Our baby boy is growing up fast. Despite his having a cold the past week, he’s still packing on the pounds (he was 13 lbs 9 oz when he was weighed over a week ago, so he’s probably over 14 by now), he’s making developmental advances – smiling, really arching his back and lifting his head, making new noises, associating objects with how they’re used, and so on.
One of the big new developments is that he’s figured out that his hands are his – or at least that they’re ~ under his control – and that with a certain level of concentration they can be crammed into his mouth for some delicious and always entertaining sucking!
This has been one of his favorite new discoveries, and it’s something he seems to enjoy almost every waking moment. To give you a better idea of just how exciting a discovery it is, I took this series of photos which I think demonstrates his thought processes on the issue pretty clearly. For added clarity, I’ve added my interpretation of what’s going on in his little head:
I’m bored. I wish I had something exciting to do.
By stars! I just remembered that I can control those fabulous pink things that are perfect for sucking!
Success! Sweet sweet delicious life, how I love you so.
I was nursing him the other day and he’d only been on the boob for about 5 minutes, so he was still ravenous and squawking and eating as fast as he could. He suddenly turned his head, let go of my nipple, and rammed both of his hands into his mouth and started sucking with vigor. He was happy for a few moments until he realized that there was no milk involved in this new activity. He looked up at me with panic in his eyes and started screaming in despair. Hey kid, you made the switch from boob to hand, not me. I’m clear on the concept of how this works.
But lest this example lure you into a false sense of security that he doesn’t understand how to use the power of fluids or the hidden joys of fluid dynamics, let me tell you another ‘skill’ he seems to have either mastered, or at least improved his level of accuracy doing: the projectile spit-up. Let me take you through my day yesterday, which helps explain why I suspect he may be an evil genius, and why I’m doing so many loads of laundry today.
About a month back, Jackson was having lots of gas pains and discomfort. I talked to a friend of mine who is conveniently also a pediatrician, and she said I should burp him more when feeding- especially at the beginning when the milk is coming out fastest and he’s gulping with all of his might. So I now stop every 5 minutes to burp him. He *hates* that I do that – he acts like the milk is gone and he’s never getting any more and he’s going to wither away and DIE from lack of milk you evil evil woman give me back that nipple NOW every time I do it, but hey, it seemed to help with the gas. It also seemed to be helping with the spit-up since spit-up is said to occur when the baby gets an air bubble and then drinks milk on top of it and then when the air bubble gets released, so does all of the milk. Makes sense.
However, yesterday, despite the vigorous and frequent burping, I believe young AJ changed the laws of physics. I had just finished feeding him and burping him. Everything seemed good. He was happy and cooing and I thought, okay, I’ll just rotate him so I can pick him up easier and out it came, horror-movie-esque projectile spit up all over me. Think exorcist in cute baby form. I changed my shirt.
Next time I went to feed him, he did it again. Fine kid, thanks. I changed my shirt.
Later in the day while feeding him, I get a phone call from a friend that she was coming over shortly. I say great, perfect timing I’ll finish feeding him, change his diaper and we’ll be ready to go. But no. I’d really upped the patting on the back and burping since he’d burned me twice earlier. I burped long and hard and I looked into his eyes and everything seemed great. I did one last burping just to make sure everything was out, I even had a burp cloth to protect me, thinking aha, now I’m safe. First he turned his head right and spit up down my neck to the right of the burp cloth, then he turned his head left and spit up down my shoulder to the left of the burp cloth. Just when I thought ‘okay I can change my shirt -AGAIN- and we’ll still be on time, he turned and shot a stream of curdled milk all over his shirt his pants and -this is the real kicker- BOTH socks. Nice.
I’m happy to say that during our outing he was the perfect gentleman and he charmed everyone and was all smiles and cuteness. Several women commented he made them want to have another baby. But just to make sure I didn’t underestimate his skills over the laws of physics, as I carried him off to bed cooing in a sweet, sighing half slumber state, my sweet little angle turned his head one last time spit up all over my shoulder and down my arm.
