Well hello there . . .

New today

-Shouts and screams: Wessy is becoming ever so vocal. He will imitate us if we make high-pitched coos, and he will also spontaneously babble. I was in the other room today and heard him loudly singing a song to himself.
-Blowing raspberries: This has gotten out of control. He will do it any time, for any reason. He does it to get attention and also to indicate assent. He will first eject a mouthful of milk or saliva onto his lips. Then he will valsalva and make duck lips while forcing air out of his mouth to make little sputtering sounds. Whereas I can blow raspberries using only my lips, for Wessy it's a whole-body effort. It's as if he decided to make the cutest sound possible in the cutest way possible and then do it repeatedly. In case you were wondering, it definitely works to get our attention.
-Man hands: Wessy's delicate little piano hands have become fat little ham-paws. His fingers are little tapered sausages and the backs of his hands are domed.
-Standing up: Wes will stand up while holding my hands. He can actually do it for awhile. He particularly loves standing atop the changing table.
-Milk: Wes has mastered baby sign language for milk and he's not afraid to use it. He is far better at "milk" than he is at "more," or "Mommy" or "Daddy." He still doesn't understand exactly about the relationship between the signs and the results he's getting, but every day it seems like he's a little clearer on how it all works.
-Longer and leaner: Apart from his unswervingly fat face and paws, Wes seems to be stretching out a bit. He used to be kidney bean-shaped, but now he's baby-shaped. I am beginning to make out some knees on his legs.
-Wes accidentally picked his nose today.
-Mommy at work: Everyone's getting used to it, which is not to say that everyone likes it. The overwhelming way I feel about it is...tired. Just tired. Stupidly tired. And a lot of other things unfit for this family-oriented blog.

First solid food: pumpkin pie

Out for a hike

Eatin mah hand

Ready for winter

I want some turkey!!!

Sorry, buddy. You don't have teeth. How about some milk?

Pie time

Thanksgiving!

Daddy says...

Me (to Wes, in baby voice): "Who looks like milky, smells like milky and tastes like milky?"
Stevo (to me): "You do."

Guess who visited me at work today?

Straight chillin

New today...

-He is getting more vocal all the time. He can modulate his coos and is starting to make multisyllabic coos.
-He is just the best baby. Solid gold baby. Sometimes I'm surprised by his cry because I hear it so little. The converse of that is that when he does cry, it freaks me out, because I think that something must be seriously wrong.
-He is using and abusing the "more" sign in baby sign language to get essentially unlimited running mans, bounces and assisted jumps. He knows I can't resist. He will smirk and then emphatically smash his chubby hands together until he knows I'm getting his drift. I think he also understands the "milk" sign, though he doesn't use it yet.
-Naps: We have the best naps. Late afternoons, if I'm home, I let him fall asleep on my chest. Today I watched the setting sun bathe all the trees in the yard while he slept draped over my chest. And then I drifted off and we both woke up covered in urine. It was just the best, I'm not kidding. Don't care about the urine.
-He's busting out of his 3-6 month clothes. Sigh.
-I think he's looks skinnier since I went back to work. I'm not too worried, as we are working with a cushion here (pun intended) and he is continually getting better at bottle feeds, but it adds another layer of guilt and sadness to the pain I feel about being back at work.

We are never . . .

Mommy and Wes dancing to Taylor Swift

I love mommy

Missing my Buddy

Today I'm back at work in the hospital for the first time since two days before Wessy was born and I miss him! Not only because he is at home, but because he used to come see patients with me. Today I found myself instinctively putting my hand on my belly only to feel...just my squishier-than-before abs. No little kicks (though Wes really was never a kicker--more of an all-of-a-sudden position changer). No back pain or desperate need to sit down. No little buddy inside there.

Oh, the things we saw together! We saw life, and death, a lot of crying, some tense situations, and way too much vomiting. We saw an old man who came to after trying to kill himself and he was disappointed to still be in the world. We saw lotsa mommies crying with joy as they saw their babies for the first time. We saw cancer and heart trouble and unfortunately a lot of c. Diff. I often feared for your safety in there with all the flying germs and chemicals.

Wessy, I am so glad you came out healthy and perfect and I'm glad I don't have to worry about that anymore. But...

Sometimes, like today, mommy wishes you still came to work with her.

The boys

Hobbies...

-Kissing Wessy on the lips while he is sleeping in order to watch the way it makes his tiny mouth flutter and then sometimes pucker up.
-Laying my head next to Wessy's head on the Boppy and smelling his milk breath.
-Telling Wes he has "the busiest pampers in the business" when I'm changing his diaper and watching him squeal with delight. Or maybe it's pride.
-Dressing Wessy in all stripes, all the time. Unless he is dressed in dinosaurs.
-Cooing/squealing AI BUN-NEE (hi bunny) to Wes a million times a day.
-Asking Wes to hold things for me and then dropping them into his car seat.
-Asking Wes "why you so mad?" when he scrunches up his face and sticks his lip out.

Daddy's at work...

...so I enjoyed a night at home with my little boyfriend:)

New today...

-Baby sign language: I taught Wessy the baby sign for "more." You make the sign by putting your extended thumb and fingers together like you are making a little mouth and then you do the same with the other hand and then you tap the tips of the fingers together twice.  Wes's version is slightly less coordinated.  He will flap his arms towards midline and smash the ends of his fingers together.  He didn't make that gesture before so I do think this is his attempt at "more." I used "running man" as a reward for getting the sign right, so now he just thinks that making the sign is a request for running man.  I am also trying to teach him "milk" and "mommy" but he doesn't seem to be catching onto those yet.
-Blowing raspberries: Wes also believes this to be a way to request "running man."  He will occasionally imitate us when we blow raspberries, but more often he does it out of the blue when he wants more running man.
-Polysyllabic vocalizations: He has started to make inflected vocalizations.  Imagine a very slurred, chirpy version of "I love you." He also believes this to be a means of requesting running man.
-Milky scent: This is nothing new but I just wanted to mention it.  Wes smells gloriously of milk at all times.  His breath is like warm vaporized milk, his little neck folds smell like slightly sour milk and his head has the soft, downy milky smell.  He is just a chubby little milk cherub floating in a saucer of warm milk.
-Going to work with Mommy: The last two Thursdays Wes has come to work with me during didactic time.  Last Thursday he slept soundly through almost all of it.  Today, however, he was Whingy McWhingerson throughout most of the three hours.  He was mad as hell that I tried to breastfeed him and also mad as hell that I wasn't feeding him.  He was not pleased to be held nor to be set down in his car seat.  I still thought he was adorable but the other people trying to listen to the lecture probably did not think so.

Shhhh . . .

Four shots

I heard some interview on NPR (or maybe read it on the NYTimes--can't remember which) with a neuroscientist at Harvard who studies the cognitive patterns of babies. She said (and I paraphrase loosely) that babies are so constantly enthralled by noticing new things that their mental state can be compared to someone who is seeing Paris for the first time, in the Spring, after drinking a triple espresso. I think this definitely applies to Wessy. Except for one thing--I think he had a quadruple espresso.

Mommy is made of milk, right?

Oh hai

Hide and suck

Today I was in the kitchen while Wessy was napping on the boppy. He stirred, whined and got quiet again. When I came back to the living room, this is what I saw:

Bouncin with Dad

New today...

-Wes has started to love it when we toss him (gently) up in the air and catch him.  He gets a wide grin on his face and makes his gurgling delighted noises. Previously doing so inspired a look of pure terror and no delight whatsoever.
-Wes found his thumb!  I have thought all along that he may grow up to be a thumb-sucker but except for a moment when he (most likely accidentally) found his thumb when he was a few days old, he really hasn't been a thumb-sucker.  But today while trying to get to sleep he (most likely intentionally) put his thumb in his mouth and seemed pretty happy about it.
-Wes continues to take blowing raspberries to the next level.  I brought him to work today and he surprised and delighted my co-workers by plausibly imitating me blowing raspberries.
-He is more and more intentional and precise with his hand movements.  He will now not only hold Sophie the Giraffe (his human chew toy), he can maneuver it/her into his mouth.   He likes to clasp his hands together as well.
-His head control, while still not perfect, has come a long way.  He can turn his head smoothly from side to side without the jerkiness that previously made him look a little animatronic (like the characters in It's a Small World at Epcot). His failure point at tummy time is not when his head hits the deck (like before), it's when he all of a sudden loses patience with the whole enterprise and bursts into tears with very little warning.
-He adores "running man."  That is where you take his feet and move them rapidly (very rapidly) in a running motion.  He will blow raspberries or kick his feet in an effort to induce me to do running man with him.  It always works.

Found my thumb!

Little Bear

New today...

-Wes started mimicking sounds I was making with him.  I blew raspberries with my lips, then he blew them, and as a reward, I did running man with him and he giggled.  Then I started making "oh" sounds and he made "oh" sounds back and then I did running man with him as a reward.  We did this back and forth for several minutes.  In case there is any doubt, Wes Wes is a baby genius.
-Wes took a whole bottle! WOOT.  Perhaps related to the baby genius item above, he likely realized that this was his only option, as the milk factory had to go back to the grind.
-He wore a six month onesie.  Too long but snug around the paunch.
-He started reading books in Spanish! By which I mean Geraldine started reading him books in Spanish.

Back at it

Mommy went back to work today! It was not awesome.  But it was not terrible.  I was late to work because I didn't want to get ready for work because I was watching Wessy sit in his bouncy chair and grin at me.  (Let's not even mention all the ugly-crying that happened yesterday.)

However, I did finally get out the door.  It was just a half day (Thank you jeebus!) and it was surprisingly tolerable.  I did miss Wes and I was incredibly excited to see him when I got home. He was a little milk-drunk and kind of indifferent. But so cute.  He is my little dolly.

If I had my druthers, I would have a few more months of maternity leave and then go back part-time.  Alas, residency programs are not cool with that.  But, I figure, I know that being a stay-at-home parent is not the right choice for me long-term, so might as well go ahead and jump head first into the nasty American Working Mother Struggle so I can go ahead and start adapting.

I was very sad about going back to work, but not entirely because I was going to be away from Wes.  Mainly I was sad that he is three months old already and that the beautiful, wonderful time that we had as a family while I was on leave was coming to an end.  I KNOW we will still have beautiful, wonderful times in the future but I will always treasure the happy, confusing, painfully sweet moments we have shared since we brought Wes home.  I want to suspend this time in amber (or maybe in a snowglobe) so that it will be preserved unchanged and I can come back to it in my memory whenever I want.

Wes, just know that the first three months of your life were so different from anything I've ever experienced before.  Before you, I felt like I was often just struggling through my days, marking time, waiting for the weekend or a 6pm glass of wine or to relax and watch a TV show in the evening.  I'm not sure how to describe it, but now I feel like I'm really living.   My life feels better and nicer because you came home with us.  So thank you for that.

Well hello there