2 Months – Time flies when you get no sleep!

(As always, click photos to see larger, better versions)

Dear Torsten,

I can’t believe you’ve already been with us for two whole months! On the other hand, you’re so much bigger and so much different than you were as a fresh newborn, it seems it must be at least that long.

No, really, you’re much bigger. When you came home from the hospital, you didn’t really fit into newborn clothes. We’d expected this, but from the other direction – they were too big for you; you were not too big for them. And it took you several weeks to really grow into them.

Then, all of a sudden, it was clear that with your long body and legs and big feet, you needed to move into the 0-3 month sizes, so we started putting you in those. And then, I swear, not a week later, those weren’t long enough for you. So then you were into 3-6 month sizes (though given that baby clothes tend to be sort of randomly related in size to the numbers assigned to them, you still can wear some of the smaller stuff), and you weren’t even two months old. Apparently, you’re 23.5″ now and nearly 12 pounds. And those huge feet? Monster feet. Small Monster indeed

I think we can safely say that your paternity is established. Your father is either the evil guy with the beard or an NBA all-star, and since I don’t know any of the latter, we’ll settle on the evil professor (which should make you happy, because you really like that bearded guy…).

This month has continued the roller coaster ride of new parenting, but I think the three of us are finally starting to settle in. We have vague routines, and we’re all starting to get used to each other. In fact, we even had a sleep routine for a couple of weeks which meant that Mama was nearly human, but then the most horrible thing ever happened…

See, no one was getting much sleep when you first came, although Mama was pulling the night shift so that at least one parent would be mostly sane. But then, over Christmas, Papa heard the call of the mountains and took Tante Conni on his own personal SkiFest 2007, which meant leaving early to head off to the mountains. But of course, Mama couldn’t be up all night and all day with you, so Papa took care of you when he got home from skiing and thus got very little sleep himself.

And so poor sleepy Papa got a cold.

And then you and Mama got a cold. Mama doesn’t care so much about Mama getting the cold, but I promise you that there’s nothing so sad as a little baby who is struggling to breathe through his nose.

As a result of said cold and the subsequent struggling, you really couldn’t sleep for more than about an hour and a half at a time without having to have your nose suctioned out. Ugh. Poor baby, and poor Mama.

Not only was Mama, who is not a morning person, getting out of bed every 90 minutes some nights, but she had to get up, put saline drops in your nostrils and suction your nose, which made you cry and cry and cry until we could get you breathing well enough to eat. You crying so much made Mama want to cry, because I hate seeing you so miserable. And then you were so tired you’d fall asleep immediately at the breast, only to wake up as soon as I got up to put you back to bed.

My head was spinning for weeks – only just now, the last couple of days, has there been pretty good sleep, and let me just say this: thank you, Torsten. We still have to get up about once a night to suction your nose, but it’s getting better, and Mama doesn’t even have to entirely wake up to get you fed the last couple of days. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Mama will buy you a delicious chocolate ice cream cone when you are old enough to eat it. For now, snuggling will have to do.

But the big news in babyland is that you are totally starting to express your little personality.

You dole out smiles all the time, though trying to capture your best, widest, most appealing smiles with a camera seems to be like trying to photograph the Loch Ness Monster. That’s ok – as long as you keep making them for us.

See, this next one is your super smile, and just like the Loch Ness Monster, no mortal is allowed to get a clear photo:

We’re madly in love with you, little boy. You are sweet, beautiful, and so very good-natured – we thank our lucky stars every day for you. You were even good enough to put up with immunizations and not be all that fussy when you didn’t feel well afterwards, and it was nothing that a little Tylenol didn’t take away.

Seriously, how on Earth did we get so lucky?

And you’ve started to coo and gurgle to us too, making noises of excitement and grinning your wide, unrestrained, toothless grin when you see us – or the invisible spiders on the wall. It is the most amazing thing ever. Nobody has ever smiled at me like that – you’ve totally stolen your Mama’s heart.

You are the cutest, most awesome little guy. You must be – it would take that kind of guy to get me to wake up at 3:30 am and smile as I feed him. I love everything about you, from your soft wispy brown hair to your big blue eyes to your wiggly kicking feet to your cute baby voice and your sweet baby smell. I go away for a few hours and seriously have to get home and get my Torsten fix! Not to say I don’t like a little “me” time, but I can’t take too much of it at once. And if something takes longer than I intended it to – like the Obama rally the other day – I get really anxious to get back home to my family and our cuddly baby. So sue me, I love my Torsten – I know Papa is caring for you wonderfully, but I see other babies and just want to be home with mine

I love having your little form cuddled up on my chest for a nap, and I suspect Papa feels the same. In the afternoons, you play on your little playmat for short periods of time, but more often than not you’re in Mama or Papa’s arms, dancing or squirming or talking or playing, and I’m still having trouble believing you’re ours, but I’ll take it. Every day there’s more to do with you and you notice more about the world, and I can’t wait to see what comes next. We learn something new about you every day (for instance, today we discovered you like zydeco, which much have come from Mama’s old job in New Orleans, and something Bridget and Margo are sure to laugh at), and it’s pretty awesome.

We’re totally keeping you, kiddo. You’re lovely.

Love,

Mama