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| I’m happy to be here! Or just happy! |
When you’ve raised a couple of exceptionally advanced babies, “normal” can produce anxiety. Given Charlie’s inauspicious start in life, I was starting to wonder if he was permanently damaged.
All that changed about a month ago. He’s been eating well for a while, but he kicked it up a notch and really started putting on weight—pretty close to 15 pounds now. He also started vocalizing—first with this odd growling sound he makes, sometimes with two notes at once—then recently, more normal squawks. His “feed me” and “I’m tired” sounds are pretty distinct, and he’s working on his “my diaper is wet” sound. The communication goes both ways, sort of… the wife says when he’s sitting with her, he recognizes my gait and starts looking for me. And he’ll get rather upset if I don’t stop and say hello!
He does have some odd notions of what’s funny. Jiggle his legs, pump his arms, and he’ll reward you with a big grin and a giggle. He will also give you a big smile when you lay him on the changing table—he knows that means a dry diaper is on the way. (His happy place is a dry diaper and a full belly.)
He’s a little lazy about holding his head up, though—he lets it flop forward when we’re holding him up. The wife thought he had a problem at first, but when he’s fighting sleep, he’ll push off your chest and turn his head back and forth for a good long while. Like Mason at that age, he’s trying to get by on brief catnaps through the day, then sleep all night… 9 or 10 hours. This works for me, obviously. On the other hand, he’ll fight sleep at night, some nights. Like last night. He kept going until 12:30 a.m., but then he slept past 9 this morning.
Also like Mason, he likes to be held most of the time. He’ll lay on our bed and watch the ceiling fan, but mostly he likes interaction. He’s finally big enough to sit in my sling, so maybe I can catch up on writing. Typing one-handed, while feeding a hungry baby, has been a lot slower than I like. Accidental Sorcerers #7, The Blood of Heroes, is way behind, and everything else is backed up behind it. But now that I’ve done one blog post, maybe the logjam will break. I’d really like to get four books out this year if possible… but with the year already ⅓ over, it’s going to be a challenge.
[claps hands and makes squee sound just as if I were really in the room with Charlie]
ReplyDeleteThat's great! Actually, he sounds like my brothers at that age. One of them only started holding his head up when he realised how much control it gave him over what he could see.
Glad you're getting more writing done as well! Now that I'm post-conference, I've been trying to figure out this revision thing some more.
Awww, look at that happy face. He's got cheeks you want to pinch.
ReplyDeleteKatherine, he hasn't quite figured out the concept of "control" just yet. Maybe that will come soon. But yup, being able to write is helping me to push through all the rest of the logjam.
ReplyDeletePatricia, just tickle his ribs or belly instead. He'll give you a little laugh.