Della turned 3 months old on 5.28.11! I realize this update is over a whole month late. I'm a bad mom.
Dear Miss Della Plum,
For the first few months you've been here, time went really slow. I think that's because we only slept two hours a night, so we had a lot of extra time to kill. Now you sleep relatively well and life is flying by so fast, probably because we're sleeping through a lot more of it!
This month you've really changed. You’ve become quite the refined little infant. You calmly take baths like a normal person now, instead of like a rabid, wet raccoon. I think you even secretly enjoy them! You also are a very polite and well-mannered eater, gone are the days when you stop eating just to ninja-scream in my face while you Jason-Bourne me in the ribs. You still are a little squirmy, but much more delightful at mealtime. And it shows! You were 11lbs 1 oz at a 3 month checkup.
Sleep. What an odd concept, huh? You are starting to get the hang of it though. We have to double swaddle you (put you in one swaddle, and then zip you in another swaddle-pod-straight-jacket-thing over that one.) so that you will sleep soundly and ensure that you don’t prison break out of it. We’ve tried not swaddling you, but you still have that startle reflex, where if your arms are free you startle, then violently cry and frantically grab onto your mattress as if the world is tipping on it’s axis and your crib is about to slide into the shadowy underworld…. It’s that dramatic.
I don’t know how, but sometimes you still manage to get your hands free of the swaddle contraption and in the morning your face looks like a crime scene. You will scratch at your face until there is enough DNA under your fingernails to convict you of a crime. So, we will keep swaddling for now, it keeps the peace. And we don’t want you to go to baby jail or anything.
Della, this has been by far my favorite month with you. I’m so in love with you that it’s hard for me to concentrate on anything else, especially work. I hate leaving you in the morning, and going back to work was really, really difficult for me. All I want to do is play with you! And you love being silly with mom as well. We play games like, What weird stuff will mom put on her head next, or, If I smile big enough, I bet mom will keep making a fool of herself. Everyone who watches you during the day just loves you, and I know you are getting the much needed attention you crave.
This month was a little scary in the beginning because you caught your first baby cold. I was a worried mess, but you recovered wonderfully, and you are now the happiest baby in the whole Midwest. I would say in the world, but I’m sure there are some babies over in L.A. that have awesome nannies who let them pee freely in pools and make bibs out of hundred dollar bills for them. You get to chew on Tupperware and dog hair though. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
Here’s what else you’ve been up to:
- Everything goes into your mouth, and you like to put it there. You’ve gotten so good at holding objects and then shoving them into the open hole in your head.
- Whenever anyone gets close to you, you open your mouth like a baby bird and wait for them to stick their cheek in your mouth, so that you can drool on it. Sometimes you aggressively go chomping after people, like you want to snack on their face like a baby vampire. It’s cute.
- You don’t just coo, you coo in elaborate paragraphs. We have long one-sided conversations. I can’t get a word in edgewise.
- Your bedtime is around 7:30pm, with a dream feed at 10:00pm. You sleep uninterrupted until 3:00am, after that it’s hit or miss on if you’ll wake up or how often. Usually, after we put the pacifier back in a couple times you’ll go back to sleep. We couldn’t ask for more though, this is way awesomer then sleeping in 10 minute increments!
- You and Dad wakeup at 5:00am to eat breakfast and spend some time together, and then it’s back to sleep until 7:45am when mom comes to get you ready for daycare. This is your happiest time, thanks for being such a sweetheart in the mornings!
- You’ve been taking naps 2-3 times a day…not consistently of course, or for any set amount of time.
- Still size one diapers, and size 0-3 month or 3-6 month clothes.
- For Fathers Day, at daycare you made Dad an outline of your hands and put it in a homemade frame. It was the sweetest thing. You also had a great time hanging out with Dad! (and grandpa Tom)
- We went on our first road trip this month to South Dakota. It was a 12 hour car ride. You did beautifully on the trip out there, slept the whole way. On the way home you were sick and cried for the last 4 hours. Next time, I think we’ll fly.
This has been the greatest month, your smile is addicting, and I can’t wait to see what you’ll come up with next!
Love,
Mom
