Zoe is Three Months Old

Dear Zoe,
We will remember your third month as “the month with all the puking.” At least, I hope we will remember it that way, and not “the first of many, many months of puking.” Although, as I write that, I can hear every other parent in the world laughing at me, so maybe I should just give up that crazy dream and focus on the good things that happened this month.

Fortunately for me, this has really been a pleasant month. Your personality continues to grow and your ability to interact with us increases with every day that passes. Most days, when I go to change your diaper, I lay you down on the changing pad and you look up at me and beam. It’s 50/50 whether you’re smiling because you recognize your father or because you’re not wearing any pants. Thankfully, you no longer start peeing anytime I take your diaper off, so I’m usually safe to leave you laying there naked and cooing for a few minutes. Usually, after I put your pants on, I carry you back over to the bed and lay you down so I can lean over you, and we talk to each other. I say “Hello, baby girl!” and you smile at me. Then I say some other stuff and you patiently stare at me, waiting for me to stop talking and start making the sounds you like.

Over the last few weeks, I have discovered that you like it when I talk to you, but you love it when I use baby talk. Saying “goo” and “gah” and blowing raspberries makes you light up like nothing else. I stretch out the vowels and exaggerate the letters as much as possible, and you stare at my mouth intently, trying to figure out what I’m doing to make that sound. Then you squawk excitedly and do your best to imitate me. Sometimes I just get a low gurgle, sometimes I get a random vowel, and every now and then, I swear you look at me and say “Hi!” It must be tiring, though, because after a few minutes, you always lose interest and signal to me that you’re done with this game by starting intently at the window and ignoring me. This is my signal to pick you up and carry you back out to the living room, where there’s almost always someone waiting to hold you.

Since you’ve been born, all of your grandparents have been coming and going non-stop. Your mom’s parents come down for the weekend every few weeks, bringing their new puppy, Sula, with them. You like to interact with Grandma Amy and fall asleep on Grandpa Jeff. My parents come over every other night or so, and hang out for a couple of hours. Grandma Annie will take photos of you, and Grandpa Ted will happily hold you while everyone else eats, skipping his own meal to get a few more minutes of face-time with you.

You also see your Uncles and Aunts on a regular basis. Your Uncle Zach is doing his own thing in Seattle, but Uncle Dave and Aunt Rose come down once a month or so and bring your cousins Oskar and Milo with them. They were just here a few days ago, in fact. Oskar spent most of his time running around outside, having so much fun that he would forget to go to the bathroom and pee his pants. (One time, when his mom asked why he had peed in his pants, he replied that it was because he was in Portland. His mom was quick to inform him that even in Portland, they still have toilets.) Your cousin Milo, on the other hand, spent most of his time eating and staring at you. He is fascinated by you, and would frequently sit still for several minutes, just watching you get bounced on someone’s knee.

Your Uncle Sean, of course, lives upstairs, so you see him on a regular basis. Uncle Ryan comes by pretty often as well, but you just met your cousin Leilani for the first time this month. It hadn’t worked out before, because first she was sick, and then you were sick, but finally we were able to get the two of you together over at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. She was pretty impressed with you, and even posed for a few photos.

And that’s just your immediate family! We’ve also been able to introduce you to just about all of our friends by now, and it’s been fun to realize how many honorary aunts and uncles you’re going to have as you grow up. When you’re 16 and you run away from home because your parents are so incredibly lame and just don’t understand you, it’ll take us a long time to work down the list and figure out whose doorstep you’ve landed on. Though your Auntie Rose told me to say that she’s you’re only real aunt, and that you should come talk to her before anyone else.

Your normal day lately is pretty much the same as last month, with the remarkable addition in the last week or so that you’ve started sleeping through the night! You’ll fall asleep around 9pm or so, and then sleep through until 5 or 6am, at which point your mom pulls you out of the cosleeper, and you sleep on her for another few hours. The two of you try to get up around 8 or 9am, when you wake up to eat, though that doesn’t always happen. Then your day is spent with your mom, which I can only imagine consists of watching soap operas and eating bonbons. (Actually, she tells me that it’s mostly just feeding you, and trying to get the odd chore done between eating sessions. The two of you go to the coffee shop, or watch “What Not To Wear” and sometimes take a nap together). In the evenings, I come home and hold onto you while your mom makes dinner, and then we put you to sleep.

This pattern is likely to hold for awhile, because your mom has decided not to go back to work. She applied to a couple nanny jobs, and interviewed for one of them. It went very well, but the woman she interviewed with said she couldn’t hire her because your mom wasn’t ready to go back to work. After a bit of soul-searching, she decided that was true, and we decided that she’s going to stay home with you for a few more months. It means money will be tight for awhile, but we’re confident that we’ll get through it, and the benefit is that you and your mom get to keep spending your days together.

Anyways, back to the puking. In the last few weeks, you’ve started spitting up almost every time you eat. And you eat a lot. For the most part, it doesn’t bother you, but it means that we’ve learned not to carry you around without a burp rag. The sad thing is that you’ve also developed some sort of digestion problem, and if we try to put you down on your back too soon after you’ve eaten, even just to change your diaper, you sometimes start wailing. It’s your saddest cry, too, the one that just sounds absolutely panicked and traumatized by pain, and it always makes us feel horrible. We do what we can to get you through it, which usually isn’t anything more than trying to burp you for a few minutes until the spell passes.

We’re not sure what’s causing it, or even if it’s serious yet, but your mom has started keeping a food journal so she can see if something she’s eating is upsetting you, and we’ll bring it up at your next doctor’s appointment. That’ll be a fun one, because we’ve decided to start you on your immunization shots at your next visit, too. We held off for a month because of all the concerns about immunizations lately, and also because you were sick last month, and we didn’t want to add to your suffering. If the shots are anything like when they had to take the blood sample from your heel when you were a newborn, then we’ll have to do the same thing, where I hold you so your mom doesn’t freak out.

Speaking of doctor’s appointments, at your last checkup, your mom found out that you were over 11 pounds, which means you’re probably 12 something by now. Reminding myself that you are constantly eating and that you’re growing and filling out every day helps to keep the first-time parent paranoia at bay. Plus, it means that it’s fun to pick up an outfit that was too big for you just a few weeks ago, and see that it’s tight or even too small for you now. Your mom has already started rotating out the newborn stuff with the 3-6 month stuff. One nice thing about that is that we have more cool and colorful outfits, rather than the pink explosion that were your newborn outfits.

Another funny thing is that you’ve only just in the last few days started to lose some of your baby hair. Most of the other babies we know either lost their baby hair very quickly, and started growing in their normal hair, or they got that funny mullet look from rubbing the back of their heads bald by lying on their backs all the time. You have about the same amount of hair today as the day you were born - same length, same color, everything. But the other day, your mom noticed that it’s starting to get thin around the top of your head, so it will be interesting to watch your “real” hair come in. Your mom and I agree that your hair will be dark, but we’re curious to see if you inherit her curly hair, or my straight hair. Also, your eyes are still that very pale baby blue-gray, so I’m still wondering if your eyes are going to turn brown like mine. They’re so pretty blue, though, that I wouldn’t mind if they stayed this color.

I love you, little girl.