Happy Month 8!

Dear Helen,

There will be moments, when you find yourself so in love, that you will know that anything is possible. There will also be moments in your life when you will feel like a complete failure, and you will sob yourself to sleep. And Helen, if you are ever a mother, you will know that these seemingly contraditory moments can happen simultaneously.

After a solid two weeks respite from reflux, whereby your dad and I were once again able to sleep as if we didn't have an infant in the room next door, it reared its ugly head again. It was about as bad as it could get for 3 days - taking over an hour to soothe you into sleep at night, waking up obviously uncomfortable. Eventually, we had to pull out the big baby calming guns and your dad took you on a night-time constitutional. It's only fair that you got to experience this, as it was a regular feature of his evenings with Connor for the first few months of Connor's life. Only difference is, Connor used to get to go walking in the early evening when all the neighbor ladies could see your dad, and then tell me the next day what an awesome dad he was. Your walks were around 3AM, and anyone your dad saw at that time of day was not someone he wanted to see. It was so bad, in fact, that I thought about asking my parents to stay in my room when they come for a visit in a couple of days and let me stay at the hotel so that I could sleep. They would do this, you know, because they are that nice. But, I don't think it'll be necessary after all.

So, since I had totally missed an ear infection of your brother's, I figured it was worth going to the pediatrician to see if you had some good excuse like that for not sleeping. Turns out you're perfectly healthy. I suppose this is good news, but I really wanted an excuse for your tortured sleep, other than reflux. But, reflux is the best the doc had for me, so we have backed off of all solid foods (except for watered down prunes and oatmeal) and your system seems to be working again, and your sleep has been much better. Hopefully, there will be continued improvements in this department. Thankfully, your brother gave us a break and didn't even wake to use the bathroom during the worst of your nights. But then, true to form, on your first good night, Connor visited me three times.

You are not the most active baby on the block Helen, but what you do, you do well. And what is it exactly that you do? You sit. You sit inside, you sit outside, you sit with people, you sit alone, you sit on almost any surface I place you on and unlike your brother, if I left the room this month, you were almost always exactly where I placed you. Until a couple of days ago. All of a sudden, after being the champion of sitters everywhere, you have decided you would like to reach for things. I can tell already that nothing good is going to come of this. In the past few days you have developed a move where you reach as far as you can, until you are on your knees, and then you flop to your belly and roll. You still only roll from front to back, because clearly rolling both ways is not for someone of your cuteness. No, that would be too much effort for you. Apparently, this lack of interest in motion comes from me. Family legend has it that until I was about a year old, I laid on the couch and played all day. Just like you, I was reportedly a very happy baby. And, just like you, I had no interest in moving. Just like you, I had a sibling who was willing to do all that moving around, so why would I need to do it? In the past few days you have also inched your butt along as you turned to reach for objects and over the course of the month, you pulled yourself to standing a few times.

The most freaky think you did this month was go from lying down to sitting up at night. I placed you in your crib, like I always do, on your tummy. I left the room, you cried, I came back, and you were sitting. Turns out, you perform this stunt by curling your legs up beneath you and pushing up with your arms. It's rather impressive, and you have done it a handful of times.

I believe your dad has to take credit for your newfound desire to move. He plays a game with you where he puts you on the edge of the couch, counts to three, and you fall forward. You think this is the funniest game in the world. I reminded him that he played a similar game with Connor when Connor was little that involved rolling off the bed, only for Connor to discover that an important element of that game was having your dad ready to catch him. Ouch! So far, you have not attempted couch diving without your dad there to catch you, Let's keep it that way.

You still babble endlessly, but you have yet to throw me a bone with a "ma". You focus on "DA DA DA" and occasionally "na na" with a few thrilling yelps and hollers mixed in for good measure. On occasion, you will respond to a question Connor poses and he is so completely thrilled, and happy to translate what you said. Sometimes, you meet his queries with silence and he'll ask me in his very offended tone "why did Helen not answer me?". I have tried to tell him to cut you some slack, but I'm not sure that's sunk in yet.

We've started heading to the neighborhood swimming pool and you no longer despise water. In fact, if given a pail of water to play with, you can be quite content. Time for me to catch a nap before you and Connor wake from your naps!

Love,
Mommy