From Blob to Baby

As of yesterday, Ian is 11 weeks old.  For the math-challenged among you, that means that I gave birth to him 78 days ago.  He's only been alive for 78 days!  A pretty short time when you think of it that way, isn't it?  (Of course, it's a pretty long time when you think about it in terms of the whole "it's okay that my jeans don't fit, cause I just had this precious BABY a few days ago!" thing.  Let's be honest, I'll still be using that excuse when Ian is 17.)

As those of us who've been to this party before know, the first few weeks sort of eek by in a sleep-deprived haze of diapers ("If the line is green, does that mean it's wet or dry??"), poop (you never realize how much your life could revolve around poop until you have a newborn--it may be trite, but it's true), pee (for heaven's sake, how am I supposed to keep track of how many flipping PEE diapers that child has every day?) boobs (and not in the fun way), gross little belly button nubs (we never did find Ian's...), and, for the lucky boy-moms among us, circumcision care ("I'm calling the doctor.  There is absolutely no way that thing is supposed to look like that when it falls off."). 

But then one day you wake up and your squawking, squirming little blob of an infant has turned into a smiling, happy, cute, real-life BABY.  Right before your very eyes!  And yet somehow it manages to slip past you until it knocks you over your head.  You realize that every parent you've ever met is completely right: this whole thing is gonna go by way, way too fast (incidentally, that's another reason why I blog). 

Anyway, I had this "Oh S!" moment a couple of days ago.  Ian is growing up.  Fast.  And here's some video to prove it.

He LAUGHED for the first time today.  Real live laughter!  And since I've been in super-sappy "my baby is growing up too fast, sniff sniff" mode for the last few days, I actually happened to catch it on camera.  So, here, it is, a very momentous video for a new mom: Ian's first laugh ever.  On camera.  (Please ignore the terrible camera work; it's hard to stimulate laughter and videotape it at the same time.  You try.  Anyway, just turn up the volume and listen!  At about the 0:20 mark for the impatient among you.)

Pretty sure I get the Good Mom of the Week award for catching this on video.

Of course, Danielle and I spent the afternoon after that trying to get him to do it again.  We joke that we feel a ridiculous sense of accomplishment when we make these kids laugh - why is that?  But truly, the best is when they laugh at themselves.  Here's a combo of the two (again, forgive the horrendous upside down camera work).

Super cute baby laughs.  I hope they made you smile.  If not, try this one -- even Osama bin Laden couldn't watch this laughter without smiling.

More progress From Blob to Baby: Ian's also been sitting up really well lately.  Probably because he screams bloody murder if we try to do tummy time, so we just sit him up to get him off his back and give those hairs on the back of his head a chance to grow.  So the pediatrician will believe me when I say, "Oh yes, he loves tummy time.  60 minutes a day, mmhmm, yep, of course!"  Don't judge, it works.  He won't ever crawl, but he will be a champ at sitting.

Anyway, here's a video of him propped up in his Bumbo - but I think the coolest thing is how into Charlie he is.  And how he is learning that your head can only go so far in each direction, hah.

So my sweet little blob Ian is officially a baby.  Before I know it he'll be a toddler, running around terrorizing us all just like his big brother - but this time, there will be two of them.  God help us.