Month 3, or A hat trick of tricks

Dear Miriam,

You are three months old, and you've got three new achievements.  First, you have figured out how to roll over, and now you do it almost every time I lay you down.  Sometimes it's fine, and sometimes it means you end up with a mouthful of dog hair before I can move you back onto a blanket.  I've even seen you start to move your legs like you're going to crawl.  You're good at holding your head up, but you haven't figured out how to roll back over on to your back, so eventually you get tired and start complaining until we help you.

The second trick you've started doing is reaching for things.  When I hold my hand up you grab for my fingers.  You haven't grabbed any toys yet.  I'm not sure if that's because you're suspicious of them, or because you just didn't grab them when I held them out.  Your third trick is related to this one: you found your toes.  You haven't quite stuffed them all in your mouth yet, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time.

Selfishly, I was hoping your achievement for the month would be sleeping through the night, but you clearly had other plans.  You're getting bigger, of course, sometimes noticeably day by day.  Your features are becoming more defined, although you still make funny squishy expressions with your mouth.  Your eyes are still blue.  I wonder how many months I'll write something like that because I'll still be surprised that they haven't changed to brown.

You make a lot more sounds, now.  You laugh and coo and talk to us.  You get annoyed when we leave you alone for too long, and instead of crying you'll make these annoyed sounding conversation noises.  When you're tired, you make a noise kind of like a cross between a monkey and a harmonica.  It makes me laugh.

This month you managed to develop one part of your schedule.  You are napping pretty consistently between 9am and 10am.  You usually nap in the late afternoon, but that's not quite as predictable as the morning yet.  You are still waking me up around 2am and around 5am, but you're getting better at being asleep by 10pm, so that's been nice.

You have had a couple of episodes of upset tummy.  It's always hard because you can't tell us what you're feeling, and there's only so much we can do for you anyway.  Mostly, we try to keep you upright, but sometimes that has dubious results.  The other night, Dad had just finished giving me a haircut when we heard you crying.  So he went to comfort you while I jumped in the shower.  I came downstairs just in time to watch you spit up all over him.  It was a good thing he was getting in the shower next.

It's become more natural now to think that I have two kids.  It may not make sense to you, because you won't have known anything other than our family as it is now.  But for Dad and I, our family changed drastically when Corbin was born, and again now that you're here.  It takes the brain a little while to catch up with the reality of the situation some times.  But a couple of times this month I've just been overwhelmed by how glad I am that you're part of our family.

Love,
Mom



Happy Father's Day!

 You found your toes:

 You rolled over:

 Super Baby pose:

3.4, or We don't need no stinking schedule

Dear Corbin,

This month started off with the end of the regular pre-school year and Grandma Lam's birthday in the UP.  Both of those things meant that your schedule got totally thrown off, and it nearly made both of us crazy.

Grandma's birthday was on Memorial Day this year, and she turned 70, so she decided to have a big party for herself in Menominee.  She even rented the township Hall, and we had fun decorating it with lots of balloons.  Many of our relatives came, even some of her cousins that I had never met before.  The best part for us was that Uncle Alex and Aunt Lena flew in from Norfolk.  It was the first time they were meeting Miriam, so that was fun.  You and Uncle Alex ended up playing with pulleys, which you know about from one of the Charlie Brown encyclopedias and also because there are several hanging up on the Cottage roof beams. It rained a little bit every day, sometimes in the morning and sometimes in the afternoon.  Other than that, the weather was fine and you had fun with playing with your many, many diggers.

It was really nice to spend time at the Cottage.  Lena had never been there before, so we told her lots of family history.  Some day you'll have to learn all of those stories, too.  That's one of my favorite things about being at the Cottage or in Menominee.  I think that family history is so very important, and I don't think people pay enough attention to it.  Your history is what determines your present, and family history is part of that.  After all, Dad and I have our personal histories and family histories, and that all affects how we parent you.  Being able to understand that aspect of your life can give you a lot of insights.  I was a teenager when I started learning a lot about my parents' personal and family histories, and it changed both my relationships with them and also how I thought about myself.  I hope that when you learn about your history, it gives you a sense of pride, and strength, and maybe understanding.  Learning about my parents' lives has always made me feel proud of them and grateful for what their accomplishments meant for my life.  You come from some amazing people; I hope you're able to learn and appreciate their stories.

By the time we got back from the Cottage, though, your bedtime routine had crashed and burned.  Between being in a different environment and staying up late for bonfires, I think you were in bed later than 9pm most nights.  So once we were home, we had to embark on a bit of bedtime routine recovery.  We tried just going back to our previous routine first.  It worked until we tried to get you actually into bed and going to sleep, at which point you would suddenly discover that you were hungry, or had to go potty, or needed something.  My favorite conversation went like this:

You: Mama!  Mama!
Me: What do you need, Corbin?
You: I need to ask you something.
Me: What is it?
You: I don't know.

At which point I would valiantly refrain from having primal scream therapy right there in your room.  But then I had the idea to set the alarm on your alarm clock for 8pm.  When it goes off, we tell you that it's time for us to go downstairs and do chores instead of stay upstairs and talk to you.  Since we use a timer a lot otherwise, to mark bath time or dinner time or whatever, you've accepted that limit without too much complaint.  So now our nights are back to a pretty good routine.  Except for the fact that now we have time to do chores again, I guess.

You've started the summer session at preschool.  The first day, you were a little upset because it wasn't just like the regular school year.  They have you in a different classroom and your regular teacher wasn't there the first day.  You insisted on seeing your old classroom first, before you'd go into the new one. But once you got around the other kids you were fine and you've been having fun since then.

One of the interesting things that you're doing right now is changing your pronunciation of certain sounds.  You've been concentrating on getting your "sh" sound at the beginning of words as well as the end.  You will actually pause and correct yourself when you say a word wrong.  It's kind of amazing to watch your brain in action like that.  None of us have ever made a big deal about your incorrect pronunciation, but I'm happy to see you wanting to correct it yourself. You've got a couple of years now to really get good at pronouncing sounds, before you start losing your baby teeth and go back to mis-pronouncing "ash."

Love,
Mom

Playing shuffleboard at the Cottage:

 Trying to fly a kite with Uncle Alex and Aunt Lena:

Uncle Alex took these great photos of our resident bald eagle:

We went kayaking with Aunt Cele:

You, on the way home from Grandma's birthday party:

In the garage with Grandpa, waiting for the rain to stop:

Your collection of diggers:

Playing with pulleys:

We got this weird spiny melon from the grocery store:

At the Smith-Redding house:

Miriam sitting in the Bumbo chair, when you're not using it to be a turtle:

Looking for the leak in the Spiderman punching bag:

Your "scrap metal" pile:

Playing with your "electromagnet":