Three months

Dear Callum,

Today, you are three months old. A quarter of a year has gone by already. I'm sure if you were aware of it, you'd be very proud of this achievement.


When I look back at photos of you from when you were just a couple weeks old, sometimes I can hardly see a difference and other times I can't believe how much has changed. Some things can be captured in a photo--like the fact that you are almost double your birth weight, at close to 16 pounds, and fully into 3-6 month size clothing. In fact, I had to clear out a bunch of the smaller 3-6 stuff because you've already outgrown it. The bottom two drawers of your dresser are now full of 6-12 month size clothing, still too big for you but only by a hair. I imagine you'll be wearing some of it within the next month.


But a lot of what's changed isn't the kind of thing that you can see in a snapshot. The day after your two-month birthday, you figured out how to roll over from your belly to your back. You've been doing it on and off the entire month since. Some days you do it every time we put you on your tummy, other times you try and can't quite manage it, and some days you don't even try. But when you really want to do it, you do.


You've also started laughing. We aren't quite at the full-on belly laugh stage just yet, but when you get excited and happy there is a definitive laugh that accompanies your smile and wriggle. And you smile and laugh quite frequently--pretty much all day long. You smile at strangers still, but this month you've learned to recognize your parents, and whenever you see us we are rewarded with a full-on excited grin, accompanied by gurgling and arm-waving. You are becoming very social, and if we leave you in your crib or bouncy seat for too long, you will sometimes fuss because you want us to come hang out with you. Which we always do, because you are totally irresistible.


This month you've discovered your hands in earnest, and you can now get them in your mouth, which you do as often as possible. You've figured out how to suck your thumb, and make adorable loud slurping noises as you do it. You still haven't quite figured out how to tuck the rest of your fingers away when you do it, though, so when you suck your thumb you end up with your whole hand in front of your face.


This has also been the month when you've learned that things other than your hands can go in your mouth, too. You've figured out how to grasp toys, and can transfer them back and forth from one hand to the other, but your favorite thing to do with them is grab them with both hands and stuff them in your mouth as quickly as possible. We've had a lot of fun introducing some of your toys to you for the first time, and though you seem to enjoy everything, you do seem to display a preference for a couple of them over all the rest. Who knows--maybe they taste better.


You've still been growing like nuts, but you've actually tapered off a bit on how much formula you eat, so I'm wondering if maybe your growth will slow down accordingly. You hover around the 90th percentile for both weight and length, and you have adorable chubby cheeks and thighs. When you are hungry, you let us know. Your differentiated crying started this month, and your hunger cry is a furious, high-decibel roar that would probably make a stranger think we were torturing you with needles and acid.


You continue to be a relaxed, mellow baby, and a great sleeper. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop on the sleep thing, since I've heard so many horror stories of babies who were champion sleepers for the first few months and then one day started waking up every hour and continued that behavior for at least a year. But for now, you are sleeping through the night pretty regularly, and we are very grateful.


The dog still spends most of her time ignoring you, and you do the same to her. But you definitely don't ignore anything else. You are totally aware of and absorbed in your surroundings, and you absolutely love seeing people. Your dad and I can often soothe you just by picking you up, and one of my favorite things is to lift you against my chest when you're sleepy and feel you snuggle your head against my shoulder. One of my other favorite things is seeing you with your dad, because you are as enamored of him as ever, and the two of you together (also known as "Me" and "Mini-Me") are beyond adorable.


I sometimes feel vaguely wistful when I see photos of you when you were tiny, but for the most part I just love watching you grow. This parenting thing gets better and better, and in addition to loving where you are now, I am so excited to keep watching you grow and change. Each phase is simultaneously perfect and better than the last. Just like our family. We are perfect now, and we will keep being perfect as you grow, and we all grow. Our family will always feel perfect to us, because you will always be a part of it.


Love,
Mama

Assorted

• A friend of ours who has been trying to get pregnant for over 2.5 years found out a few weeks ago that she is pregnant via IVF. Needless to say, she and her husband are over the moon. They have their first ultrasound today to look for cardiac activity. I am keeping everything crossed that they see a nice strong heartbeat, but I figured I'd put it out there so you guys could add some extra good vibes, if you are so inclined.
• I had no idea that Donald Trump was so crazy and also so dumb. Maybe I've been deliberately keeping myself in the dark, but the things he's said publicly in the last few weeks? Beyond horrifying. And let's not even get started on the whole sending-detectives-to-Hawaii thing. I have so much to say about that but my head explodes every time I start to think about it.
• Callum will be three months old in a few days, and he's started getting a lot more interactive and interested in his toys. I said to Torsten that I wondered if we should find more varied ways of entertaining him, and he responded, "Like what? Hire a clown?" I guess it's a valid point. He spends a lot of time in his activity mat, and he also has a bouncy seat and a swing, and we read to him and sing to him and play with toys with him, and I guess that's already a lot. Maybe we should at least switch out the toys on his activity mat occasionally?
  
• We had friends in town a couple weeks ago, and it was so lovely. I'm glad that some things haven't changed: we still enjoy being social and hosting friends at our house. It was so lovely to have lots of time to catch up and introduce them to the baby. And it was a good excuse to get out and do some local exploring (Red Rocks and Boulder). And, they gave me an awesome birthday present. Fantastic time all around.
  
• Twice in the past week we've gone out and forgotten the diaper bag. Once we had to go back and get it because we knew Callum would be hungry before we were done. The other time I managed to get him to fall asleep in the Ergo and it ended up not being a big deal. Both times I wished very bitterly that I didn't have such a useless low milk supply.
• I still don't fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans. I know, nine months on, nine months off, but it's pissing me off. I lost a bunch of weight right at the start and then I plateaued completely. I'm getting a fill in my lap-band tomorrow, though, so hopefully that will kick-start things. I can only hope, because in the meantime I'm wearing jeans in a size up, and they're too big, and I'm sick of that.
• Callum is still really, really cute.

Chopped

As soon as I wrote that post, I knew I wanted to cut my hair. Luckily, the vast majority of you agreed with me, so on Tuesday I went to my hair stylist and came out with eleven inches of hair in a bag to donate.

(As an aside, can anyone explain to me why hair is cute when it's on you, but as soon as it's no longer attached to your head it becomes totally gross?)

Anyway, my hair is shorter, it's curlier, it's lighter, and it's so much easier to deal with. I am so happy I did this, and with the warmer weather coming, I'm pretty sure my newly exposed neck agrees.

And Callum seems to agree as well, if his face is any indicator. It would seem that this kid has learned to smile for the camera--even when there isn't anyone standing behind it.

Fresh from the salon, hair straightened by the stylist:


And yesterday, after I'd washed it and returned it to its normal curly state:

To chop or not to chop

I have come to a crossroads. And it involves my hair. I don't know whether to keep growing it out or cut it all off. And by "cut it all off" I mean not short-short, but somewhere between chin and shoulder length.

I've been growing it out for a couple of years now, I guess since my wedding? With the thought that it would be nice to have long hair for awhile, but not necessarily as a permanent state. I like the long hair--it's pretty and fun, and in some ways it's easy because I can just toss it back in a ponytail and be done with it.

But I like short hair too. My hair curls better when it's short, and it's faster to wash, and if I skip a shower one day it doesn't look quite as messy. Also, Callum has started pulling my hair regularly, particularly when he's nursing, and that's quite painful. I wouldn't mind having it out of his way.

People seem to have strong opinions about whether I look better with short hair or long, and unfortunately there's no consensus, so it's hard to decide on that count, too.

Here's my hair currently (or at least recently-ish):




And here's how I wear it most of the time, because it's a mess when it's not freshly washed and also because I want to keep it out of Callum's reach:



And here's how it looked when I wore it short:




And here it is partly grown out, so somewhere in the middle:



So what do you think? Should I keep it as it is, or cut it all off? Or something in between?

Breastfeeding and cloth diapers and pediatricians

It's a new month, so it seems like a good time for updates all around, yes?

On the breastfeeding thing: We've pretty much settled into a routine on this one. When Callum is hungry, I nurse him, then I give him a bottle. He eats a ton of formula every day, meaning that he likely isn't getting a whole lot from nursing--but I do see breast milk in his diapers, so I know he's getting something. I have no idea how long this will last--I kind of wonder if at some point my supply will just dwindle down to nothing--but for now, this is working for us, and I'm at peace with it.

On the cloth diaper thing: Per all of your excellent advice way back when, we used disposables for the first month for the sake of our own sanity. Then we discussed it and tried to give cloth a try. We ordered one FuzziBunz one-size to try out, and liked it, so decided to take the plunge and order a full set of 24. (Actually a lovely and very generous birthday gift from my parents. Is it sad that I was actually really excited to get cloth diapers for my birthday?) We also replaced the microfiber inserts that come with the FuzziBunz with Joey-Bunz hemp inserts, which are more absorbent than microfiber.

So far they've worked out great. We had a couple of blips as we tried to get used to them, mostly leaking as we tried to figure out the best size settings for Callum's body. At first we only thought about the leg sizing and then they started leaking because the waist was too loose, but once we figured out that issue--and switched to the hemp inserts--we've had very few leaking issues. We change his diaper about once every three hours during the day and less often at night. He's slept up to 7-8 hours at night in these diapers with either no leak at all or just a very tiny wet spot on the flap of his onesie. Maybe as he gets older and starts peeing bigger amounts, we'll have to switch to disposables at night--but for now, this is working great for us and Torsten and I are both really happy we switched. It hasn't been a hassle at all, and the diapers are easy to use, and we feel good about having fabric next to his skin instead of plastic and chemicals, and not creating tons of waste. Plus, it's great that we pretty much never have to buy diapers again.

On the pediatrician: We love her. Callum's two-month appointment was on Wednesday, and it was great. He weighed in at 14 pounds, 1.5 ounces (which they said was 91st percentile, though looking at the CDC/WHO chart, I think it's actually more like 80-something), and he is exactly 24 inches long, which is the 81st percentile. So, basically, this is a fast-growing baby, who has finally gotten back to percentiles similar to where he was at birth. Though I try not to place too much stock in the percentiles... I'm mostly just glad that his weight and length aren't wildly disproportionate to one another.

The pediatrician told us we don't need to swaddle him anymore if it doesn't seem like he's getting anything out of it--so we tried a swaddle-free night and it went fine. He slept for seven hours without waking up. So, we'll see if he continues with that pattern, but I'm going to go ahead and tentatively say that he does not need the swaddle, and now can just sleep in a regular sleep sack.

The pediatrician also told us that his skin is dry, and she is now OK with us using lotion on him (unlike the last visit where she told us not to put anything on his skin just yet other than soap). So, we've started a new routine of moisturizing the baby twice a day, and you guys, this is quickly becoming one of my favorite moments of the entire day. Callum LOVES having lotion put on. He gets really happy and smiley and starts gurgling and babbling and kicking his legs, and it is just the sweetest thing ever. I could seriously listen to him all day with the adorable noises that he makes.

So! I'd say overall things are going pretty well over here. Other than the part where a giant section of the fence that separates our backyard from our neighbor's backyard blew over in yesterday's windstorm. That was less than awesome. But hey, it created a good opportunity to catch up with our neighbor, so that was nice. It's all about looking on the bright side, right?