3.5.12: Four months

Moldy Old Holdie:

Two things.

One. Sorry about the new nickname. I don’t know how it happened or where exactly it came from, but I use it sparingly so as to not dent your delicate sense of self-esteem, which I imagine is forming as we speak. You are not moldy or old; you smell wonderful (usually — we’ll get to that in a minute) and you are still very young and sparkly and new. It’s just that it rolls off the tongue so nicely.

Two. Sorry this post is late. Like, a whole freaking week late. I wanted to start it two weeks ago so as to finish and post it on your birthday, but didn’t, and then I went back to the office full time on Monday, and that experience is currently ROCKING MY WORLD and not exactly in the good way. Just in the Oh my gahhh how do people do this?! THERE ARE NO MORE HOURS LEFT way that every working parent must adjust to. Ahem.

So here we are at the end of your fourth month with us and you are still THE BEST BABY IN THE WORLD, except for those several nights lately when you have decided you wanted to wake up at 2 or 4 a.m. and be all adorable and shit and make it really hard for your mama and your daddy to not engage so you wouldn’t think it was wake-up time. On those nights, you became simply The Best Baby in the World, No Shouting. Because no one wins any awards at 4 a.m. You were just trying to get a little extra milk those early mornings, I think, so you could go ahead and round out that growth spurt you were going through. That growth spurt now has you clocking in at 11 pounds, 14 ounces, and 24.25 inches long. Your head is 40 centimeters around. Is that good? I don’t know. But it’s a nice round number for a nice round head. A head that has a ridiculous, patchy hairdo and a sort of rattail mullet, now that so much of the side and the top has rubbed away. It’s really pretty cute but I’m excited for your hair to grow in for real some day. Will it be the same color?

You are growing long and lean like your daddy, kiddo. This amazes me every day, since I have never been either lean or long and no one else in my family has either. You’re in the 7th percentile for your weight and the 47th for your height, according to your four-month checkup. You’re still a little squirt (which total strangers love to remark on) but Dr. Hanson says you’re doing great. You spent several minutes the other day laughing at him, even though he wasn’t even trying to be funny. But that is just how you are, baby boy. Bright eyed and happy. You laid there on the paper-covered exam table and kicked and kicked, just happy as could be. And then we let them stick you with needles and you got super pissed. Can’t say I blame you. Pretty cruel bait and switch, if you ask me. But you recovered nicely and now you won’t get the polio, yay!

This month you continued your quest to gain control of your hands and make them do your bidding. You often sit with your hands clasped politely together (see above), perched just inside your mouth, as you watch whatever’s going on in front of you. We can now hold something fun out in front of you and you will reach out and grab it, if it interests you, bringing it straight to your mouth to take the place of your hand. Sometimes you reach out but you miss your target and bring back empty hands to your mouth. Hey, it’s cool. You’re new at this depth perception thing. You have this cool ball Aunt Megan got for you that you have a love-hate relationship with. You love to grab on to it but you get SO PISSED that you can’t get it into your mouth. I often have to take it away from you before you get too mad at it.

You’ve become a real talker — you just coo and blabber and shriek to us and, much of the time, to yourself, when you’re sitting idle. You’re still kinda snorty and snotty (that has never gone away, ever) so you often make this yodeling gurgle noise from deep in your throat. Recently you discovered your tongue and I see you rolling it around in your mouth, feeling the contours of your gums. Just the other day you noticed your feet and stared at them intently when they moved slightly, as if to say, “Wait, those belong to ME?!” Soon enough you are going to figure out how to get those things into your mouth. Big fun ahead for you.

Getting you to laugh is like my daily holy grail. The first time I heard you really laugh, full-throated and with total delight, was when your Aunt Kristin came to visit and she was talking about sounds monkeys make. And you just went bananas for that. Your daddy and I have gotten you to laugh while pretending to barf, which is pretty hilarious considering how much you love barfing. You laugh a lot when I whip my head back and forth and make crazy noises with my eyes bugged out, but doing that too much gives me a headache. Actually, maybe that’s what you think is so funny.

Too bad that when I get my phone out to capture your shenanigans, the party usually stops and you become very stonefaced. So I don’t have a good video of a really good laugh session. This is about as close as I have gotten:

I’ll get a really good one, though. Oh, I’ll get one.

We did a fair amount of socializing this month. We went to Daphne’s birthday party one Saturday, and then you stayed with Amanda and Brandon and Eliza for a few hours another Saturday so your daddy and I could go see his alma mater beat his other alma mater. He’s so excited for you to get to come to a game with us but you’re still a little too small for that.

Also, your Aunt Krissie and Aunt Vicki threw us a shindig this month and we got to see so many of our family and friends and had such a big time. It was really sweet of them to do that, and I’m so happy and grateful that you are so loved that so many would come out to see you and say hello. You were so good about being passed around until you got tired out and had to go conk out for a long nap. Truth be told, I would have conked out for a nap too but that would have been rude.

Everywhere we go, people talk about your big bright eyes and how observant you are for your age. You love to sit up and look around, just drinking the whole world in. You’ve got the neck control down so well that we’ve started sitting you in your Bumbo chair to hang out with us. I even bought a tray for it so that you can have your toys in front of you and pick which one you want to gnaw on.

Early this month I started back to work, but from home. It was pretty weird being in the same house as you but not being able to hang out with you all the time like usual. Your daddy took you on adventures to the library and to the park and to lunch with a friend while I helped make the newspaper from a laptop on the dining room table. I had to hand over bedtime routine duties, which was hard at first (for me) but you took to it like a champ. Daddy is better at bedtime storytelling anyway. I found out the other day that I had been calling your bath duck by the wrong name — he’s not Officer Duck. He’s Detective Duck and your octopus is Officer Octopus. Duh. Sometimes at night I would take a break from work and lean on the wall next to the hallway and listen to daddy read you your bedtime stories. He does the best voices, huh? And he’s not a bad singer, either.

Now, I have to talk about things that are somewhat unpleasant, but pretty funny. This may embarrass you but always remember that you can blog about my hilarious descent into old age some day. I am giving you permission now. In fact, I will go ahead and reserve the ShitDementiaPatientsSay Tumblr for you and leave the password in a lockbox.

[POOP DISCLAIMER FOR PEOPLE WITHOUT CHILDREN OR ANYONE WHO JUST DOESN’T WANT TO READ ABOUT MY CHILD’S BOWEL MOVEMENTS, WHICH I IMAGINE IS A LOT OF YOU]

Remember how I said you have a lovely smell? That is usually true, except this month your farts starting smelling TERRIBLE. I first noticed — and get ready for some trashy information to follow — while we were at THE LIQUOR STORE. That’s right, mama was buying booze with you in her arms. The scandal! We were there with Kristin getting a bottle of wine for ourselves and I smelled something rank and thought to myself, Man, someone totally cut one. Then it happened again while we were getting into the car and I thought, Man, Kristin must be having some stomach troubles. It wasn’t until that night when I was nursing you before bed, back in the nursery, that I smelled that smell again and I realized that it was YOU. Before, your poop and your farts had smelled faintly like buttermilk, just wonderfully inoffensive. But you hadn’t pooped in, like, a week or so by then. Which is totally normal, by the way. But it was new for you. I guess it never occurred to me that your not pooping for several days at a time would amount to stinkier emissions. And then, when your body decided to give the ol’ waste a good heave-ho, one massive, smelly mount of poop in your diaper. That special delivery came while I was in the shower and you were hanging out in your bouncy seat nearby. I got out and picked you up and smelled something not quite right. A smell I had never smelled before. And sure enough when I opened up your diaper, there was poop from your navel to the top of your buttcrack. You seemed pretty relieved and I took a picture and sent it to your dad. Because that is who we have become, Holden. Poop-photographing maniacs.

So that seems to be how you do this pooping thing now. No pooping for several days, farts get super smelly, HUGE POOP, and scene. It’s sort of like a game of Old Maid, seeing who ends up with the poop diaper, me or your dad. I’d really prefer it if you could poop several small, smell-free times a day again. Can you work on that? No? Okay. But I had to ask.

[POOP TALK IS OVER … FOR NOW]

You’re slowly but surely growing out of your 3-month clothes. They fit widthwise but are getting a little snug in length. So a wardrobe change is in order. Guess it’s time to pull out the clothes we already have and start picking out the next sizes. That’s way more fun than I thought it would be, honestly. Know what else is kinda fun? Shopping with a baby. Without a baby, people just think your crazy mother is talking to herself. With you around, I can jabber all I want and everyone assumes I’m talking to the baby. Score one for mama.

The weather is warming up and, even though we didn’t really have much of a true winter, I am excited for you to experience your first spring. The warm breeze, the colorful flowers, dirt in your hands, the sounds of the outdoors, the green leaves all around, the screaming and running your mother will do the first time a bumblebee darts toward her as she is holding you — the whole bit. It’s going to be fun, baby buds. I’m so happy to get to show the world to you. And you to the world.