Baby Will: 2 months.

I'm just going to make a draft for each of these monthly posts that says "how is it time for this again already why time stop too fast bad don't grow MY BABY."

My sentence structure is fully intact after yet another night of waking up every hour, you'll be happy to notice.

I can't believe the holidays are over and we're back to the business of regular-life babying, mainly. The holidays were SO much fun with all of our family around to watch Will grow, and more than a few times people said "I swear he grew during that last nap!" which isn't far from the truth. Will has had several growth spurts, and during those times babies can grow up to half an inch in a day, which is amazing to see and miserable to experience, because do you know how much you need to eat to grow half an inch in a day?

The limit does not exist (name that movie).

This baby is growing like a weed, and the 6-8 week stretch were especially fun with real smiles and lots more alert time. Will is a tricky little bugger in that he doesn't show as many sleepy cues as Beck did, so he'll stay awake for long stretches (anything longer than an hour at this age is long) and be totally fine until he isn't. So, I've spent some time the last few days trying to make a plan for him to not be awake so long without having an actual schedule. In theory this will help him sleep better and longer for naps and avoid exhausted screaming meltdowns. From me. (and him).

Sleep so far has been 100% best-of-luck-mostly-awful with a few good stretches, maybe five nights total where he slept more than two hours at a time. Five "good" nights in two months is not a lot, let's say. Will will (ugh, should have thought the name through more) take long naps as long as he's in someone's arms, but naps on his own are short - 45 minutes at best, so far. He WILL sleep for super long stretches, two or more hours, in his car seat, which is great for trips and errands. Nights, though, are mostly constantly nursing or waking up every 60-90 minutes when I put him down, which is not great at all. I'm trying this week to help him differentiate a little better between nights and days so he can get more awake playtime during the day and enough naps to prevent getting totally exhausted and cranky. We'll see where a little more structure gets us; I'm not into crying it out at all before five or six months, so I'm fine with whatever happens as long as I feel like I'm in some way helping him build healthy skills for later on.

Nursing is still going well, and so is the puking. I'm still convinced we have a "happy spitter," aka a baby that gains weight fine and doesn't seem to have upset stomachs but spits up a lot. It is so.much.puke. all the time but everything else is normal and my milk supply seems to be keeping up with the waste, sad to say. I'm able to pump tons more than with Beck so I'm going back to work with a fun freezer stash, which takes a little bit of the pressure off knowing that he'll likely eat more than I pump while I am not with him. Feeling slightly ahead of the game on ANYTHING is a welcome change, because mostly I feel terribly behind on everything in life all the time.

Speaking of going back to work. This is the week! I saw a few clients in December in evenings when Jay was home with Will and have kept up with my regular writing and other little freelance jobs, but this week Will and Beck will go back to their regular childcare and I'll be gone for whole and half days at a time. I'm excited because I love my job, but I'm really sad that this part of babyhood is over. Compared to Beck, Will and I got very few days together just the two of us, and having a toddler combined with some snow days where school was cancelled and the holidays leaves me feeling like I hardly got any maternity leave at all, at least in the sense of sitting around and bonding with the baby. I don't feel unbonded with Will at all, but I definitely didn't have the long stretches of togetherness and snuggling that Beck and I had. I remind myself that different isn't bad, but going back to work brings up some regrets I have about this leave, things I wish we had taken in terms of time and breaks. Regret is one of the most unpleasant feelings, but one that exists, so I'm letting myself sit with it and reminding myself that my kids are well cared for even when I feel like there's so much I'm failing at even in this early period of Will's life.

It's because I'm super exhausted that stuff like this weighs on me, mostly.

Beck is still obsessed with Will and his face definitely lights up when he sees her. She has started to imitate Jay's methods of tickling (some sort of "the SPIDER FINGERS ARE COMING" situation) which is the absolute cutest thing in the world, and I don't have the heart to tell her that mainly he's not ticklish yet, she's so invested in making her brother happy. She also nearly smothers him with her entire body several times per day, and I try really hard to not be harsh with her about that because it's only because she wants to play with him - a few times we've accidentally snapped GET AWAY FROM HIM HE'S SLEEPING and she gets really upset and shameful, then we get really upset and shameful, and I guess the answer is just if she smothers him I'll make a new little brother?

It's because I'm super exhausted that stuff like this weighs on me, mostly.

In other fun things, we are still able to do a lot of our favorite things because Will is mostly fine to hang out in someone's arms or his car seat. We love the double stroller and have taken a few really long walks, which feels blissful because both kids are QUIET during this time. He's still good in restaurants thanks to some very key nursing shirts, and loves places with good lighting fixtures, don't we all. He's also starting to coo and make some babbling consonant sounds like a little genius, and, even though we're tired, it's getting to be really fun to have this little chunk of love in our family.

The end.