This post is a month old. I suspect I don’t have to explain why; amazing how little time you have to blog when you start a new job and move three hours away in the span of three weeks. So, many apologies to that end. In fact, I am going to try to post this and I might have to come back and add photos later, since I STILL haven’t gotten all of them from the month toned and uploaded. Okay, now let’s get to the gushing!
MR: INCREDIBABY:
Holden, you are a point of light. Once upon a time someone told me that about myself, which was a really nice thing to say to me but it has the unfortunate position of being untrue. But now I know what that person meant by that compliment because that is how I feel about you. I will tell you what she told me: You give light, and you don’t take it away.
You have the sweetest demeanor of any human I have ever encountered. I realize that you are still very new so the occasional awfulness of the world hasn’t gotten to you just yet, but your amazement and delight at things so simple as a cat tail swishing past you are salve for the soul.
It’s been a time of travel lately. I have dragged you to Nashville more times than I care to recount these past few weeks. And you have been a champ! You were so chill during Kristin and Lonnie’s wedding, even though you did have a big blowout poop in your dress clothes just before the ceremony. You’re cool hanging out with whoever. You are pretty low maintenance in that regard.
You are continuing your push toward moving around. You are still very reluctant to roll over on your own although you don’t mind when we nudge you. You just don’t see much of a point in it, I don’t think. You are pretty cool with tummy time (despite that picture) and do plenty of scooting around, mostly backward. One day you were on your tummy and you scooted around in a perfect 360 circle and then promptly fell asleep on your belly. It was very tiring, I guess!
You really just want to stand up. You haven’t quite figured out that you can scoot over to something and then pull yourself up on it, but you love when we give you a little bit of support so you can stand on your own. And you’re sitting up great, too.
You’ve been eating like a champ and beyond the grody pureed meats, I can’t think of a single food you have outright disliked. New foods always take you a little bit of time get used to, but usually no more than a few bites. Those two teeth of yours shine bright when you smile and you like to use them to chomp on things, including skin, but we are working on that.
We weaned at the end of seven months. Keeping up a pumping output that matched your demand at night was just becoming impossible and we were supplementing more and more with formula and I was spending tons of time at work pumping for what would amount to ONE bottle for you. Plus you were starting to show a preference for the ease of the bottle and I was starting to let that play games with my head (“he HATES ME, WAHHHH,” etc.). Oh, and the biting thing. You would clamp down when you’d start to nod off and mama would have to stifle curse words. So, we had a seven-month run of breastfeeding. It’s not the year I was shooting for, but I’m proud we made it as long as we did, especially since the first three months were pretty tough. Feeding you bottles exclusively is a pain when it comes to shelling out money for formula and constantly having to wash bottles. But I will say there is a degree of precision to feeding with a bottle (“he ate exactly eight ounces an hour ago so he is not going to have a hunger meltdown if we go to Target right now”) that breastfeeding never offered us. Oh, and I don’t have to wear those horrible nursing tops anymore. So, yin and yang.
You went to your first hip-hop show! We joined Ashley, Luke, Lilly, and JD at The Shell to see Big Don, who put on a really adorable show. He rapped about manners and zoo animals. I highly recommend getting out to see him if you ever get the chance. I just wish Mr. Don would take that autoplaying music off his website because I just freaked out the fine patrons of Dunkin Donuts when I visited.
We celebrated Father’s Day this month, too! We took Daddy out to brunch at Owen Brennan’s and gave him a nice tea kettle. It was a good day.
You have started giving hugs and kisses. I finally figured out that when you come at my face with your mouth wide open, you are giving me a kiss. You’re finally learning that kisses don’t end with bites. At least not the kinds of kisses you will be giving for a long, long time.
You debuted your babbling this month, starting with “ba ba” and “da da,” which you definitely say when you’re talking about your Daddy. I heard you say “ma ma” a couple of times but I don’t think you meant to. It’s all right. We’re working on it!
You’re really funny when you get to chattering. Sometimes you sound like you are very serious and other times you just play around with HOW LOUD YOU CAN GET.
It’s been a really fun month, kiddo.
