Will They Win in His Lifetime?

Is this child abuse? Are we setting him up for a life full of heartache already?

The First Smile Captured on Film!

Erin and Melon came for a visit and Jack was pretty excited about it. He was pretty smiley but, as usual, all attempts to capture the smile on film were useless--except for this one! Usually, he'll smile and then see the camera and get this look on his face like, "what's that?" You'd think that with all the millions of photos we have taken, he wouldn't be so curious. I guess we'll just have to take more to get him used to it!

Here comes the personality!

Okay, so when a baby is 2 months old, he really doesn't do that much. He eats. He sleeps. He poops and pees. But gradually, aspects of his personality start to emerge. He gradually shows you he's learning and those little things, like smiles, that wouldn't matter to the average Joe, mean the world to the people who have been thanklessly changing diapers and waking up for feedings in the middle of the night. Not to say that I don't enjoy those things but after awhile, you start saying, "when is he going to talk?" "when is he going to walk?", etc. Well, slowly but surely, these little gems (like smiling) are emerging. And he does some pretty cool, cute and amazing stuff for a 2 month old (actually 6 week and 6 day old!)

Pavlov's dog had a bell. Jack has a bib. The little guy is really good and hardly cries. He only truely cries/yells when he is hungry. Its really not fair. He sleeps for four hours and then wakes up and says to himself, "hey, I'm STARVING. Why isn't anyone giving me a bottle RIGHT NOW? I need to tell someone about this." He expects us to read his little mind! Anyway, he keeps up the screaming, which can sometimes be calmed with a Binky (until his flailing hands knock it out of his mouth and make him scream louder. This is an especially fun game at 2:00 a.m.) We actually call the Binky a grenade pin--if it falls out, you have about 5 seconds until he blows! Okay, back to the Pavlov thing. Jack screams and cries for his bottle not until the bottle is in his mouth, but rather until you put on his bib. He quiets down right away and gets this excited look on his face. Ironically, he starts chewing on the bib and his hands, blocking the entry of the bottle. But he'll figure it out.

He has also become rather ADD with his positioning at times. There are times when he is just plain sick of you sitting on the couch, no matter what position you put him in. Then he wants to be walked around the house. I walk him around and give him a tour and tell him about each room, picture, etc. At about tour #8, it got a little boring for Mom but Jack still thinks it's fascinating.

He's also making a lot more noise and smiling more frequently. About once in the morning/early afternoon and once at night, he'll get excited and happy and alert. Not to say he isn't those things at other times but sometimes he just seems ready to go--he wants you to sing, talk to him, read to him. He loves to be read too. Mom has found it difficult to sit in a chair, hold him, hold a book and turn pages. So we lay on the floor and I hold the book over our heads. Jack loves to look at the pictures and has been smiling at them while we read. It's pretty cool. And yesterday, as I was putting him to bed, I set him down on our bed to get him ready. He looked at me and gave me two of the biggest grins ever. When I couldn't contain myself any longer, I bent down to give him a big kiss, and he excitedly said, "oooooooohhhhh" with a little squeal. My heart melted. It feels so good to know he loves me. I've only known him for 7 weeks and I have never been more in love in my whole life.

Fart Jokes

I often find it annoying and immature that men never seem to outgrow fart jokes. In movies, on TV--things that a woman finds absolutely disgusting, men find side-splittingly hilarious. They like movies like Knocked Up, Jackass, etc. while we are left to wonder what Neanderthal trait has been inherited by our men. Apparently, however this starts at a very young age and never leaves them.

Yesterday, Jack was pretty farty. Actually, he's pretty farty a lot. Sometimes he farts so loudly that I have to look at him to make sure he hasn't blown up. In fact, I tell him all the time that if he were English royalty, he'd be a "Tooter" (get it, Tudor)! Anyway, yesterday I had just changed him and was bringing him back to put him in his bouncy seat. As I set him down, he let a couple of big ones rip. When I looked down at him with great surprise, he looked up to meet my eyes, and gave me the biggest goofy grin, like he was ultra proud of what he had just accomplished. I couldn't stop laughing. I don't think I'll be laughing if he does the same thing when he's thirty.

First Smile

On March 11, Jack smiled for the first time. Oh, there have been smiles before: when he farts, when he's sleeping, after he burps, when you stroke his cheek, if you kiss him on the corner of his mouth. But this one was different. It was a full blown, legitimate smile in response to something. I was holding him and talking to him. I don't even remember what I was saying but he broke out into this goofy, huge, wonderful, toothless grin. It took up his whole face and melted my heart! Shortly thereafter, I changed his diaper and saw that he had gone #2 so I thought that the smile was a fluke, or a response to what he had accomplished in his diaper. But 20 minutes later, there it was again, so the first one must have been meant for me too.

It has been irregular since, sometimes he smiles just as a reflex but there have been a few other genuine ones. This morning, he was having nose problems. Unfortunately, Jack has inherited the obnoxious stuffy nose and post nasal drip that plague my side of the family whenever they lay down. Go figure, he gets Paul's nose but my sinuses. How unfair. This, of course, makes things annoying for the poor little guy when he sleeps. I have tried nose drops, suctioning the nose, humidifiers and a sleep positioner that inclines his body. All have had limited success. After his morning feeding and diaper change, I set him in his bassinette. He was fussing around because he was uncomfortabe. So I picked him up and put him into bed with me early. After Daddy goes to work, we always lay in bed together and snuggle. It is one of the cutest things in the entire world because he always turns to face me and then gradually scoots closer and closer to me until his head is resting against mine before he falls asleep. Today, I set him down and he just looked at me with his big beautiful eyes and grinned at me. And he kept doing it! My mom keeps asking me when I am going to put him in his own room. If he keeps doing adorable stuff like that, the answer is NEVER!

1 MONTH!

Unbelieveable! Jack is one month old. It's really hard to believe. Sometimes if feels like I had him just yesterday and sometimes I feel as if I have always had him! He is getting bigger and his cheeks are getting chubbier. He is starting to learn new things. When he cries because he is hungry, he gets quiet right after I put his bib on because he knows that his bottle is coming. He is focusing more on faces and turns his head to find my face when I am talking. If his eyes are open when he is eating and I start to talk to him, his pupils widen and his eyes light up. He likes his plastic key toys--they're colorful and fun to look at. He's starting to smile a little more, though not really in response to us yet. You might get a little smile if you kiss him on the cheek or corner of his mouth. He loves to be talked to and sung to. It doesn't even have to be a real song. I just kind of make them up on the fly. There's "Jack is gonna eat real soon," and "Daddy's fixing your bottle." Those are two of his favorites, even though the words are never the same because I forget what I have sung before! He also likes "Jack's a Stinky Baby" sung to Beyonce's "All the Single Ladies". "Jack's a Stinky Baby" can also be changed to "Jack's a Crabby Baby," or "Jack's a Naked Baby," when he is getting a bath. He is sleeping fairly well and usually goes 3-4 hours between feedings at night. After his early morning feeding (usually around 5-6 am) we go back to bed and Jack gets to come into Mommy's bed and snuggle, which we both love. We snuggle and talk (and I sometimes get some smiles) and then we fall asleep for 3 to 4 hours more (if Mommy is lucky).

All of this makes me so sad that I only have one more month off of work before I have to go back. I know that a month is still a good deal of time but it will never be enough! I love staying at home with him and know that I will be bawling my eyes out the day I have to return to work. Fortunately, we are leaving him in good hands with his Grandma. And fortunately, we have the best jobs in the world for being parents. It will just be two months and then we will be off for summer break. That won't, however, stop us from playing the lottery every week so that we can be stay at home parents! Could we swing it on one salary? Probably (but it would be really tight!). But we would have to cut back on so many things that we like to do and we would be so limited on what we would be able to do with Jack (i.e. vacations, taking him to the theater someday, etc.) that it wouldn't be worth it.

I do know, however, that my priorities at work will definitely change. No more staying late, better budgeting of my time at work so I can hurry home and spend time with my favorite student, etc. And I think that it will be healthier for me. I tend to obsess about work and my lesson planning and though that is good, I often stress myself out. I know having Jack will add to the stress of having too much to do but I will now put most of my energy into him, because he is most important. I'm not saying that I will stop working hard at teaching, but I will better use my time and I will have to re-structure things. Maybe I get my school work done at school. Maybe I wait until late at night after Jack goes to bed. And maybe, just maybe, we'll win the lottery and I won't have to worry about any of it!!!