Wednesday, March 24, 2021

month three

The baby—I guess I should start referring to him by name?—is 12 weeks old tomorrow. Hard to imagine that 12 weeks ago I was in the hospital, slowly losing my mind. But here we are! All still alive (hooray) and mostly sane. 

This month he has been all about smiling, cooing, and crying. He smiles all the time now and loves kisses and belly rubs. It's amazing how much easier it is to enjoy his company now that he smiles at me! He also cries a great deal, which is no change from last month, except it's now more than just yelling: there are sometimes tears, too. I guess that's the tradeoff—with smiles come tears. 

His cooing is constant, and there are different types of coos with different sounds: one kind of coo when he's excited, another when he's hungry, another when he's trying to get my attention. He's much more interested in faces now, too. 

He's turned out to be a really good napper, often sleeping 4-5 hours a day, which has been extremely nice for me, especially since I'm back at work part-time. He's still up a couple times a night for food, but it's mostly manageable and I don't (always) feel like a zombie anymore. He also continues to be a big boy, he grew out of his first set of clothes a couple weeks ago when his toes started busting out of his onesies. 

He starts daycare next week, which I am mostly happy about. My coworkers get a kick of seeing him on work calls, but I am over it: trying to speak on a conference call while holding a screaming baby is not at all fun. Typing one-handed while holding a screaming baby is also not fun. I have made a lot of small mistakes at work this week.

I'm sad I won't be able to see him as much, though, which honestly kind of surprises me. He goes bed about an hour after I'll pick him up from daycare, so he'll be sleeping most of the time he's home. I guess this means I like him? I mean, I obviously love him, but I didn't realize I enjoyed his company until recently. 

Entrusting him to strangers also makes me vaguely uneasy, which seems entirely unremarkable—I assume everyone feels this way? It must be biologically innate. Reading about all the daycare protocols, though, I realize that they will probably care for him better than I do. At least, they won't be constantly holding him with one hand while trying to type out emails with the other.