The Seversons

Welcome to February, also known as the month where we must put our heads down and push through until it’s over, when we may take a teensy break and curl up and sleep.  This month I am working in 5 different states so I’m logging just a smidge of travel time.  It should be no surprise, then, that Grammer has decided this is the perfect time to start dealing with separation anxiety.  I’m not sure if it’s really full blown since it’s not something he’s supposed to do yet, but he seems to have his own time frame for everything.  Fortunately it comes and goes and teething seems to be distracting him.  Those top two teeth are set to burst out on the scene any minute.  We will keep you posted and attempt to take pictures which, inevitably, will not show any teeth at all.  (Actually the one below was on purpose.  This is Graham’s close-mouthed grin, which I find charming.)

Since Eric is back on rotations, the babysitter is left with an unsatisfying “I don’t know when one of us will be home.”  We try to compensate appropriately.  And every now and then Eric obliges by coming home far earlier than expected and giving her her evening back.

Speaking of Eric, February is also his birthday month, which is unfortunate this year.  On the bright side, he got his whole birthday weekend off and we were able to spend the big day just as we liked: sleeping in, doing very little, hanging with the Bug.  Because his birthday falls just a week before Valentine’s Day, and Valentine’s Day is the single most unsatisfying day of restaurant dining in the universe, we will celebrate instead on some day inbetween the two that has yet to be determined, but will surely be lovely and involve dessert.

Getting back to the baby (which is why you’re all here anyway, right?) I hate all the milestone stuff.  It feels like we are imposing schedules, and our baby loathes schedules.  If they are behind, you worry.  If they are ahead, you feel like you’re bragging.  I am basically content to let Graham do what he wants when he wants.  Mostly I like to encourage things he is interested in.  Which is why we spent so much time helping him sit: he wanted it desperately so we helped the little guy practice.  He hasn’t really been interested in mobility until the last couple of days.  Now if a toy is out of his reach, he no longer just cries until it’s given to him, he makes valiant efforts to get it himself.  Mostly this involves strategic rolling.  I was thinking he might be a late crawler, but now I’m wondering.

One thing that Graham is seriously behind on is laughing.  This baby does not giggle or chuckle or laugh.  At least not until last week.  For most babies this comes at 3 or 4 months, and if it weren’t for the fact that he is so obviously happy much of the time, I might have worried.  I told the pediatrician and she didn’t seem concerned, she assured me he’d get around to it.  I said, “Or I’ll have a 3-year-old who screams whenever he’s happy.”  Screaming is his preferred expression of pleasure, so the fact that he’s starting to show little signs of laughter is a welcome change.  In the video below, you can see both the occasional chuckles and the screaming, along with a sudden interest in grabbing the camera which is starting to affect the quality of our picture-taking.

We are at the point where books on babies are amusing rather than helpful. When it says, “Over the last few months, you have noticed your baby taking fewer and fewer naps until he has settled into a regular schedule with only one or two naps a day,” I laugh. Because our baby still takes anywhere from 2 to 6 naps a day which last anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours. When it says, “If you’d like to exercise, why don’t you try doing yoga with your baby,” I laugh. They even have instructions for these things. The pictures involve happy little babies who sit placidly on their rumps until picked up and incorporated into the pose somehow. My baby would never do that. If I tried to set him in front of me while I got into warrior pose, he would a) need a toy to amuse him, b) need another toy for when he got tired of that toy, c) not sit still because he’d inevitably find something out of his reach that is more interesting than what he currently has, and d) totally destroy the pose if I even attempted to pick him up what with the wriggling and the carrying on. I am already dreaming about the Imaginary Baby #2 who is the low-key, laid-back baby who will happily gaze up at me while I do the warrior pose, then be placed serenely on my knee… while toddler Graham destroys the entire house around us.

He has already mastered his cherubic look of innocence. “Who, me?  I could never do such a thing.  I cannot even use a sippy cup!”  Or can he…  I’ll try and get a picture if I see a “mwa ha ha” any time soon, but I suspects he saves it for when I’m not around.