Sleep Deprivation Stole My Creativity for a Good Headline

Leon will be 10 weeks old tomorrow. He’s a whopping 13 lbs 5 oz and 23.25 inches long! He’s even noticeably heavier, which means pretty soon I’m going to be sporting some fierce biceps.

Poor baby got his two-month vaccines today. He was so calm for his hepatitis B shots that I went in not thinking anything of it. I was excited to learn how much he’d grown and had a few questions for the doctor. BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE. The nurse jabbed him with the first needle and he screamed in a way I’ve never heard him scream before. I felt like I betrayed him for cheerfully bringing him somewhere where I knew he would experience the worst pain of his life (so far). We had to wait in the room for a little bit afterwards because I almost started bawling, and I still got teary-eyed when I thought about it for several hours afterwards. Aside from the one scream, he was completely fine and even fell asleep in the car on the ride home, so I really had no reason to even be emotional. Damn these mom hormones!

Leon starts daycare next week so he can get acclimated, and I’ll return to work before the end of the month. I’m going to sound like a cliché first-time mom, but it has seriously gone by so fast; I feel like I went into labor just a couple weeks ago, and now my leave is almost over? I kind of thought that we’d luck out and I’d have a baby who slept through the night by the time I went back to work — yeahhh…let’s all laugh together. At least he’s starting to be more predictable in terms of napping and sleeping. Most days he takes three or four naps, but many nights he’ll go through several feed-then-sleep cycles before starting his first long stretch at about 11:30 p.m. Last night he slept 8.5 hours and woke up just once — thankfully (for me), he woke up during Minh’s shift so I pretty much got to sleep for eight hours. Way to make mommy proud, kiddo!

Dude’s hair is out. of. control. In addition to only really growing on the left side, the back has layers that haven’t grown in at all, so from behind his head kind of looks like a smashed tiramisu. Despite looking like a half-Asian Michael Richards sometimes, I find his ‘do endearing and I secretly hope he inherited my weird curly hair. Don’t tell Minh.

Like his daddy, Leon prefers being naked. He also seems to enjoy baths, as they can quiet him during a crying bout, but he always makes these weird faces when I pour water on him. After multiple obsessive checks to ensure the water was neither too hot nor too cold, I concluded that that’s just what he does with his face when water is poured on him.

He had his first major blowout a couple days ago. It involved two showers, one bath, a load of laundry, copious amounts of 409, and a giggling baby. Yesterday I looked down and realized I somehow still had some poop on my foot. And they say parenthood isn’t glamorous.

Thankfully, he now seems to be content more often than he isn’t (knock on wood). He’s started having back-and-forth “conversations” with us, and I like to pretend that I know exactly what he’s trying to tell me. His giggles are my favorite; so long as he’s fed and well-rested, just making eye contact and talking in a high-pitched voice will usually provoke a laugh or two. He’s also pretty keen on his plush giraffe rattle. (I hope that someday he loves us as much as he loves that thing.) He can’t hold objects quite yet, but he can smack the hell out of the toys on his activity mats, and he’s now big enough to kick the piano keys!