New today...

Things Wes has started doing today (or last couple of days)...

1. Blowing little bubbles with his drool while he sleeps
2. Intentionally reaching out to touch things: Most of his movements could still be described as exuberant flailing, however today he reached out to touch his doudou multiple times.  His accuracy was variable but it did seem like he did it on purpose.
3.  Exploring cause and effect: My friend Amy gave me little tiny plush toys on fabric bracelets that you can velcro around a baby's wrist.  For the first time today, I put them on Wes.  One of them was a little bee with a plastic rattle inside of it.  Wes shook his arm many a time while exploring the phenomenon of how it produced noise.  He also has a toy that is a plush elephant with a bell inside of it.  I dangled the elephant in front of him and jingled it.  He then focused on it and reached his closed fist out to the elephant and punched it lightly so it would jingle again.
4. Minding when his diapers are wet or dirty: Most of the last six weeks Wes has not demonstrated any evidence of caring if his diaper was very busy.   However, there have been several instances over the past few days when he will whimper and fuss and then will stop when I change a very wet or soiled diaper.
5. Having a witching hour: Wes was just a solid gold baby for the first five to six weeks of his life.  He was rarely fussy at all as long as I fed him promptly. He remains the Most Premium Baby in the World except for the hours between five and eight in the evening.  As of late, he fusses incessantly during those hours for reasons that are usually quite opaque.  The best (only) solution I have thus far come up with is to feed, feed, feed him until he is milk-drunk and can't stay awake. He has not yet figured out how to cry while asleep.   Doesn't always work, though, because sometimes he loses his sh*t so much that he is crying too hard to nurse. Or he's not actually hungry and then he's like, ha ha, nice try pretty lady, I would prefer to continue screaming my head off.  Other strategies for calming him include putting him in the sling, reading him stories (NEVER works, but entertains me somewhat), burping him one million different ways, "farting" him and giving him to daddy.