What's Goin On

I can't believe how much Guy is already changing. Every day is just kind of amazing.

For instance, today I flipped him over on my lap for tummy time. This usually results in him gnawing on my leg and intermittently looking around. But this time, his head popped up at 90 degrees, and he just looked all over the place. Like it was no big deal. For five minutes (or more). I just patted his little butt and marveled at the fact that he already looks like he could start crawling.

He has also discovered that his hands can touch one another. He brings them together in front of himself and worries them over one another, his little fingers working overtime to understand what is happening. Sometimes his eyes follow his hands, and I can almost hear his thoughts: "Woah. Dude. That hand....is touching the other hand....is touching that hand. I can FEEL it, man! They're touching each other, and I can feel them BOTH! ARE YOU GUYS SEEING WHAT I'M SEEING?"

We put him to bed tonight without swaddling him for the first time ever. He's gotten much more mobile at night, and I'll come in to find both his arms have worked out from the bottom of his swaddlers and pulled the fabric up around his neck. It worries Greg, and frankly, I don't feel too comfortable with it, either. I've also come in and found him on his side. I worry about him ending up on his belly still swaddled, his face smooshed into the mattress. There are too many horror stories about suffocating children. I don't like it. So, we are trying to say goodbye to swaddling. So far, he's been up twice in the first hour. I'm hoping he stays asleep now.

He's also grabbing things much more often. I read the other day that nothing helps develop a child's brain more than reaching and grabbing items, so I try to dangle all sorts of things in his face. He goes for some of them, and others he just regards with that look of a stoner staring at a black light - glazed wonder.

We put up the tree today, and I set Guy up in his bouncer, thinking I could probably get the tree assembled and an ornament or two placed before he'd tell me he'd had enough. I put on Elf in the background and got to work. An hour and a half later, Guy was still happily cooing and watching me put ornament after ornament on the tree. I got the entire thing put up before the fussing started. And Greg got the house decorated outside with Christmas lights. It's officially the holidays in the Tatum house!

- Jennifer