The Breeders: I'm So Totally Bored, Mom!

A couple of the books I read (and I read a lot of them) mentioned that you should consider the first three months of a full term baby's life as the fourth trimester. They aren't yet fully baked and you aren't quite back to your old self for a while (Mama might need five trimesters). It sounded odd, but then the kid had his three month birthday last Friday and it suddenly made a whole lot of sense.

All of a sudden he is a baby. Not an infant. A baby. A babbling, smiling, playing with his feet, oh-my-god-can-he-get-any-cuter baby. Sure he was pretty cute from the start, even freshly out when they look more like little old men than babies. He acquired head control really early and laughed in his sleep from day one, but now we are getting to the fun milestones: sitting up, laughing outloud and figuring out opposable thumbs.

As we get closer to these (I'm waiting for him to laugh out loud any second) he has also developed skills they don't talk about in the baby books: Frustration and boredom. No longer is he content to stare at my face or the pattern in the wall. Now we have to explore the great outdoors and watch the bigger kids come home from school.

But, the biggest change is now he wants something to DO. Screw tummy time. Been there, done that. He wants to sit, stand and walk. He wants to grab the toys in his play gym, and he wants very badly to talk. The problem is, he can't and it annoys the crap out of him. He has also decided that naps are a complete waste of time when there are so many things to see and skills to master. He may be frustrated, he may be tired, and it all might be making him cranky, but his inability to do something on the first try is keeping him awake.

He may look just like his dad, but I'm finally starting to see a bit of me in him.