Zeke turned 8 weeks old today and I’m trying very hard not to count the days until that magical 3 month mark – partly because I know I can’t count on a miraculous overnight change, and partly because I really want to enjoy every moment of these first months, as challenging as they are. Back to that in a moment.
Again this week, the major milestones have been mine, not Zeke’s. I returned to my yoga class for the first time in almost a year. It was hard, and I really felt the time off (especially in up dog – which put pressure on my chest and belly and reminded me how much strength I’ve lost in my arms and core), but it felt great. I think I left class about three inches taller, and I felt centered and calm and relaxed in a way I haven’t felt since the boy came along. It also gave me a sense of normalcy that I haven’t felt in awhile – a feeling that I may actually get my life back (improved with Z of course) at some point in the not-so-distant future.
I also took an afternoon off from the boy and went shopping with Aunt Sarah. I’m not a big shopper, but it felt great to be out and about with a friend – not worrying about how long before Z will need to eat or sleep or get changed. We were gone a good three hours, and it felt good to miss him.
Zeke is growing like crazy. He’s well over 10 pounds now and his arms and legs are getting nice and pudgy. His little legs are all stretched out. In fact, I almost forgot how curled up he was for the first few weeks. His baby acne has cleared and his hair is a sometimes blond sometimes brown fuzz covering his whole head. When he’s happy, he smiles like crazy and makes the most adorable sounds – cooing and squealing and caterwauling. Sometimes he sings with me. We think he’s starting to reach for things, but it’s a little hard to tell yet if it’s on purpose or just a happy accident as he flails about.
Z is still super fussy – going from perfectly happy to wailing without much warning. He hates tummy time. Everything we’ve heard and read says that tummy time is the key to all these other developmental milestones – namely crawling – and we are fighting the desire to just leave him happily on his back all day everyday and let him waste away with no neck or arm strength to speak of – just to save ourselves the hassle. (Only the fact that he gains weight so fast keeps us forcing him into tummy time every day.)
He fights going to sleep each and every time he’s tired, but we’ve discovered the magic of the swing. We put him in it, he passes out within ten minutes (or less), and he can’t seem to wake up until we stop it – which I’m usually not guilted into doing for close to two hours. (I am an evil, evil mom.)
So things are still hard, and I’m so looking forward to a time when Z’s little nerves aren’t so frazzled all the time, when he can enjoy the excitement of the world without getting so overwhelmed. But in the meantime, I’m doing my best to appreciate Z for who he is now.