Let’s face it, I suck at doing monthly baby updates. Month after month, I say I’m going to post a picture of Everett on his “month day” and then I forget. And then the 5th of the month passes, and I promise myself that I’m going to do it the next month…but I don’t. To be absolutely honest, I’m only posting this today because I don’t trust myself to actually write an update when he turns 4 months old next week. I really don’t. Because like I said, I suck at doing baby updates. So in case your wondering, here’s Everett at 3 months and 3 weeks old, admiring his own hands.
At nearly 4 months old, we have good days with reflux and bad days, but he smiles right through it all. I don’t think either of my girls were as happy as he is, and that’s really saying something because Hazeline was pretty darn happy as a baby. He’s put on a pound or two since since we started seeing the gastro specialist earlier this month, so he’s now wearing 3-6 month clothes. He’s started grabbing and holding toys, which has sent me into a frazzled state looking for all those infant toys everyone gave us right after he was born. And although Erajh doesn’t believe me, I actually witnessed Everett roll from belly to back on Monday. Turns out his dislike of tummy time – pretty much the only thing he dislikes – has pushed this developmental milestone. Go figure.
And so it seemed, all of his milestones were in check. Exactly where they should be.
Until the other night when I couldn’t get him to sleep. No amount of rocking, shhhush-ing, or rubbing his back was working. He. Was. Not. Having. It. Out of sheer frustration, I put him in his napper. I walked to the kitchen to get a bottle because something had to be bothering him. Maybe he was hungry? But then I returned to the napper to find him sound asleep.
Yeah, that thing that was bothering him wasn’t hunger. IT WAS ME. Why would any boy not want to be around his mom 24/7 forever? Prom is going to be awkward for his date, but I digress.
I wrote it off as a fluke, but then it happened again. And again. Night after night, he just wanted to be left alone in his napper to go to sleep. I felt like I was living every parents dream, and yet I didn’t like it one bit. I still want to have that special time each night where I hold him to go to sleep.
As a parent, there are those big milestones that you remember and hold on to – first steps, first foods, first time they roll over – and there are others that come and go quietly, like when they start to outgrow the newborn startle reflex or when their tiny newborn fists begin to unclench or when they no longer need to be held to go to sleep. You know that your kids hit these lesser known milestones, simply by virtue of the fact that they no longer do (or need) the things anymore, but you don’t know exactly when it happened. Or you noticed at the time but forgot because there’s just so much going on and so many other milestones to keep track of. The details, dates, feelings, and emotions of that experience kind of fall into the abyss.
In all honesty, I can’t exactly pinpoint when my girls started to put themselves to sleep (and one could argue that Hazeline still hasn’t learned), but I know this is early and it feels like a big change all of a sudden. Perhaps, this too will end up in the abyss and years from now when a new parent asks me when he started going to sleep on his own, I’ll reply, “Hmmm…I don’t know.”, having completely forgotten the emotions of missing our snuggle time before bed.
At nearly 4 months old he doesn’t want me to put him to sleep anymore. He’s big now. Or at least, he thinks so.
