Mal is getting big! At his two-month well check-up last week, he weighed 12 pounds, 10 ounces (up from a birth weight of 8 pounds, 2 ounces). He was 23 1/2 inches, so had gained 2 inches since birth. And his head circumference was... big. In the 86th percentile.
Here's an average day: Mal wakes up around 7 AM and is in a great mood. He usually hangs out with his dad for a while, and then when breakfast is ready, we all sit down and eat together. Malcolm wants to eat during or after that, and then we hang out for a while. Mornings are the best; when Mal is "fresh" and awake, he is so much fun. He is happy and... well, when he gets really happy and giggles, he gets the hiccups.
(4:57 PM)
After James leaves for work, the day is pretty much a game of my trying to keep Malcolm distracted as long as possible between nursing sessions. He *loves* to nurse. He wants to be on my breast at all times, even when he's not hungry. We're trying to train him on a pacifier, and sometimes, he will really get to going on it (like 4-6 good sucks) but usually, he chews around on it and it keeps him amused for about ten minutes before he's like, "That was fun, now let's get back to the real thing."
Also, I spend a lot of the day trying to put Mal down for a nap. It goes like this: he nurses to sleep. I lie him on the couch. He immediately wakes up... and will be consoled by nothing other than nursing, which often lulls him to sleep, so I'll wait a little longer to put him down... and he wakes up.
I have experimented with trying to train Mal to do things other than nurse, but he gets inconsolable (as you know, sometimes he's that way, anyway, as he has what people think of as "colic," though the episodes persist, they are not every day at the same time anymore; sometimes, we get a break of a day or two or even as many as five days) and it stresses me out a lot to hear him cry like that. A few weeks ago, I actually ran an errand, leaving the house when he was crying, and came back half an hour later without his having calmed down in the least. He doesn't know how to self-soothe yet, and it doesn't "feel" right to my parent heart to let him throw a fit for too long...
...So, I spend a great deal of my day with half of my chest exposed. And I'm going back into that newborn exhaustion phase.
On Thanksgiving, I actually had a bit of a meltdown because we'd spent a good deal of time at friends' house, and as the day wore on, I was expending more and more energy trying to stave off his crying, including my not being able to play a game because I needed to sit on the couch, reclined, and let him (surprise) nurse. James had won the game, and was finishing up a piece of dessert when Mal started to cry. I walked over to ask James if he was ready to go, and instead started sobbing. (He got that hint.)
The next day was another stressful one, with more crying from the baby... AND me. It was even starting to wear on Daphne, who typically just turns up her music when he's at his finest.
That's the tiring stuff. I make it worse by projecting. If I could stay in the moment, it would be fine. But instead, I worry that he'll be wanting to nurse every waking moment a year from now... or even two months from now, when we're going to be on vacation. And this makes me feel like I'm doing everything wrong, like I should have this "fixed" by now, even though, as I mentioned, it doesn't feel "on" to me to really do much in the way of work that makes him wail. I still feel like he's too young, but I don't know when "just right" is. I'm hoping my mother heart will tell me.
Now for the cool stuff:
Malcolm is delightful, when he's fully awake and not focused on my bosoms. He smiles and giggles and attempts "protoconversation." He is very strong, preferring to stand up rather than lie down. In fact, I worry that I'm going to bruise his armpits, I hold him upright so much. He will push off with his right leg a lot, and yesterday was alternating, so that it almost looked like he was walking on my lap. We got him a Bumbo, and as of about two days ago, he can actually sit in it. I don't keep him in for very long, because it's still a core work-out, but I think he'll enjoy that a lot more than the bouncy seat when we're eating, and I would LOVE to get him out of my arms and onto the table (even though the Bumbo is a floor seat!) so I can stop dropping food all over him. Also, I don't like having a teat pulled out for every meal, pardon my farm language.
(8:35 PM - too tired; giving up for today :) )
(8:53 PM December 3) Mal likes bathing and being outside. He does not like driving slowly (he gets that from his mom) ...
(8:28 AM December 4) Wherein I just say, "Screw it" and post this. You get the idea. He's a cool kid, parenting a baby is hard, and we're still transitioning.
A bit of important advice to expectant parents: Do not buy any shirts that don't snap under the crotch. You might think that's a darling outfit, but you'll just spend your life pulling it down. Trust me.
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| Chilling with Aunt Sister at the Christmas parade. |
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