William at 3 Months

So much has changed in the last few weeks, Will now weighs 13lbs! The best change of all is that he has begun sleeping 8 hours straight. We put him to bed at 9pm and he usually gets up for the first time at around 5am. I then usually put him back to bed until 8am. Hes such a good little sleeper! We have also finally developed a bit of a schedule. He has a 1-2 hour morning nap around 10am and another, much longer afternoon nap from 12p to 4p (give or take an hour). On one hand, its so nice to have times that I can count on every day where I will have some free time to clean the house, take a nap or bathe. On the other hand, he is so grumpy when he misses these naps, that I almost feel trapped in the house during these nap times, held hostage by my little milky captor. If it means that he will be happy and at peace though, I am more than willing to join the ranks of the mole people and never see the daylight.

 Other developments include learning welcome new skills such as smiling, laughing and talking. He is quite the talker and will spend several hours each day "telling" us things. He is also a pretty active little guy. Lots of kicks and arm movements happen when he is excited and happy. We have been working on tummy time and his head is getting stronger and stronger each day. We are also working on getting him to grasp objects and play with toys. So far he is merely content to look at them. Hopefully in the next several weeks he will master the next skill set. The few times he has managed to grab onto anything, those things end up right in his mouth! In fact, many times I will have him over my shoulder and when I look down, there is a giant wet spot from where he has been sucking my shirt! We are seeing some signs of impending teething such as more fussiness, lots of drool, and his fist constantly shoved in his mouth. I've checked his gums for teeth but so far they are too far down to see. I'm guessing it will be several months more before they make their appearance (which is ok by me!).

He is growing pretty fast and is already wearing 3-6 month clothing! I was pretty sad to have to pack up the newborn clothes at one month old and even sadder to pack up the 0-3 clothes at 2 months old (I thought they would last until 3 months). But now he is even wearing some 6-9 month old outfits! Even though hes not as chubby as some babies are, he is quite long and has outgrown some of the 3-6 month outfits in length but not in girth. I guess that means he is thriving right?

William was baptized last week. That was a bit of a stressful event, but went about as I expected it to go. Will did not like going so long between feedings (still eats every 1-2 hours) and by the time he was going into the baptismal font, he was quite agitated. As he was lowered into the warm water, he let out an almighty wail, and then continued to wail loudly. So loudly in fact that you could not hear a word the priest was saying as he baptized the next child after Will. We eventually calmed him down and fed him at our first opportunity. After that he passed out, happily, from a milk coma and slept the rest of the service. It was smooth sailing from then on. If I've learned anything from that experience though it would be to try to feed my next baby immediately before the actual immersion (rather than just before the service). At any rate, he is now baptized and one more milestone has passed.

We had our first Thanksgiving as a family of three yesterday. We drove down to visit my family in Oregon (a 5.5 hr drive). I was initially worried about how William would do in a car for that long, but as it turned out, he slept most of the way! I sat with him in the back seat and just gave him a bottle when it was time for him to eat. This made the trip so much easier as we didn't have to stop a million times to feed him. While there he didn't sleep as well as he has been at our house. Normally he will only get up to eat once a night, but at my parents house, he was getting up 3-4 times, which wasn't ideal. Naturally this has made me hesitant to try any more trips any time soon. I can't handle that level of sleep deprivation for very long! Other than that though, the holiday was fun. William got to meet his aunts and uncles, grandma and grandpa and his other cousin! We enjoyed seeing family and sharing our newest member to those who hadn't seen him yet.

In other news, we have joined a moms group that meets once a week and he gets to hang out with 12 other babies and I get to have some adult time with cool moms that all live within 5 miles of me. Its pretty nice to have that time to talk about what we are all going through as new moms. Its also nice to see how other babies of similar ages are developing, which makes it easier to tell whether he is on a normal track or not. I hope to make some good friends in this group!

William is generally a pretty happy little guy. He is changing every day and I am just trying to stay ahead of the learning curve and keep him as happy and healthy as I can!