Correspondence with Cole: two months

Dear Cole,

Today you are two months old. You no longer fit into newborn-sized clothes and my return-to-work date too quickly approaches. Pretty soon you’ll be breaking fragile objects, bones and someday, maybe even hearts. I look forward to the day you walk, but fear your walk across the graduation stage. Though that event is years away, these first two months took less than a second on the stopwatch called life. Surely the next few years will fly by like the hundred meter hurdle. 

Already this month, you’ve met milestones like smiling when someone smiles at you. That someone is usually not me. Despite my over-exaggerated expression of pearly whites and the muscle strain side effect of arching my eyebrows, you avoid my eye contact and save your smiles for daddy. Although your neck coordination is limited, I believe you are doing this on purpose. Remind me to ground you for it later.

When I do get a beam from you baby boy, it’s usually after the third time you roused me from my slumber, threatening to break windows with your screams. This is when I need your smiles most. And since daddy sleeps through your squawking, those smiles are mine alone. Someday I’ll teach you to share, but for now, I'll keep them to myself.

To verify you meet your other milestones, an official from Right Track visited this month to ensure development is on schedule.

It is.

Given your stint in the NICU, this is a relief.

The Right Track woman asked if you had trouble eating. Yes, I thought to myself, you have trouble eating too much, too fast. Instead of dessert, you prefer bouncing after ever meal likely because of gas bubbles in your belly. I don’t know much about inside your belly, but I do know what comes out of it. Those bubbles expel with more frequency and ferocity than a grown man on a baked bean and broccoli diet. Godzilla on a whoopee cushion sounds as quiet as a whisper compared to you.

As your father and I discuss our religious backgrounds and how to raise you as a man of faith, my biggest concern isn’t the church affiliation we choose, but how quiet the services are. Surely, you’d save your sacred symphony for the most holy and hushed of moments, embarrassing us to the point of preferring limbo if it means not blushing at your baptism.

Your gassiness upsets your tummy, and because of all the bouncing to counteract it, my appendages will soon match diamonds in terms of strength and beauty, from hoisting you up-and-down, up-and-down. In fact, given your affinity for spring-loaded stepping, I’m sure you’re destined for a career in either basketball... or pogo sticking.

Your daddy had surgery this month, a surgery he’s needed for more than a year but delayed until you were born so he could help me with you. He was in a lot of pain and the first chance he got to feed you, he declined. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, it was the feeling of Freddy Krueger radiating from his rear to his ankle. The pain rendered sitting to give you a bottle almost impossible. Since the hospital performing the procedure was 100 miles away, we left you with your grandmother overnight. Your father and I missed you, couldn’t wait to come home, whereas you probably didn’t want to leave. I don’t doubt your grandmother added chocolate candy to your bottle and let you stay up past your bedtime. She spoils you, but don’t forget, I produce the breast milk, OK? Don't forget to love me too... :)

Now that the surgery is over and your father is on the mend, he takes advantage of his new found health, taking pleasure in bath time, tummy time and even changing diapers. Sometimes I catch you two cuddling on the couch and I know you’re likely plotting against your outnumbered mother, or at the very least, practicing for the next tournament of tooters.

Because your father can’t work as he heals and I’m still on maternity leave, our little family is celebrating Thanksgiving with your maternal grandparents and Uncle Mike in Colorado. It’s your first trip out of state, which we know you appreciate because given your birthday airplane ride, you’d clearly do anything to travel.

Notre Dame could win a National Championship, but I’m still not sure that compares with your grandparents’ excitement to see you. In fact, I’m not sure they care to see your dad and I, but ooohh the baby. We want to see the baby. Family and friends encourage us to go on dates, get house work done, go hunting for deer/bargains... all so they can babysit. It’s not out of consideration for us; they have alternative motives. They just want to spend time with you. And who can blame them? You’re quite famous. If you could write, I’d sell autographed copies of your Jamestown Hospital ad in the newspaper, but as such, I’ll just christen them with your spit up instead. I’m sure I’ll make a fortune, but I’m not sure I’ll share it with you. We’ll just call it even for all those diapers you soil... see above.

Love you baby,
Mama