Scary Raspberries

12 weeks

It's so fascinating to watch you learn. We can actually see it happening. This past week you have been watching our mouths with increasing interest. When we talk to you, you often stare intently at our mouths to watch how they move. I started saying the word "tongue" followed by sticking my tongue out at you hoping you will understand what it is called. You now will stick your tongue back at me and smile boisterously. I've been trying to teach you to smile when I say "smile" but that is proving to be a little more difficult.

One day while propped up on my legs I started blowing raspberries in the air. The noise startle you so much that you jerked back wards in shock. Your eyes got big and wide, your eyebrows raised up and almost touched your hair line, and your mouth winced back with concern. I laughed so hard at you that my cheeks hurt, but you maintained your look of extreme concern for what had just came out of my mouth. Eventually when you saw how happy I was you loosened up and started laughing at me in silence. I wish you could see yourself do this. You open your mouth really wide and your head tosses back slightly while you cheeks bounce up and down. It's so friggin cute! Anyways, you were happy again so of course I couldn't help myself and made the raspberry sound again. "pfffbbbbbbbbtttttt!" My lips vibrated together as the are came rattling out from between them making loud tooting type noise and you smile vanished instantly, you tossed your self backward again, the look of shock plastered all over your face again and I burst out into laughter once again. We repeated this game a couple dozen times until you got used to it.

Now you watch and laugh while we make the noise and you're trying very hard to duplicate it on your own. The other day you started flipping your bottom lip back and forth making a little clicky noise. I encouraged you to continue and even played along with you so you knew that I had acknowledged your accomplishment. Then yesterday you did it! It was very brief and I'm not entirely sure you knew you did it properly but you did. You're so smart.

Couch Snuggling

12 weeks

In the first couple of weeks of your life out side the womb you mostly slept with me. You were so little and so innocent I had a hard time with the idea of you sleeping in a room all by yourself. So you either slept in our bed between the two of us or on my chest while I slept on the couch. If you were inclined to stay asleep for longer then 15 minutes we would wrap you up tightly in a blue knit blanket that you received as a gift, and laid you down inside a u shaped pillow to protect you from being rolled on top of by your zombie of a father. (Seriously, that man could sleep through a hurricane) But our bed is only a double mattressed bed and you took up most of the room in the middle with that pillow, so we had to lay on our sides with our heads on either side of your pillow so we could see you clearly. We didn't mind though. There was no better way to wake up then to open your eyes to your new born son looking softly up at you as he starts to wake up because he's hungry.

As nice as that was it wasn't often that you slept well on your own. You had not adjusted yet to life outside the womb. So you were at your most comfortable laying face down on my chest where you could hear my heart beat and feel my body heat. I wasn't getting much sleep at that point due to the fact that you were waking up every hour to two hours to feed. So any opportunity that offered a solution to your staying asleep I jumped on it gladly. I willingly admit that I loved those nights. There is nothing better then curling up at night, snuggled and warm with your child who needs you, and for the first time ever, you need him.