Month 3

Dear Corbin,

You are three months old today. It seems that the older I get, the faster time moves. I feel like time moved slower for me, when I was a child, and I wonder if you’ll eventually feel the same thing. It feels like this month has gone by much faster than the last two did.

I have been back at work for three weeks now. It’s been easy to fall back into some of my routines, but now I have to find time three times a day to pump milk for you, and that can be very inconvenient. The transition has been easier because Mom and Dad are here at the house with you, and it’s comforting to know that you’re at home in good hands. They take you on walks, and play baby games with you, and you all seem to have a good time. If the housing market was better, and if we didn’t like living in Minneapolis so much, there’s a good chance that we would have plans to move to Madison pretty soon so we could keep them as your daycare without having to keep them living in the garage. But our new plan is to win the lottery and build a nice big house with a grandparents’ suite, and then we’ll all be very comfortable until Marley dies and that first ghost shows up.

You continue to entertain us with your early conversation skills. Along with your cooing you’ve added a loud kind of shout every now and then. It always makes me laugh, and I wonder if you’ll end up being a shouting kind of kid. You have started to reach for things now, sometimes just batting with a fist but sometimes reaching with an open hand. I have seen you sucking on your thumb two or three times, but usually you just suck on whatever part of your hand happens to hit your mouth first. You’ve also started drooling. We had to look in the book to see if you were supposed to be teething yet, but you’re not. It turns out that about 10 weeks is when the salivary glands start working, and let me tell you, yours are working! But you don’t simply leak saliva out of your mouth—you end up with a froth of bubbles on your lips and chin. Someday, I’m sure you’ll have spitting distance contests, but right now you’re winning the contest for Baby Most Likely to Have Rabies.

Your hand-made blanket collection continues to grow, also. Before you were born, my Aunt Maxine gave us a blanket for you that she knit from the prettiest blue yarn. I still have the blanket that she knit for me, too. My friend Vicki sent a blanket that she knit from several dark blue yarns. It isn’t big, but it’s heavy and thick and will be perfect during our cold Midwest winters. And my friend Douglas just sent an afgan that he made, which is blue and yellow and white, and a good weight for spring and fall. These are all in addition to your more typical baby blankets, so believe me: when it comes to blankets, we’ve got you covered.

Love,
Mom

PS: Happy Mother's Day to me, for the first time!