Yesterday, you learned that you can kick things: toys hanging from your bouncy seat toy bar, water in your bath tub, Daddy’s dish of pasta on the dining room table, Daddy’s plate full of pancakes and blueberry sauce…

It seems like every time we glance over at you, you have your feet in the air playing with something. “Eureka! I have two hands and two feet!” your delighted giggle says. You don’t seem sure if you are supposed to be able to grab things with your feet like you can your hands but you do know that you can wrap your legs around Mommy’s arm when she carries you. Now just to get those feet to your mouth…

If baby’s had a currency they could use to pay their caretakers for services, it would be smiles. This morning, you were giving out so many smiles to Mommy and Daddy to make up for yesterday that there was some concern on the international market about inflation…

Mommy and Daddy aren’t that into macro-economics, so they are quite ok if this trend continues.

Your long day started at 3:50 am when you woke Mommy up to let her know that you were cold. (Daddy had set the air conditioner to vent since the temperature dropped overnight to non-Houston, comfortable levels). Addition of your monkey sleep-sack and a nook only helped for 15 minutes when you spit the nook out. 15 minutes after this and more crying, Mommy finally gave up and fed you. Several more sleep for 10-20 minutes then cry cycles followed till the end of Mommy’s shift.

Daddy’s shift consisted of shorter naps then usual, demands to be constantly carried or stollered, and much general crabbiness, especially while eating. At bedtime, you wanted to turn in your crib (1. lift legs, 2. set legs down to the side, 3. roll to back, 4. surprise Mommy and Daddy with your new orientation) and play fetch with nook. Finally, at a little after 10, you stayed asleep. Maybe you did get a little of whatever Mommy and Daddy had had.

Someday you will learn that your parents are not perfect. This week you would have learned that your parents are not indestructible either. On Wednesday, Daddy was unpleasantly awoken in the early morning with the stomach flu/food poisoning. Today, Mommy was struck with the same. Fortunately, you still seem to have magic immunity that comes from eating breastmilk and not whatever evil substance snuck into the refrigerator. Also fortunately, Daddy and Mommy were really sick on different days, so they were able to trade-off who was taking care of you.

Let’s all raise a glass of room-temperature Gatorade to mornings, afternoons and evenings, hanging out in bed listening to audiobooks and daydreaming about the return of normal digestion.

A friend of Mommy and Daddy had a baby a couple days ago. At church, you got to meet a 2-month-old little girl. All of this got Mommy thinking about how you’re not the littlest one any more. You can now follow us with your eyes and use your smiles to get and keep our attention. You hold your head up. You sleep from 9 pm to 6 am nearly every night. You can down a 4.5 oz bottle with little effort and those digestive bubbles that caused you so much discomfort are now no big deal. And let’s not forget the little rolls you are finally starting to build on your legs and arms when you used to be all head, Buddha belly and skinny appendages. Soon, you’ll realize what you are doing when you squirm around on your belly and end up on your back with a surprised look on your face.

Now that you have discovered you have hands, you seem to have fallen in love with blankets. If Daddy tucks you into your car seat with a blankie from your neck to your toes, you wave your arms around and look like a kid in a too-big ghost costume. Add a nook…or just let you mouth the blanket, and you are set for long stroller ride’s worth of entertainment. You grab and hold onto any kind of cloth the gets within reach: burp cloths, Mommy’s shirt, blankies, your clothes, etc. You love playing peek-a-boo. All of this adds up to many adorable amounts and slightly more blankies in the laundry.

We reached a new milestone this morning. Mommy and Daddy woke up with a start to realize that you were still sleeping…and it was 6:08 am! And you had slept since 9:45 pm! Normally, we are lucky to see the positive side of 5 am when we put you to bed at 9:15. Needless to say, this is a trend we wouldn’t mind continuing, especially given how good of a mood you were in this morning. (Now we just have to keep Mommy from waking up expecting to hear you cry at 4 am, 4:30 am, 5 am…)

Your first two months of tummy time mostly consisted of you squawking and wailing while randomly kicking your legs and flailing your arms. So it was to Mommy’s great surprise when she found you calmly holding your head all the way up, lifting your feet and “swimming” with your arms a few days ago. There are still many times when you don’t like being on your stomach, but Mommy and Daddy have also learned to put your favorite green rattle ball in front of you which sometimes distracts you so much, you forget about the amount of effort you are putting in to keep your head up. Keep up the swimming lessons!

In this great TV show called Bones, there is one episode where Dr. Temperance Brennan (aka Bones) is playing with a baby. If Mommy’s memory serves her correctly, Bones had been told to talk to babies with real words and to teach them the names of things. So, she is talking to the baby in a very excited voice about “phalanges! phalanges!” while her coworkers look on in confusion. It is not that they don’t know that phalanges are fingers and toes–they are just so surprised that she would play with a baby using such technical terminology. I guess that means Mommy can talk to you about sucrose, sodium chloride and sodium bicarbonate when we bake together…

Anyway, that whole little tangent is because over the last week, you have seemed to discover that you have phalanges. You open and close your hands; you start to grasp things; your fingers seem to always find your mouth. We can’t wait to see what happens when you realize you have feet!