Kyle’s 12-week Birthday

Since people have started borrowing ideas from my blog (the highest form of flattery, Tina, and I’m flattered) I am going to do the same thing and borrow from Dooce, who writes a monthly newsletter to her child. This won’t be monthly, however, because I am hard-pressed to do anything with any consistency besides Kyle’s nighttime routine.

But Kyle is 12 weeks old today, and I feel this momentous occasion deserves a special post. Twelve weeks is the amount of time I waited to announce my pregnancy. Twelve weeks is how long the girls had to work out on From Flab to Fab. Many employers test out new employees for a 12 week probation period. Etc. It’s some kind of milestone, and I can’t believe we’ve reached it already.

I feel like it was just yesterday that I was meeting Kyle face-to-face for the first time. I remember feeling nervous about that moment – would I just know him, or would he be a stranger, this child who grew inside me for 40 weeks? As it turned out, holding him and talking to him and looking into his face were all very natural things. I didn’t think about it, I just did it. And then breastfeeding, which I had expected to occur with much more ceremony, happened without any forethought. The labor and delivery nurse grabbed my left breast, stuck the baby on it, and said “Just make sure he doesn’t suffocate.”

Indeed, her words have sounded in my mind more than once. How can I not suffocate this child with love? He becomes more beautiful every day, and I have to propel myself away from him in order to live the rest of my life. I want to spend my days snuggling him and gobbling his fat legs or his skinny little neck. I am endlessly entertained by making him smile, or coaxing a pseudo-laugh out of him. His nascent laugh sounds like a growl, uttered with a smile. It’s amazing that he is developing his own personality, and that he does things besides eat, poo, and sleep. I am overwhelmed by my own responsibility in how he will turn out. At times I am almost paralyzed by the limitless possibilities that lay before him.

But our days pass, and how quickly we’ve gotten to 12 weeks! Kyle is with me 90 percent of the time. This is what we do:

-Morning: our favorite time. Kyle is rested, well-fed, and ebullient. We sit up in bed and play. We sit in the office and check e-mail and read blogs and message boards. Kyle hangs out on the guest bed and kicks and talks. I take pictures of him.

-Morning nap-time: Kyle has graduated to a 1.5 hour nap in the mornings, usually around 10:00. It is during this nap that I eat breakfast (starving!!!) shower, and tidy up the house. Or not.

-Daily outing: our current outings go something like this:
Lunch with a working friend, preferably at an outdoor location. People coo and poke at him.
Mommy group at West Hills Hospital. Saved my sanity, and very educational. New friends.
Gymboree, an expensive Romper Room where 30-something moms re-learn the silly songs of our childhoods. I love it. I pick special outfits for Kyle to wear. We hit Starbucks after class.
Stroller Matinee: the 11am movie reserved just for us. I can bring the stroller in, feed and change Kyle, and try to enjoy the film.
The Mall: so far we’ve gone twice. Not as bad as I had feared, although becoming a Mall Mommy was rather traumatic to me.
Walks in the neighborhood: somehow I must get rid of my fat ass, and I might as well bring Kyle with me. He likes the fresh air.
Weekends, we go places with Daddy: friends’ houses, driving tours of other cities, trips to our boat to try to make it usable for the summer. Summer is half over and we’re so not there yet.

-Once returned from our daily outing, it is usually a struggle for Kyle to take his afternoon nap. He sleeps anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour. I try to sleep, too.

-Dinnertime – Kyle hangs out in the car seat while Stew and I eat under the grape vines.

-Bedtime: a bath every other night, then feeding, rocking in the rocking chair while I sing my own version of Brahms’ Lullaby, then usually Kyle goes down without a peep. He sleeps until 5:00 am, wakes for another feeding, then sleeps again until 6:30 or 7:00, when Dad gets up with him and tries to make it until 8:00 when he’s allowed to wake me up.

So Kyle has become my new little best friend. My buddy. Wherever I go, he goes. (To quote a commercial from the 80’s.) I can see why my friend Kim was nervous about having her second baby. The second baby would naturally be butting in to a relationship that is so close and perfect that a third person would surely ruin it, right? So far, all three of them seem to be doing just fine, but I’m still at the beginning, and I totally get it now.

In a really bad comparison, take my dog, for example. Frida was my first baby. As soon as Kyle was born, my relationship with Frida was reduced to me yelling at her, and her looking like she had just been kicked. She used to tackle me when I walked in the door. Now, when I come home, she doesn’t even stir. Last night when I went out (out! with a friend! to see a band!) Stewart called me and said Frida had gotten out of the backyard and disappeared. He couldn’t go looking for her because he was alone in the house with Kyle, who was sleeping. I rushed home, frantic, imagining grisly scenes of Frida the World’s Dumbest Dog being hit by car. She would probably run up to a car to lick it, thinking it would pet her if she only tried hard enough. Blessedly, she came home of her own accord seven minutes later. But I learned my lesson – stop ignoring the dog! (I don’t think Kim will have the same problem with her son, however. )

Like I said, Kyle has become a lot more fun. In addition to smiling and starting to laugh, he talks. It’s so funny to listen to him. When he discovers a new sound that he can make, he makes it over and over again. The other day he made the classic baby squeak sound. I can’t recreate it in words, but trust me, it was damn cute. He also loves to explore new textures with his hands. I give him washcloths, cloth diapers, satiny slips (yes, women’s underclothing), plus toys. He drools all over them and clutches them in his tiny, clawlike hands. When those hands are clutching my boobs, they are most definitely clawlike. I am terrible about trimming his nails, so his fingers are like 10 little hot pokers digging into my skin. When Stewart holds him in a chair position, Kyle stratches and pulls at Daddy’s giant Neanderthal hands.

The world is a big place for our baby. Something huge and colorful to observe and explore. What a fascinating time this is for me. I enjoy being his mother, poop, spit-up and everything else that comes with it.