Baby B

Dear Sylvie (at 2 months)

July 29, 2009 at 11:05 pm

Happy 2-month birthday! Time certainly keeps marching on, doesn’t it? My precious baby girl’s age can now be described in terms of months, not just weeks. Wow. We finally designed your birth announcement tonight. It’s a little late (OK, a lot), but we got to include some smiles since we waited so long. Hopefully we can send them out next week.

Even though my last letter to you was only three weeks ago, you’ve already changed drastically in that short period of time. Let me tell you some things about your latest self:

You are an incredibly happy baby in the morning. When the alarm goes off, if you’re not already draped across my chest, I peer over at you in your co-sleeper as soon as I open my eyes. Your little body clad in footie pajamas and possibly a “sleep sack” (which makes you look like an adorable sack of potatoes) is almost more cuteness than I can bear. And usually you’re already awake and you start smiling as soon as you see me. As tired as I might be at that moment, I instantly wake up and am overcome with the urge to giggle and smother you with kisses.

You picked your own bedtime. We realized you were passing out for the night by 8:00 or 8:30, so we followed your lead and instituted a routine. Now we do a bath, PJs, a story, and a little nursing “nightcap” before laying you in your co-sleeper. You can scarcely keep your eyes open by the time we head into the room.

Relatedly, you are a champion sleeper at night. In fact, I won’t post how many hours you typically do in one stretch most nights, because I think I might lose friends that way. Because you are sleeping well, we are already thinking of moving you into your crib this weekend. Get while the getting’s good, or something like that. Although the teacher in me thinks it’s wise to continue to follow your lead and build from it, the mommy in me wants to cry thinking about you being so far from me at night. I will probably end up on the pull-out couch in your room for a little while.

You make up for the nighttime sleeps by refusing to be put down during the day. You’re perfectly content and pleasant as long as you’re held pretty much every second. Since this is clearly not always a reality, you wind up having many fussy moments. It’s not necessarily limited to the evenings anymore, either. It seems like every day you need to have one big inconsolable cry. Last week it was at the Somerville Moms group. Nice first impression you made.

You have a strong personality the rest of the time, too. You’re predominantly alert and intense – staring intently at objects and people as you work to make sense of them. In that way you haven’t changed much since birth. The rest of the time you’re a smiley leg-kicking coo-fest. That’s my favorite.

You are seeing much further and more clearly now. You zero in on people’s faces who are several feet from you, and you even recently surprised me by smiling at me in a pitch-dark room. You’re also very interested in looking at your surroundings these days. Lately you’ve been into the posters we have hanging throughout the house.

You continue to impress people with your gross motor skills. People who know what they’re talking about, too, like pediatricians. You can now push your head and a bit of your chest up off the floor with your arms and look around. You can also hold your head up by yourself while being supported at the ribcage. Your head bobs everywhere and you look like an utter drunk doing it, but you can do it! You’re still working on the finer points of thumb sucking, though. Although you can usually get some part of your hand into your mouth, it currently consists of a lot of flailing and slobber everywhere.

I think you’ve figured out your Kick and Play seat. I know it’s probably way too early for the textbook cause-and-effect reasoning, and I’m probably just one of those moms who is desperately trying to attribute genius to her child’s actions, but it really does seem like you are deliberately kicking your feet to produce the music. Your Daddy says I’m reading too much into it and you’re just a spaz.

You’re very sweaty, as far as babies go. You sweat when you eat, sleep, and cry. Especially when you cry. You certainly didn’t get that from me.

You continue to have a good appetite and eat every two hours or so during the day. It’s a good thing you’re an efficient nurser or we’d be doing it all day. I can always tell how hungry you are by how wide you open your mouth. You’re like a baby bird. Unfortunately, you’re not as good at telling us you’re full. About twice a week you overeat or eat too fast and throw back up the entire contents of your stomach. Even though you’re usually covered in vomit and it’s dripping out of your nose, you seem completely unphased by this. We, on the other hand, are not huge fans of this.

You are approximately 3 pounds heavier than when you were born. And you’re quite a bit longer. You’ll get officially weighed and measured in two days. I’ve had to start a bag of clothes entitled “outgrown.” Every time I have to place something in there, I get sad remembering when you wore it and how little you were just a few weeks ago. The first thing to go in was your yellow ducky pajamas with feet. You wore those every night for your first week. So precious and tiny.

You’re starting to hold conversations with us now. You say “la” and “ah” and “ghhoo,” punctuated by throaty squeals. Even your cries often sound more like talking now. You often get so excited by this exchange that you start panting before you produce the sounds. You also pant like this when an adult reads you a book.

We’ve finally started using cloth diapers on you. They’re much bulkier than disposables, and you wind up with your legs splayed. Your silhouette is also a lot more, shall we say, full-figured in cloth. You don’t seem to mind either of these changes and you’re much more of a green baby now. Some of the diapers and covers are pretty darned cute, too.

I just noticed your hair whorl the other day. Actually, make that “whorls.” You’re one of the rare 2-5% of the population that has two hair whorls at the top of their head. This is sometimes called a “double crown.” In your case, the hair swirls clockwise in one whorl and counter-clockwise in the other. It looks like two intersecting tornados. No wonder your hair is so wild! Some people believe a double crown is good luck. In Japanese culture, children who are born with this trait are said to be rascals. Chinese lore says that you will have a stubborn and wild personality. I wouldn’t be surprised. In the scientific community, counterclockwise whorls have been found to be associated with left-handedness. Again, I wouldn’t be surprised – half of your family are lefties. I’m excited to find out!

I can’t believe how many changes in such a short time! Keep on growing and developing and learning, baby girl…but don’t do it too fast!

All my love,

Mom

By phillygil | Posted in Dear Sylvie