Seth 24 Weeks

Dear Seth,

You are now 24 weeks old. The lateness of this letter is a testament to
how busy I've been. Busy because you and one of my clients have both
been exceptionally needy this week. Many hours have been spend tending
to the two of you. There were a couple of days this week where you
seemed totally incapable of entertaining yourself, which is not at all
the norm. Thankfully that was only temporary and you're back to being
content alone on your play mat for a few minutes at a time, batting at
your toys or pulling your feet into your mouth. You like to hang out in
your jumper, too, while daddy exercises on the elliptical.

So anyway... overnight you have become almost an expert sitter-upper.
You can sit up like a pro - until something catches your eye and you
flail to get it and fall over. Your ability to sit up makes bathing you
easier, and shopping too. You can now sit in a shopping cart by
yourself pretty well, yay! No more lugging the car seat in and out of
stores, that was getting heavy!

You're also an expert rolling over onto your tummy, and you do so almost
immediately when placed in your crib. Unfortunately you're not such an
expert rolling back the other way (or I suppose maybe you just don't
want to). So there you stay and you fuss and cry until someone rescues
you. Sometimes I flip you back over but lately I just give you your
pacifier and eventually you fall asleep that way. And no, you do not
sleep any longer on your tummy than you did on your back. Boo.

Sleep.... I've been really trying to enforce a 4 hour rule at night.
Even if it's been 3 hours and 59 minutes we try to get you back to sleep
without eating. Sometimes you're okay with this and sometimes not.
Last night you ate at 8pm and went to sleep, then woke up at 10pm and
were absolutely positively inconsolable until I fed you. I try to be
strong but it's not easy listening to you cry. I could just hear in
your voice "mama mama you are right here why are you not letting me
eat??" So I caved.

Speaking of eating, we're just days away from that new and fun milestone
- SOLID FOOD! Although "solid" is kind of a misnomer... mushy food
would be a more accurate description. The other day I fed you some
breast milk with a spoon and you were fascinated by that. I can tell
the whole spoon feeding thing will be a challenge because all you want
to do is grab the spoon and chew on that. You've had some practice
drinking water from a cup, too, and you loved it. In fact, when I
decided that game was over you had one of your first real temper
tantrums. I have to drink water on the sly because any time you see me
drinking from a cup or from my water bottle you are like "gimme gimme!"

You went in the kiddie pool this week, and didn't seem too bothered by
the cold water at first, until I got you in over your belly button then
you freaked out. You had missed a nap that day so maybe you just
weren't in the mood. But sitting in a couple of inches you seemed okay
with it and just splashed with your hand over and over again. We tried
again the next day with deeper water, but it had been sitting in the sun
for awhile so it wasn't quite as cold. You did great with that. You
even tipped backwards once and went all the way under for just a second,
which I'm sure was scary but you just coughed and sputtered a little
with a surprised look on your face. The true test will be this weekend
when we go out to grandpa's house for your first 4th of July. Can't
wait!

Love, Mama