Brady, you turned 3 months old on January 23, 2013. How time has flown!  I must say, I feel like I’m coming out of the fog and kind of turning a corner. The first 6-8 weeks were somewhat difficult and not as “satisfying” as the past 4-6 weeks have been. I’m slowly getting more and more sleep, which is a huge blessing, and I feel like we’re sorta back into our normal swing of things.  Your personality is really starting to show and it’s been a lot of fun.

You are making more and more distinct noises and coos. I’m pretty sure I heard a real laugh from you just the other day… usually your quasi-laugh is kinda accidental and let out as a result of excitement. I just love love love your little voice, especially when you make facial expressions along with your voice, as if we’re really having a conversation.  You’ve also started using your hands more lately. You grab at your toys when you’re sitting in your bouncy chair or when you’re lying on your activity mat. It’s fun to watch you interact with your toys while you’re on your mat. A lot of times you get so super excited and kick/stomp your legs and feet and squeel so loudly and flail your arms everywhere and punch a toy or two. You can get really into it at times, as if you’re working so hard and studying the particular toy you’re attempting to grab.  If you’re wearing a bib (which is 95% of the time) you’re holding onto that.. most likely pulling on it. If you have a blanket near you, you’re pulling that up to your face. You do not like your hands covered. Even when we’re on a walk at the park and it’s chilly, I try to cover your hands with a blanket and they somehow find their way to the surface as if they too need to see the scenery. So, I make you wear mittens on lake walks since it’s cold.  I can’t figure out if you’re starting to teeth a little bit, because you also shove your fist into your mouth and drool a bit more these days.

We’re pretty much back to nursing fulltime and only a bottle of my bmilk maybe once every day or two. It’s worked out great. I like not having to clean bottles and the pump accessories 6x a day. 🙂 Around Christmas time I started nursing you in bed for your middle of the night feedings and really early morning feedings. You really really liked that and would sleep next to me for the last 2 hours of the morning, accept I didn’t sleep very well because it was still new to me and I wasn’t sure if I’d forget you were there or something. Co-sleeping still makes me nervous.

Baths are still “Ok” to you. Sometimes you make sweet “sighs” or grunts like you’re adjusting to the water, etc… You don’t really interact with us while we bath you, you just kinda sit in a daze and try to figure it out I guess?  You keep your toes curled under SO tightly. It’s funny. They look like little monkey toes, but gosh they attract lots of fuzz from your footed onesies.

At about 9.5 weeks old I put you in your crib to sleep one night and it worked! You officially do not sleep in your car seat anymore – wahoo! You usually sleep from about 9 pm (after a feeding) and I’ll try to wake you up for a final night feeding between 10:30 – 11:30 pm. Sometimes you’re impossible to wake up so we skip it. Sometimes you’ll sleep straight through until 6 or 7 am, which is magical! Sometimes you wake up in the 4 am hour. Most of the time it’s for a feeding. That’s not fun, because here I am thinking we’ve made total progress to sleeping through the night then BAM, one random night you wake up at 4 am and I’m all confused, and usually don’t get much sleep after that and the rest of the day I’m like a zombie or we try to take a nap mid-morning.  Most week days we head to the lake for a long fast walk. We started using the awesome BOB stroller that my aunt gifted us (thanks, Aunt Di!). You seem to like it a lot. It’s usually 50/50 if you take a long nap on the walk. Sometimes we have to play the pacifier game (where you drop it or spit it out and I put it back in several times within a chunk of time) until you fall asleep (that goes for the walk and afternoon naps at home).

One of my most favorite things that you do is lay your head on my chest. Sometimes I’ll just walk around the house with you like that and you’re not even asleep… you just find it comfortable and calming. It makes my heart go pitter patter. I just hold you close and kiss the top of your head (which has lots more hair coming in… You have many cowlicks and some areas you have a couple of random strands that are much longer, especially near the crown of your head it’s kinda spiky & cute). I also hold you so that your cheek is right in front of my face and lean you against me and kiss kiss kiss your face and it makes you (and me) smile. 🙂

We’ve taken you to church 3 times now, and you’ve been so great! I put you in the baby k’tan wrap and you usually fall asleep just before the service starts and sleep until we put you back in your car seat to go home. We also do the same when we go to Home Group Wednesday nights and you do great. You can sleep for almost 3 hours in that thing if I let you. Sometimes I wear it around the house while doing chores and you eventually fall asleep.

You do this thing now (mostly during diaper changes) where you put your feet down flat and arch your back so your belly is sticking up and you’re coming off the surface. It’s pretty funny, except when we’re in the middle of a diaper change.  We still don’t have an exact schedule down, but we have a general routine. You usually are pretty happy when you wake up in the morning before and after your first daylight feeding. You play a lot during that time and then usually take a decent nap between 11 am – 1 pm (not the entire time though), then you usually take another nap in the late afternoon/early evening.  There are the occasional catnaps throughout the day, too. I still just let you wake up on your own in the mornings (mostly because I like my sleep and mostly don’t have to be out the door early in the morning) so, we haven’t gotten on a rigid daily schedule yet. You’re usually like clockwork though, and most days have a very similar routine.

I think you’re figuring out how to charm the ladies already, because sometimes you’ll cry for your pacifier and then whenever I come in the room and put your pacifier back in you smile and smirk at me  like “ha! gotcha, Mom!”

You are lots of fun these days, but we’re still figuring you out ;). It’s been quite a blessing to stay home and spend so much time with you. I will cherish these days and moments forever.  I love you bunches.