Eli is now three and a half months old. Morning is my favorite time with him. Our morning routine is as follows:
- He wakes up in his crib
- I bring him in our room and feed him
- I play with him for usually 30 minutes or until he starts fussing
- I put him back in his crib to go to sleep
In the morning, he gives me his best smiles. I don't remember ever seeing a child just "light up the room" like Eli does when he smiles. His smile is electric and when I see it, all is right with the world and there's nowhere else I'd rather be than right there watching him. His smile truly takes my breath away and I'm so happy to be his mom.
Before babies can talk, parents wonder what their baby is thinking and try to put words into the baby's mouth to describe what they see. I think, that if Eli had words right now, he would say, "I wonder how THAT works....Oh, and that over there! How does IT work?" Eli looks like he's trying to figure everything out. It appears that he thinks about the mechanics of nearly everything he sees...."How did it do that?" he seems to say.
The other thing about Eli is that he often seems frustrated....and his dad and I think we know why. We think he's frustrated because he wants to run and jump and play and his little body just won't allow that yet. He spends long periods staring at his hands and feet, undoubtedly wanting them to move and trying to MAKE them move. It seems that of late, he is having more success, which is good. He can now, with some mental effort, get his hand to go up to his mouth so that he can suck on his fingers or thumb. He has been doing this for about two weeks. He doesn't much care if he sucks on his fingers or on his thumb, so long as there's something in his mouth to suck on. He's taking the pacifier less and less over time. Today, it didn't console him at all and he won't even latch on to try.
He's got great upper body strength and leg strength for a baby his age. I can no longer put him on his belly on a bed and expect him to stay there....rather, as early as three weeks ago, he'd travel half way across a bed fussing the whole time as if to say, "Why can't I just get up and walk like everybody else? Why do I have to do this the hard way and scoot on my belly?" On that note, he's quite a determined little fellow too. He does not give up easily.
He loves kicking in the bath water, however, when I tried to take him into a friend's pool, the water was a bit cold and he did not like that at all.
Nursing is going well. A mother's typical soreness for the first 4-5 weeks is long gone and Eli and I stay pretty much in sync with the making and the drinking of the mild. I supplement with formula occasionally - perhaps a bottle every day or every other day. He takes either just fine, so that is good.
He sleeps through the night about half of the time now. If he gets up, it is at 3:00 a.m. and he wants to eat and then go right back to sleep. From about the time he was 4 weeks old he has generally gotten up only one time per night to eat, always at 3:00 a.m., and has always then went right back to sleep.
He slept with us all night until he was about 8 weeks old. Then, one night, I decided that I wanted to try and see if he'd sleep in his crib in the next room over. I missed him a lot as the nighttime sleep together brings a special closeness and bonding. What I quickly realized however, was that not only I, but Eli slept better in his own bed and after a couple nights of being sad that he wasn't next to me, I adjusted and started being able to get more sleep.
Not to digress, but my pregnancy with Eli was filled with many sleepless nights; about every third night I'd be up most of the night. The insomnia stopped when Eli was born. When he moved to his own bed, it was the first time in about five months that I felt somewhat human and rested in the mornings. While we are on the pregnancy topic, I gained 13 lbs. while pregnant with Eli. Half way through the pregnancy (in December of 2011, I was layed off from my job and became a stay-at-home mom, which was a good thing for both my mental and physical and health. At that point, I began working out at a gym twice a week, so that was a big reason why I didn't gain too much weight. Six weeks after Eli was born, I was 20 lbs. down from the weight at which I had him, which made me feel good.
Eli is definitely his own person; not a carbon copy of one sister or another or of his dad or I, but a whole new person with his own thoughts and personality. I look so forward to getting to know him better in the decades to come.
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