, a cavewoman, or a twisting of your gut that death came so very close (in a weird theoretical sort of way).
Your father, apparently, stops to think this several times a day, to savor the fact that he didn't lose either of us. (He even has, in his head, a timeline that details at which point in history both of us would have died in childbirth and at what point - say, 1900 - you could have survived being breech and I would have bled out on some turn of the century operating table, or from post-surgical infections.)
His point, of course, is that we should be eternally grateful for living in this modern age when you being breech turned out to be a minor inconvenience and not a death sentence.
He's right, of course. But I still think it's morbid.
So, here's to your mother, not being a cavewoman. And here's to your dad, who had the sense not to say any of this in the operating room when you were born, even though I'm certain he was thinking it at the time.
Love,
Mom
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