Aiden rolled over yesterday!

On a flat, level surface, from his back to his front. I had been under the impression he was 'supposed' to go from front to back first....

Dear Aiden,

As of two days ago, you've been on this planet for a full quarter of a year!

You weigh 18 pounds - and the percentile chart for weight of a 3-month-old tops out at 17. I think I must be feeding you well after all ;)

You've grown such a vibrant personality this month. You love being changed, and bathtime, and sneezing, and wield your toy rings with defiance and pride. You don't like waking up, but you love being awake. You notice when we laugh at things you do, and repeat the actions to get us to laugh again!

On Sunday you sat in the boppy all by yourself, with nobody holding you up! And there was much happy gurgling.

You've started realizing that you can chew on things that don't necessarily emit milk, and enjoying it. Between that and the incessant drool, we're wondering if you're starting to teethe, but aren't positive yet.

We've started getting a routine of sorts down, for naptimes during the day and convincing you to fall asleep at night. We get up around 9; you nap from around 10:30 to noon, and often again from around 3 to 5. Then it's a couple of short naps until we go to bed between 10 and 11.

You're starting to stay asleep without me cuddled up to you, which is a wondrous and magnificent thing! Once you're asleep, I've been able (still only occasionally, but with slowly increasing frequency) to put you down in bed or in your swing, and you'll stay asleep on your own for an hour or so, giving me the freedom to do stuff around the house. Once I get a soft spot set up for you in my studio I may even be able to paint on a regular basis, which will make for a much saner and happier me!

If there's one major parenting lesson I've learned so far, it is that just about the time I think I have a pattern of yours figured out, it's time for it to change. (A correlary: any time I say "he can't possibly be hungry again!" I'm probably wrong!) But more and more of the time I can roll with the punches and still sneak bits of me time in here and there.

Dear Aiden,

Happy two-month birthday, my boy!

It's actually been kind of a rough month for both of us - first I got a stomach flu, then you got a nasty cold, and since then you've been fussy and sniffly and growing like mad.

You've nearly doubled your weight since birth - 15 pounds 7 at the pediatrician today! I leave you for a half an hour, and I swear you're heavier when I pick you up again.

I can tell there are great things happening in your brain - connections being made, others being pruned, processes migrating from the instinct-ruled brain stem to the intelligence-ruled cerebral cortex. I'm pretty sure   your nursing behaviors are going through that transition of late - rather than relying on the rooting reflex, you try different things, you fight the nipple and get frustrated, but then you get even more frustrated if I try to help. Even at two months old, you want to do it yourself!

You can support your own weight on your feet, with a look of furious determination on your little face - though balance is obviously a long way off! Likewise sitting - I've actually gotten you precariously balanced in the Boppy for a second or two before you fall over. These little tastes of mobility, though, have got you desperately wanting more. You want to move, to run, to GO!

Surprisingly, you've been showing signs of separation anxiety, which isn't "supposed" to happen until object permanence sets in around 6-8 months. If I'm out of the room too long, your father can calm you just by bringing you out to see me. I tried actually leaving you with him for a whole half hour last week while I ran out for groceries - but you were inconsolable the entire time, and it wasn't for lack of milk.

Today you've still got a bit of a cold, it seems - your eyes are runny with yellow gook, and you're wheezing a bit. But the doctor says your lungs and ears are "perfect", and you took your first round of vaccinations like a trooper! Just 10 seconds of crying and then you were all smiles again.

Speaking of smiles, you've moved from the semi-random smiles of last month to clearly conscious displays of happiness. In the morning you're all grins and happy gurgles (how did we produce a child who's a morning person?). When I change your diaper and tickle your belly, when I bend over you to take you out of your carseat, I'm rewarded with that radiant, toothless grin, and no matter how exhausted and bone-weary I am, that smile makes everything okay.

Love you.
~mama

A repeat post from my other blog, made a month ago on Aiden's one month birthday.
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I'm going to steal a page from dooce and Cecily and try to post monthly letters to Aiden on how he's been growing and what life with him has been like.

Dear Aiden,

You are one month old today. Holy cow.

One of the things everyone tells you when you have a baby coming is "enjoy it when they're tiny, they grow up so fast". And while that doesn't seem true in the middle of things, I look back and am amazed at how quickly this first month seems to have gone by.

I could see your personality the first time you looked at me, bare minutes old. Your eyes were a stormy midnight blue then, but within days shifted to the darkest velvet grey. You hardly cried at all for the first two days, you were so busy looking around at this strange new world.

Your hair is straight and medium brown, and growing in crazy cowlicks that will not stay down. Your eyebrows are almost visible now.

One day soon I will have to bite the bullet and attempt to cut those insanely sharp little fingernails of yours, like kitten claws.

You are such a calm, zen little person - not that you don't get upset from time to time, but there's always a reason for it, and once it's fixed you're all happy gurgles and smiles.

You're a voracious eater, and once you're securely latched you gaze off into the distance with a thoughtful look like you are pondering the mysteries of the universe. (I can picture you one day waxing philosophical over the roast Thanksgiving turkey with that same look in your eyes.)

You love to play with your tongue, sticking it out and curling it with impressive dexterity. (Your preferred gender(s) are going to love you some day!)

Thanks to you I have a greater appreciation for anime. No, really - the textbook anime "kawaii!" expression which I always found so unrealistic, with the upside-down semicircle eyes and the open, triangular mouth, could have been drawn straight off of your happy face. Likewise the neutral 'big eyes, little mouth' expression is a dead match for you when you start looking for food and turn on the cute. Your eyes absolutely sparkle then with life and excitement.

As far as developmental milestones go, you seem to be ahead of the curve, though as you're the first infant I've known I could be a little biased. You can lift your head and hold it mostly under control for several seconds at a time. Your eyes focus and track objects, though not terribly smoothly. Your favorite thing to look at is faces, but sometimes you can be distracted by a toy. You've discovered your hands, sucking on them and occasionally swiping at objects, and have once or twice managed to grab my or your daddy's finger and bring it to your mouth. You've shown no signs of trying to roll over yet, but frankly I'm not complaining - the house is so not ready for you to be mobile! You are definitely deliberately smiling, mostly at me and your daddy, but sometimes at the wall or just because life is good.

A favorite game of yours, discovered by your daddy when he was changing your diaper, is to lay you on your back and pump your arms up and down while grinning madly. You LOVE this, and it can usually distract you (at least momentarily) from a cranky mood.

Our cat, Nuit, has adapted to your presence remarkably well. She sniffed you without panic the day we brought you home, and now regularly curls up next to you on the bed. Yesterday she even licked your head!

As I write this you are curled up in your favorite napping place on my chest, belly down, head turned to my right, tiny hands clutching at my collarbone and stray strands of my hair.

You've gained about four pounds since you were born - nearly half your birth weight! You're 24 inches long, and your head is 15 inches circumference. You're wearing size 2 diapers and 3-6 month clothes (though some of the newborn stuff still fits). You seem simultaneously impossibly tiny and amazingly huge, a wondrously new miracle of life who has been with me forever.

This world I've brought you into can be a scary and depressing place. There are times when I wonder if I was completely mad to conceive of having a child at all; but the world also seems a much more amazing place with you in it.

Welcome, my son, welcome to the machine.

Don't let anyone tell you what to dream.

love.
~mama