Seth 13 weeks

Dear Seth,

You were three months old yesterday, and today you are 13 weeks. Yowsas!

Your eating habits have been all over the board this last week. For a couple of days you seemed to have no appetite at all and I had to practically force you to eat a "full" meal. Then all of a sudden you acted starving all the time again. As of today things seem to have settled down a little so maybe you just went through a growth spurt. Which would make sense, as you seemed to have outgrown most of the 3-6 month clothes overnight (mainly the footed ones). But you are still swimming a little in the 6-9 month clothes. I weighed you the other day and you were 15lbs. Thankfully, it's pretty acceptable for a 3 month old to wear pajamas all the time. I'm pretty partial to the Gerber 3 packs of sleep & plays. On sale I can get you a pair of PJs for like $2. That's nice also because then if they get poo stained I don't feel too bad about throwing them away. So far that's only happened once.

You've "slept through the night" once now. We put you to bed the other night around 9:30pm and you didn't wake up to eat until 5am! Yay! You only did it that one time, but it gives me hope for the future. You still pretty consistently sleep at least one 5 hour stretch, but otherwise your night times have regressed. For awhile there I could put you down to bed a little after 8pm and not hear from you again. Lately you have me running in there 4 or 5 times before you settle down for good. I've read that sometimes when babies learn new daytime skills their sleep habits get disrupted so maybe that's what's going on. The experts say we might be able to stop swaddling you soon. I'm not so sure about that. When you are tired your hands are still usually all over your face, rubbing your eyes and pulling the pacifier out of your mouth. I think the real trick is putting you down for a nap right before you look tired. So basically I should have ESP.

You suddenly learned to grab stuff this week. When you're laying on your play mat and there is a toy hanging within reach, mostly you just bat it around like a tiny piñata, but occasionally you'll grab right on and in the mouth it goes. You LOVE that play mat... sometimes I feel a little guilty for letting you spend so much time there. But sometimes NOTHING else will make you happy. All I have to do is rotate the dangling toys every 10 minutes or so and you're happy as a clam in mud. So you're getting a little bald spot on the back of your head. Sorry about that. You haven't rolled over again since that one day last week. When I set you down on your tummy sometimes you'll flop over onto your side, but there you stay, sucking on your fist. You also discovered your thumb this last weekend, and spent a good chunk of time chewing and sucking on it on Sunday. I haven't really seen it in your mouth since then so you must have lost interest or forgot about it. Anyway, after concluding my research, I've decided that I don't care if you do suck your thumb. So suck away! Just as long as you're not still sucking it when I drop you off down in Pullman for college.

Another thing you seem to enjoy is your reflection. Which is nice because I can sit you on the bathroom counter in the Bumbo and you stay quite amused while I blow dry my hair. You are completely unaffected by the hair dryer. That and the vacuum cleaner. You will sit very contentedly and watch me vacuum, one of the only chores I manage to get done while you are awake. Lately though, watching me eat seems very intriguing to you as well. Your eyes followed my hand very carefully today while I ate my lunch. I can't WAIT to give you some real food, I think you're really going to like it! Only 3 more months!

This weekend I ordered Baby Signing Time and I'm so excited for us to watch it together! I think you're going to pick it up really fast and before we know it you'll be signing "Mom more milk NOW" all the time. That's my little piggy!

Love, Mama