It’s amazing how much you have changed in only two months. When you were born, you were 50th percentile for weight (8 lbs even) and length (20 inches even), with a head on the small-ish side (13.5 inches)–a factoid that made life much easier on Mommy. At your doctor’s appointment, you weighed in the 29th percentile (11 lbs 1.5 oz), 58th percentile for height (23.25 inches), and still small-ish on the head (15 inches); not bad for a guy who lost a lot of weight before coming home for the hospital and then got sick. Keep up the appetite and add some pudge to that height!

In your lifetime, you will have lots of adopted grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins; today, Mommy wants to tell you about one of her adopted grandmothers who is now in heaven: a very special lady named Helen.

When Mommy was an undergraduate at IUP, she sang in the choir at Zion Lutheran Church. Helen, a fellow alto and a sprite, young octogenarian, sat next to her, shared music with her and generally filled her in on what was going on. One day, the church had a mother-daughter luncheon and Helen asked Mommy to be her “daughter” for the day. Helen’s kids were all boys, you see, and she probably realized that Mommy was feeling homesick. The relationship continued over the next couple years. At graduation, your Grandma Betty stayed at her house. When Mommy and Daddy went to Aunt Lindsey’s wedding, Helen was Daddy’s date while Mommy was busy being a bridesmaid.

If you had been able to meet Helen, you would have noticed how the world was sunnier when she was around: warm, gentle, comforting, energetic and cheerful. She was quick to smile and had that aura of a favorite elementary school teacher (you’ll recognize this when you see it)–which she had been. Even though Mommy will miss her very much and is sad she won’t get to see her when she goes to Pittsburgh in October, Mommy knows that Helen was very blessed with the 93 years that she had. Oh, that you might have such a life and have people like her in it!

Helen Russell of Indiana, PA: 1909-August 23, 2012

Last Saturday, Mommy and Daddy were a little nervous to try your first Texas tub bath given your slightly adverse reaction to sponge baths. Mommy filled the little baby tub with warm water, laid out clean clothes and diaper, readied the towel, shampoo and duck scrubby and gingerly set a naked you in. To their great delight, you gave a startled expression, squirmed around for a little bit and then decided you found baths calming. This means that Mommy did not rush through scrubbing arms then torso then back then legs then hair–she cleaned you and then could just let you splash contentedly in the water. Now if only she can get you to stay that calm for the drying and redressing part…

There are a lot of advancements in child care technology that Daddy and Mommy really appreciate: disposable diapers, wetness indicators on diapers (yay for Pampers Swaddlers), jogging stroller/travel systems, bouncy chairs, breast pumps, bottles compatible with breastfeeding, digital cameras, Skype…

Today, they were most grateful that nearly everything baby gear with fabric is easy to diassemble so that those fabric parts can be washed in a washing machine. Let’s just say that the back end of your digestive system and the capacity of size 1 diapers made this necessary in a big way. Otherwise what was a late night could have been a really late night.

There is a book out there called All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten where us adults are reminded of basic rules that are really important for getting through life (you’ll get to these in a couple years). Mommy had several moments like this in lab this week where she thought she could get around a couple steps of the problem solving process to save time and ended up back at square one to do it right (and she preaches to undergrads on the importance of all the problem solving steps!). Sometimes adults just need reminders…

There is also a Murphy’s Law about this situation: there is never time to do it right but always time to do it over.