Henry at 3 months

Wow, three months.  And this post is already two weeks late.  It's not because we don't love him.  

If I had written this post a week ago, as intended, I would have just gushed about how Henry is completely delicious and sleeps 10 or 12 hour stretches and spends the rest of his time eating, spitting up (he's going for world champion), sleeping, cooing or grinning.  It would have been short and maybe even a bit smug.

Meanwhile, he learned to roll over.  But not roll back.  So he rolls, then contentedly looks around for a while, then screams bloody murder.  This is a bit challenging during the day in that I can't really set him down for long anymore because he almost immediately flips onto his stomach, screaming shortly to follow.  It's also proving an issue at night... I wake to hear him struggling, go in and find him on his belly.  I roll him back, he fusses and rolls back onto his tummy, but gets mad (not to mention that he's not supposed to sleep on his stomach).  We go back and forth for a while until I feed him to settle him down.  He settles and goes back to sleep, but if it's after 5AM, all this has likely awakened Grace so she's probably up for the day, which means I am.  And even if she's not, I go back to bed and, instead of sleeping, worry about whether I'm teaching him to eat when he's not actually hungry since it's the only way to calm him down after he plays the rolling game.  I guess we will see what happens.  There are many lovely things about not being a first time parent, and one is having a better perspective on the fact that - just as a week ago I thought I had a fabulous sleeper (read:  am an amazingly brilliant parent) - phases are short and babies change as soon as you figure them out.  I think he's too young to sleep-train so we will just muddle through for a while and see how things evolve.

Still, I'm writing this on Henry's 15 week day, and despite the above (all of which is normal and wonderful, don't get me wrong), his top favorite activities remain the same, just add rolling/yelling to the mix.  I particularly love babies this age.  Henry holds his head up and interacts, but is still so, so little.  He's changing rapidly.  I saw Aunt June today and a friend, both of whom hadn't seen him in a week or so, and both commented on how much he had changed in just that short time.  He's so smiley and such a flirt (he kills me in the middle of the night with his cute smiles).  He's not quite as mellow as he was, but remains a lovely dinner companion (friends, we have eaten in restaurants!  we did not know babies could do that at the dinner hour).  We marvel at how he just hangs out wherever we take him and except for the odd day or hour here and there, is generally calm.  He wants badly to suck his thumb.  Sometimes I try to sneak the binky in instead, but I'm kind of ambivalent about it.  He just seems far more interested in it than the binky, and it's always there.  But, it's always there.  

Oh my word, what a smile that boy has!  Every once and a while we get a giggle out of him.  Melt.

One of my favorite things ever is to watch Henry and Grace when he's riding in the stroller and she's riding on the standing platform facing him.  His face lights up like nothing else when he sees her.  They chat and entertain each other and I have to be careful not to steer the stroller into people or lampposts as I watch them.  I also have to be careful not to get caught absentmindedly yodeling as I watch them, which may or may not have happened recently thanks to Grace's Sound of Music binge (thank goodness it was a charming middle-aged couple, not some hipsters, although my yodel was, definitely, ironic so maybe it would have been ok).  

Anyway, rolling shenanigans aside, Henry is the most delicious little guy.  Ever.  Further proof: