Seth 15 weeks

Dear Seth,

Today you are 15 weeks old. Last week you drove your Mama crazy when for 4 straight days you refused to take a nap for more than 30 minutes at a stretch no matter what I did. By the weekend I realized you must have been going through a growth spurt because you were also wanting to eat every 2 hours instead of your usual 3ish. Of course it all makes sense now but at the time I didn't put 2 and 2 together. Silly mommy. You seem to have settled back into a better rhythm and today all three of your naps were over an hour long.

Tomorrow we embark on our first mother-son road trip. We are heading out to the river to spend the night at Grandpa's house and then on Thursday we are leaving to go to Edmonton to visit Grandpa's family. Thankfully Grandpa's getting old these days and so he only wants to drive halfway each day, phew! I am not sure how well you would handle 10 hours in the car seat. Anyway, your great-grandpa is turning 95 so there will be a big party and lots of new faces.

Your daddy really has an eye for baby toys, I tell you what. This weekend he picked out a new rattle for you and it has been a big hit. When we shake it in your face your eyes almost cross in fascination and you look so funny. You grip it really well and into your mouth it goes. Anyway, you haven't gotten the hang of shaking the rattle yet - you kind of did once this morning but I am pretty sure it was an accident. It was more like you were just flailing around and you happened to be gripping the rattle at the time. It's so fun to put stuff in your hands to see what happens. Everything that gets near your mouth would go in if you had your way about it. You even try to eat mommy and daddy's hand when we're buttoning up your pajamas. But you're like an outfielder who tries to throw the ball in before you've caught it - sometimes you're so intent on putting an object in your mouth you forget to take aim. Today I handed you a wooden spoon and you smacked yourself right in the forehead. I had to laugh and you didn't seem to be bothered by it.

You have really grown quite fond of your pacifier and usually when you see it coming you open your mouth and shake your head back and forth like a baby bird. I don't really mind because it is extremely effective in calming you down and for the most part we only use it for sleepy time or when you are in the car seat. Up until yesterday it would usually fall out of your mouth after about 20 minutes when you would fall asleep... but today you still had it in at the end of an hour and a half nap. Maybe that just means you weren't sleeping very deeply, who knows?

We are still swaddling you because if we don't you just lay there with your arms straight up in the air, waving around. Either that or you're trying to shove your hands in your mouth, knocking the pacifier out in the process. That would be fine if you would ever fall asleep sucking your fingers, but you don't - you just fuss until I put the pacifier back in. I think it is because you're mostly chewing on your fingers these days, not sucking on them. Every once in awhile you'll wiggle your hands up into your face, where they get stuck, and I have to come in and re-wrap you at 4am. But the benefits outweigh the occasional escapes, so a-swaddling we will go for now.

Your rolling over skills are still pretty sporadic although one day last week you rolled over from tummy to back about 5 times in a row. You've started working those abs too and when we sit you up you almost always topple over forward. You leaned over and almost fell right out of the bouncy chair this weekend, so it's a good thing you were buckled in! We're really going to have to keep an eye on you now!

I almost always start this weekly letter to you thinking to myself, hmm, not much new to report. And then I end up rambling on forever. I just want to leave you with this final thought, something my mom said to me a million times: You won't understand until you have kids of your own. Just remember that.

Love, Mama

P.S. You're starting to outgrow the 6 month size clothes you little monster you.