theology&geometry

His daddy got him to laugh before I did, and so did Aunt Kristin when she visited over the weekend. But I finally got him to laugh at me on purpose and on camera today, after many, many attempts involving ridiculous noises and faces. Filmed surreptitiously because as soon as the phone gets in his line of sight, he freezes.

I just finished my first full week back on the clock. My boss mercifully is letting me work from home this month, and my workload all week was pretty light so I could get adjusted to being back. And so I could work out the technological kinks involved with a remote login (and there were plenty of technological kinks, but mostly in the form of my router dying midweek and then my new one coming with a crappy LAN cable that made setting it up particularly frustrating). I worked in the dining room the first two days, the nursery the third day, and the office the fourth and fifth days, since working in the nursery wasn’t exactly an option, given that I have a child who goes to bed during my shift. Working in an office sounds nice in theory, but in reality I was only technically inside the door of the office, which is as far as I could get the cable to stretch. It put me a foot from the litter box, which reminded me of the last time I had a major internet meltdown and had to temporarily make do with a rigged connection. Why do I always end up with a temporary setup so near the litter box? This question perplexes me.

Anyway, blah blah blah. I am caffeinated.

Holden has been a champ this week and gone to sleep right on time for his daddy, who has kept our routine intact (with just a few minor changes, some of which involve him reading different books — and doing voices! — at bedtime). Sometimes Holden’s so tired he falls asleep mid-bottle.

It has not been easy, emotionally, for me to pry myself from him for even a few hours in the evening. I sneak away from my desk whenever I get a chance to so I can snuggle him or nurse him, if I have time and he’s hungry. But his daddy is in charge of the nighttime routine now, and goodness, I did not realize how much I would miss giving my baby a bath and putting him to bed. I ache when I think about how in just a few weeks, I won’t even be in the same house to hear him cooing or splashing around in the tub. I will be miles away, banging out pages on a computer in a cubicle. Boo hoo.

I’m so fortunate to still have a job, and I am grateful for the flexibility my bosses have shown during this transition. No question about that. I’m just having a hard time with the separation. We have mornings together, and he wakes up smiling and hungry and so very sweet. But letting go of evenings is hard. I guess it will make my weekends at home that much more precious.

Mr. Buds:

Listen, I don’t want to inflate your ego too much because you are still a very new person, but this month you became known as THE BEST BABY IN THE WORLD. I will tell you how.

First off, you started really smiling. Like, all the time. Big, wide, gummy smiles that span from ear to ear and make your left eye just a smidge squintier than the right. These smiles come especially easy early in the day but pretty much any time your daddy or I will look at you and grin, you will smile back big as you can. Your smile is completely un-self-conscious, as only a baby’s smile can be. Your smiling and your cooing amaze and delight us. Like, who is this little man with our DNA who is so beautiful and so sweet and so smiley? It’s you! And you live in this house with us and watch us go about our business, and some days you require more wardrobe changes than Lady Gaga during one of her horrible concerts (I wonder if she will still be around when you grow up). Seriously, though, it’s kind of weird how you ramped up the smiling at the same time you ramped up the barfing. I remember asking Amy, our midwife, when you were just a few weeks old if breastfed babies spit up much less than other babies. That’s how infrequently you used to barf, Buds. But now? I walk around with soaked shoulders and we’ve got burp rags stashed around strategically throughout the house. Of course, that does not mean we can ever get to one when we need it. That is one of the many properties of Murphy’s Law.

The other big deal this month is that we introduced you to your crib gradually — for naps and playtime at first — so that we could work toward getting you comfortable sleeping there. Then I started you on a bedtime routine (bath, book, boob, bed) and exactly one week after the routine started, on your 12-week birthday, you SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT IN YOUR CRIB. You cannot possibly comprehend how big of a deal this is to us until you have your own little sleepless bundle of joy some day (which you totally better because I cannot wait to rock some grandma socks). The first long stretch you achieved was six hours. The next night, you pushed nine. The few nights after that were around six and then three after a feeding. You slipped one night and stayed awake for a couple of hours between sleep blocs but your daddy handled those nights while I snoozed, oblivious, in the next room, so I am not complaining too much (for once). Last night you slept TEN HOURS STRAIGHT. I hope the allcaps conveys my mix of incredulousness and gratefulness and amazement. I was so hung up on the sleep thing (having realized how important some sort of predictability was going to be when I headed back to work) and you just sort of said, “Cool, ma, I got this” one night and that was that. I realize there might be a regression or two in the future — that’s normal — but I am so stoked about this. It’s been a total game changer for us. Finally, when complete strangers stop us and ask how old you are, and they remark about how cute and how bright-eyed you are, and they ask, “Is he sleeping through the night?” I can, instead of putting my hand to my forehead and fainting in exasperation of even being asked, proudly beam and say, “YES, AND NEXT WEEK HE WILL CHANGE HIS OWN DIAPERS.” No one needs to know that that’s not true except you and me, Baby Buds. What is weird about your new sleeping habits is this: The routine we had gotten so used to (see this post) is now shifting to something we haven’t quite figured out yet. You’d think it would be as simple for me as “go to bed and then wake up when the baby cries” but then you would be forgetting the THREE THOUSAND times I have to get up to come check on you because it is unsettling to not hear a peep from you for hours and hours and hours at a time. I get a chuckle of seeing where you end up in the crib. You scoot around like the hands on a clock. Your dad and I got so used to shift sleeping that we are going to have to relearn how to share the bed. For him, that means getting reacquainted with my snoring and sleep apnea and for me, that means trying not to crap myself when he sits bolt upright for no reason or when he moans and swings his arm in the air like he is swatting bees, or when he prepares to karate chop my face if my feet accidentally touch him. Now do you see why co-sleeping was not a great option for all of us?

Now. Can we talk for a minute about the tub? Oh man. When you were brand new, I didn’t want to wash your new baby smell off. I finally relented a week after you were born because, I’ll be honest, you were getting a little ripe. But your dad and I never hopped on the frequent bath bandwagon early on like a lot of folks do. Probably because you seemed so very fragile to us and also because you’re not a very smelly person just yet. But when I started your bedtime routine, I decided to include a bath, because so many people had told me it worked for them. It took you a couple of days to wrap your head around exactly what was going on, I think, because for the first couple of sessions you sat there in the tub, perfectly still, with your little fists balled up, suspicious of everything around you. But the night you figured out how to splash? Hahahahahaha. So priceless. First it was a little splash and then another small one while you tried to figure out how water got on your face. Then a big splash and your eyes would get wide when you figured out you were making that noise. You’d splash with your feet and then get your arms going too, sometimes so fast it looked like you were running in place in your little tub. Here’s some video from an intentionally bad angle. I have much better video from a much cuter angle, but I decided I wouldn’t put your boy parts on the internet; that is a decision you have to make in your own time (and can I advise you not to do it for free? or maybe at all?).

Look at you go, my little water baby. After all, that’s how you entered this world. It makes sense that that’s where you’d really enjoy spending your time.

photo by Jamie Ward

This month was a pretty social one for you. We took our longest road trip yet (we stopped once each way to nurse, and you were a pretty good traveler overall) and visited some of Nashville’s finest ladies at your first sip ‘n’ see, hosted by Aunt Crystal and Aunt Lesley. Just look at you up there charming the gals. Of course, this is after you pooped on Aunt Jamie and she was sweet enough to change your diaper. I’m glad you’re so cute because I think it distracted our wonderful friends from the dumb things your mother said, like when she talked about “freeballing” whenever she gets the chance. Seriously, I will understand if you decide you want to be emancipated before you turn 12.

You were pretty chill about being passed around because there were so many soft boobs to rest on. You truly have refined yet simple tastes, my boy. You sort of napped off and on as we ate brie and cupcakes dusted with edible glitter (which made me feel not unlike Marie Antoinette). And you got tons of cool new toys and cute new clothes and truly, Holden, could we ask for better people in our lives? The answer is a resounding hell no. We are blessed, lucky, and fortunate.

You made some friends your own age this month too. Delihound and MrsLawComic managed to get out of the house long enough to have a nice, leisurely lunch with us at Three Angels Diner, during which we rocked carriers and popped in pacis and changed diapers and did everything we could to keep you and Marlowe and McKenley nice and amiable for the lunch crowd. It was great for your mom to get out and commiserate with other new moms, and I’m sure the networking was good for you too. Have you added the girls on LinkedIn yet? No? Well, prepare to get a hundred e-mails a week about that. Oh man, I can’t wait to see just how little sense that joke makes to you when you can finally read it.

You still hate tummy time but you’re starting to get the hang of grasping items and bringing them to your mouth, although I’m pretty sure you have no idea you’re doing it. What you DO know how to do, however, is suck on your hands. Oh man, you go to town on those things. When you wake up at night, that’s how you soothe yourself back to sleep. Good ol’ hand sucking. Sometimes you get a finger so far back that you trigger your gag reflex, but even that does not deter you from your most delicious hands. I keep watching to see if I can tell which hand you favor, and I am leaning toward your right. And I get a little thrill when I see you sucking your right thumb, Buds, because I sucked my right thumb until I was 12. DO NOT DO THAT. It will bring the family much shame, trust me.

We had our second outing away from you the other night. Grammy and Paw came down and Paw, daddy, and I went to a Grizzlies game (and complained like ancient curmudgeons about ticket prices) while Grammy stayed behind to put you to bed. You went out like a champ for her, although it was a bit earlier than you’re used to so you woke up in the wee hours and wanted to be fed. That’s okay. Your dad enjoyed his cuddle time with you when he gave you a bottle. It’s getting a little easier to leave you with Grammy, but I missed you something fierce as soon as we settled into our seats and the game started. I can’t wait until you’re old enough to go to fun stuff like basketball games with us. You are going to be the trash-talkingest kid around if you take after your folks.

We’ve had an insanely mild winter, Holden. That’s good in many ways because it means your nursery has been a livable temperature rather than the 20 degrees we were afraid it would be once it really got cold, but I’m afraid it might mean that by the time you are an adult, we will be living on a scorching ball of lava. Just the other day I took you outside and we laid in the sun on a blanket. IN JANUARY. You were pretty pissed off at the sun being in your face but after a while you laid there and looked at the trees and the sky. Spring will be here soon and we are going to have such fabulous adventures. Many of those adventures might involve running shrieking from bees but what would life be without the constant threat of insect terrorism?

My maternity leave officially ended today, but, thanks to my very understanding bosses, I get to work from home this month. So that means you and I have a little more time to spend together before I have to go back to the office full time. Let’s make it count.

I really need to start writing a script for these vlogs so I will have something to actually talk about.

Some day in 14 years when I am scolding Holden for eating Jolly Ranchers and putting his expensive braces at risk, I am going to wistfully think back to when he was a wee babe and wish for simpler times when I could hold him in my arms and get a grin out of him just by smiling wide. I know my memory and its tendency to function as a black hole (I have already forgotten much of what we did all day during the first month of Holden’s existence), and it’s going to be hard to remember what our days were like when he was this age.

So on Thursday, I photographed pretty much everything I did all day, figuring it would be a pretty accurate representation of our average day. Fun with mundanity. Or FUNDANITY!

This slideshow probably won’t make much sense without captions, since my phone takes such HORRIBLE pictures, so to see the captions you have to select full screen and then click on the first picture. Captions should anchor at the top right after that. I think.

In addition to Mr. Buds and Stretchy Buds, we’ve got:

Yawny Buds
Seepy Buds
Sweet Baby Buds
Shrieky Buds
Poopin’ Buds
Stinky Buds
Grumpy Buds
Burpin’ Buds
Sad Buds
Splashy Buds
Bouncin’ Buds

How can someone be in this world for a mere 10 weeks and know so well how to command my heart?

Ridiculous.

Buds
Mr. Buds
Mr. Buddy Buds
Buddy Boy
Smiley
Sweet Baby
Stretchy Buds (when I bring him up off the boob to burp and he stretches his arms up and his knees scrunch to his tummy)
Mr. Baby (sometimes I slip and call boy cat this)
Mr. Good Baby (when he’s chilling)
Mr. Sad Baby (when he’s grumpy)
Mr. Happy Baby (when he’s all smiles)

Baby boy,

This past month was a big one for us. You very noticeably started your transition from weird little floppy newborn with a smelly belly button to your current status as smiling, bouncing, sometimes shrieking-in-delight boy. You got longer and beefed up a little bit after a few weeks of struggles with your weight gain while we figured out that whole constant breastfeeding thing. You finally outgrew those newborn diapers and settled into size 1s. Your belly button began to resemble a tiny cinnamon roll, the way it swirls around. Your eyes lightened up and are now a cornflower blue ringed in deep cerulean just like your Daddy’s, framed by lovely long lashes. Your skin cleared up and your right eye isn’t goopy anymore. You started using your eyebrows to make hilarious expressions like a cartoon villain. You started smiling a lot and not because of gas. I heard you laugh for the first time early in the morning a couple of weeks ago as you drifted off to sleep. You showed us how strong you are by keeping your head up most of the time and scooting all over the place when you’re on your belly. Before you get too mad and demand to be picked up, that is. Tummy time can be very frustrating, as you know.

We finally got to say sayonara to those silly sponge baths (we only took two anyway) and dove in to real baths in the whale tub like the plastics lobby intended. You don’t hate baths, but you aren’t yet quite sure what to do about them. You just sort of sit there, perfectly still, as I wash your hair and narrate everything I’m doing. Then when you get out and I start to dry you off, you realize that you’re very grumpy and you let me know about it. It might be in part because I’m constantly putting those adorable hooded towels on you and then taking pictures of you, but let’s not dwell on that, okay?

We were a bit less afraid of getting you out and about this month, after a month of being more or less total hermits except for doctor’s visits. When your Aunt Krissie visited, you slept through our lunch at Chili’s, and then a few weeks later when Aunt Amber visited, our dinner at El Mezcal. You snoozed through trips to the Dollar Tree and Burlington Coat Factory. You even stayed conked out during a trip to the mall a few days before Christmas, kiddo. That is pretty amazing.

Just the other day you chilled in your carrier while I milled around Walmart. A worker there marveled over how you were just looking around, so bright eyed. You alternated between taking it all in and snoozing while I loaded up the cart and foolishly wheeled my way into the line of an associate who worked at a pace that can be adequately described as “non-breakneck.” You started fussing at me when you realized the cart was no longer moving, so I tried to keep you quiet while unloading the cart and deflecting the stares from baby haters in line behind me. Okay, they probably didn’t hate babies. But it always feels that way when people look anything but thrilled in the presence of a baby. Funny to be on this side of that equation now.

Speaking of baby haters, I took you up to the newsroom for the first time so you could meet my co-workers. Just kidding, most of them are baby compliant and they oohed and aahhed over you while you slept in your carrier. You squawked a little once while I was talking to my boss at her desk, and I literally ran over to you to shush and comfort you. You would think after seven years of having every work night complicated by noisy co-workers, I might be ready to give back a little.

Oh well!

We went out for dinner on your dad’s birthday and both of us were so paranoid that you were going to be the screaming baby in the restaurant because you didn’t fall asleep on the drive over. We got a booth in the back and I readied myself to nurse you if needed, but your dad was a little weirded out by the idea and didn’t want the waiter to see my goods, so when you started to fuss near the end of the (extremely abbreviated) meal, he scooped you up and hauled you out to the car while I took care of the tab. We’re still new at this, baby boy. So very new. We will get it figured out.

You had your first snow and two big holidays this past month. Christmas (which was total chaos for mama but probably pretty laid back for you, since you nursed and slept much of the time) and New Year’s Eve. Daddy had to work so you and I watched the horrible countdown programming on television. We were in bed by 12:30.

We’re still working on sleep, that enigmatic beast. During the week, Daddy and I take shifts at night and in the morning so that we both can get a solid chunk of sleep at some point in the day. Some nights it works well, other nights not so much. It just sort of depends on your opinion of sleep in general at any given moment. You’ve finally grown out of that (wonderful) phase where you could sleep easily anywhere and not be bothered by noise or light. You like to fight sleep now when there’s something going on in the room you think you should keep tabs on. This can be something as minor as the television being on a show where someone is talking, even at a very low volume. This can easily lead to you staying up for hours and hours and hours and getting overtired, which makes it so much harder for you to go to sleep EVER AGAIN. So we’ve started trying to put you down for naps in the bed, which is where you seem to fall asleep easiest because I can lie down with you for a while until you drift off, and it’s quiet and kinda dark back there. We’ve learned that you like to sleep on your side, just like your dad. You’re still sleeping for relatively brief stretches of time, maxing out at around four hours sometimes at night. But four hours in a stretch is pretty rare for you. An hour or two is much more common. You either poop/fart yourself awake, or you get hungry. It’s okay, it happens to the best of us.

You’re taking a bottle like a champ during Daddy’s night feedings, and still nursing during the daytime just fine, except for when you get really hungry and then you flail around and whimper as you wait for my letdown, and you get this look on your face like you’re worried you’re never going to get any milk ever again. You’re gaining weight, from what I can tell (you sure seem heavier) and you’re getting so long that your legs are beginning to wrap around my side while you nurse! You’re pretty sociable and don’t mind being held by any warm body who might offer, but you prefer not to get too far away from my boobs. It’s understandable.

In the mornings we watch horrible network programming, including Live With Kelly and The View (that’s you watching The View in that picture above, where you are clearly scandalized by something), and we play on the couch and on your play gym, where you shriek and kick until you get bored and then you holler at me until I change the scenery for you. I remember thinking while I was pregnant that I wasn’t going to keep the TV on all the time because I didn’t want your soft little newborn brain to get rotted so early (can’t we at least wait until you’re a teenager?) but I have developed a bona fide addiction to the crappy daytime offerings because, and this is important for you to understand and embrace because it will never change, your mother has horrible taste and loves things that are bad because they make her feel ALIVE.

Sometimes we nap together on the couch, your head up near my neck close enough that I can smell your sweet little breaths. Lately you’ve been having playtime in your crib, which I finally cleaned out and stocked with some of the cool toys our friends and family have given you. Now the trick will be keeping the cats out of there, because for so long they thought it was their bed, which is why we had it piled high with boxes — so they would stay the hell out.

Speaking of cats, they are coming around more and more now that they see you are not just a very grumpy temporary visitor. Mr. Kitty came and sat by you the other day. And he gets really worked up when he sees you playing with your balloon because he lusts so badly for the ribbon it’s attached to. Neither one of them has learned, however, to shut the hell up when I’m trying to get you to go to sleep or when you’re sleeping nearby. They think it’s play time at 5 a.m., or they think it’s appropriate to act like assholes until I come and check on the food bowl, regardless of how much food is in there or how busy I am trying to tend to your pressing needs. I have perfected the art of threatening them without moving or making a sound. It’s all about eye contact, and facial contortions, and being sure to transmit your burning hatred through your clenched teeth alone. I’m no match for your Daddy, though. He walks into the room and Sally disappears.

Sometimes when you get tired of me and my silly voices and constant narration of all the mundane things we do, you like to hang out with your Daddy, who is much more entertaining than I am. He plays rock ‘n’ roll and soul music for you on the computer and you guys dance and he sings. You’re a demanding crowd, though; as soon as one song ends and he’s picking a new one, you like to yell at him to hurry up and pick something already. You don’t like dead air. You like the Black Keys a lot, and I suspect that could be because that’s pretty much all I listened to when I was pregnant with you. Because thieves stole the CDs out of my car and the only listenable CD left was a Black Keys mix.

We finally ran out of disposable diapers that had been gifted to us and I bought a new pack. On look at the price and I got on the ball and finally prepped the cloth diapers I bought months ago but had been putting off using because we still had Dreft and Purex to use. We’re easing you into them — wearing them during the day at home so we can get the hang of them before attempting nights and outings. They are comically bulky and you look pretty silly in them, but you’ll grow into them.

That head of dark hair you were born with is thinning out a bit, which makes me a little sad. I was hoping you could hang on to it, but now we’re sort of excited to see what your new hair might look like. When your dad was a little boy, his hair was dark at first but then grew in really light. Then he grew up with dark hair. As for your mom, well, she went through a pretty unflattering bald phase. Maybe you’ll be spared that.

On your two-month birthday, your Grammy and Pa came to visit and keep you for a few hours so your dad and I could get out and do something fun together. I was so excited, but after an hour away from you I missed you so terribly and just wanted to smell you. I wondered what you were doing and if you missed us too. I may or may not have cried when I started thinking about how much I love you and want you to be happy. I may or may not be tearing up as I write this, too. Sniff.

You are such a beautiful, sweet boy, Holden. And you are so, so loved by everyone around you. Your personality is starting to show itself and I’m so grateful to get to meet new parts of you as the days go by.

2012 is going to be such an adventure!