January has been our best month so far. I think things will just get better from here.

Today you had your (almost) 4 month doctor’s appointment. You weigh 15 pounds (71st percentile) and are 26 inches tall (86th percentile). You get to eat real freaking food in 2 weeks. Are you excited? Last night at dinner you grabbed a Brussels sprout off my plate and shoved it straightaway into your mouth (as you do with all objects). I had to fish it out but you wanted more. That’s my BB.

Last week I got to go out and have dinner and a drink with an old, old friend. It was nice to have some time away from you. I love you but I need a break once in a while. I know you get tired of looking at the same face all the time. Your aunt Becky said that if she didn’t go back to work she would have gone insane. Unless you’ve done it, there’s no explaining how draining it is to be a stay at home parent. It sounds like a cakewalk but holy mother of god it’s not - especially when there isn’t another person to give you a breather.

You are napping in your crib. You didn’t enjoy your shots. I hope you sleep through the night tonight. In a few weeks we are going housesitting for your cousin. She has 2 big dogs and an obnoxious parrot. I hope the dogs like you. I hope I don’t go insane. Sometimes Papa will feed you a bottle, and Grandma gets you into your pj’s every night, so those are little breaks that I get. We’ll see what happens without even those. But I think maybe you’ll meet a new friend. And if you like him, we’ll all go to the zoo if the weather holds.

xo

Your mom turned 30 today.

I never imagined I would meet you. I love you.

You slept from 10-5 last night. Amazing! Thanks for that.

This morning you got your 2 month shots, and you hated it. It was sort of amusing to watch your delayed reaction though. Mom snuggles made up for it. I hope you won’t get the 24 hour fussy bout like some babies do, or the low-grade fever. You’re meeting your aunt today so that wouldn’t be fun for anyone.

You gained 2 pounds in 1 month, which is exactly on target, and you’re 23 inches long. All your measurements are right around the 50th percentile so you’re perfectly average in terms of stats. I grew you good, I did.

You’re 8 weeks old today. How about that. It’s rainy and mild - nearly 50. This is strange weather for Chicago in December, as you’ll learn growing up here. There really are only 2 seasons in Chicago, you know: winter and construction. Actually, we had a lovely autumn this year, which is my favorite season. Next fall you should be walking, my unholy terror.

Yesterday you laughed for Papa Mike. You’ve been working on it for a few weeks and it finally happened. I was in the kitchen cooking supper, and you were hanging out in your pack n play in the dining room, looking at the Christmas lights and talking to Papa.

I picked up your birth certificate yesterday from one of the courthouses. You are all official and stuff. I stopped by the DHS office to add you to insurance and the line was an hour and a half long. It was like the DMV on its worst day ever. So I think tomorrow I’ll go there first thing, alone, and brave the unwashed masses and surly employees. Again, just like the DMV. This whole process is basically curb-stomping my pride. I seem to be made up of 2 parts lately: pride and guilt.

You’re napping right now. I’m trying a new routine: eat every 3 hours, with naps in between, and then “tanking up” at night before bedtime to see if you can sleep longer stretches at night. It would work except for the fact that at approximately 7 pm every night you start screaming and crying until 11 pm when you pass out from exhaustion. I try really hard to calm you down, but sometimes you don’t want your pacifier, your bottle, to be held, to be put down, to be rocked or sung to. I don’t think you’re in pain, but it certainly pains me to see you fuss so hard. I’m told it’s a phase.

Just like not sleeping much at night.

You saw your first snowfall earlier this week, and lived through your first lunar eclipse. I haven’t weighed you in a while but I bet you’re at least 11 pounds now. At your next appointment you get your 2 month shots. I’m going to cry. You’re going to be fussy/under the weather afterwards - poor planning on my part as that’s the same day your Aunt Katy flies in for the holidays. I can’t wait to put you in your Christmas outfit. Papa picked it out for you, and it involves red corduroy overalls. Plus you have stripy socks that you’ll hate, and then Christmas jammies to change into on Christmas Eve. When all of us cousins were little kids, every year on Christmas Eve at Uncle Frank’s house, after Santa came we’d all change into our pajamas (usually sets that we just got). Now the youngest cousin from that generation is 18, and Uncle Frank is dead, his house sold.

But you and your cousin Charley are here as the next generation. Your cousin Logan is too far away to count for Christmas traditions, which is pretty depressing, but it’s still nice to know that the same family traditions have been going on since your grandma was born in 1951. The setting has changed (only 3 times, shockingly), but it carries on, and now my generation is responsible for keeping things alive as our parents start to pass away. You are so lucky, Brandon, to grow up in an area filled with literally hundreds of relatives that keep in touch with Chicago as their home base. Most families today don’t have that like they did in the old days, and even if they do, they don’t want it. We have our black sheep, but for the most part we get along. And from that I’ve made thousands of memories surrounding the holidays, most good, some bittersweet.

This week I’m testing a bunch of family recipes (Great-Grandma Lory’s paczki, Great-Great-Aunt Ella’s kolacki, etc.), and next week your aunt is making sausage with Papa Mike using the old family grinder. The cousins are going to Great-Grandma Millie’s house to make pierogi. One day I’ll pass these recipes on to you. I hope you’ll help me make them, and I hope you’ll be old enough to remember watching me make them with Papa Mike or with Great-Grandma.

It’s almost time to hang the ornaments on the tree, and you’ll love to stare at the lights. They’re one of the only things to calm you down.

The Internet, and many friends, say that by your age most babies start sleeping longer stretches. I say this is a dirty lie and really it shouldn’t ever be pre-supposed because it makes me feel hopeless and depressed. I am alone and exhausted. I physically and mentally am struggling to keep up. I’ve never encountered anything more frustrating than struggling to provide food for my baby. So guilty about supplementing formula. Silly, but it’s a strong, pervasive theme in culture, like how beautiful women are skinny supermodels. I’m failing on both counts I guess.

You’re sleeping in your swing right now. I think you like it more now since you’re a little bigger - you fit in it better and don’t flop around. I can’t believe how strong your neck is getting. You can hold up your head on your own now when you’re on my shoulder. Still not liking the tummy time, though, probably because you get so frustrated when you can’t flip yourself over. I don’t blame you. You still flail your arms and legs all over the place, which makes me laugh and makes me worry at the same time, but I know you’re just trying to build up both your muscles and your spatial reasoning.

Thanksgiving went really well, and all of your cousins adored the hell out of you. I think the only time I held you was when I was nursing you. Otherwise you were passed around like a…something. Your first real smiles emerged around Thanksgiving. These days you are trying to laugh, which is amazing. I wish your Uncle Joey could see you. I wish your aunts could see you. I’m glad Aunt Katy is coming home for Christmas. I miss her. I’m really, really lonely, Brandon.

I’m not sure if the Zantac is working or not. You seem to spit up more since you started it, but you also seem to have less tummy pain. I got a creepy nasal aspirator for all of your congestion: instead of a squeezy bulb, this is a tube that I suck your snot out of. The things we do, I guess. It sounds like much of the phlegm is in your throat, though, so I’m not sure if this does much. But I bought you a Fisher Price Rock n Play Sleeper and it keeps you at an incline when you sleep, which helps the reflux and the congestion. This is good, because although it doesn’t make you sleep more, at least you sleep more soundly. Alas, you’re back in my room, since you can’t really be in the sleeper unsupervised. So I hear your sighs and squeals and grunts and don’t really sleep at all anymore. But I’m adjusting.

Formula is SO EXPENSIVE. It’s what I’m asking for for Christmas. I really don’t know what I’m going to do for the next few months. I have to get a job, but I have to be able to afford daycare for it, and that’s probably not going to happen. I wish my milk supply could keep up with you.

I’m trying so hard, and I still feel like a failure most days.

You are the world’s loudest sleeper. Ever. You sound like a goat, or a seal, or an elephant. How can a 10 pound person make so much noise?

On the plus side, you slept in your crib all night long for the first time last night! Well, you went down at 9:30, was up at midnight to eat, then again at 3 am, again at 6, and again at 9. But you always went back to your crib and not my bed. I turned the humidifier up and the monitor down - hard to hear the grunting but I could still hear your cries. If that makes me a bad mommy, at least I’m a bad mommy with a few hours of sleep. I can stop hallucinating about the miniature giraffes in the couch cushions.

You have officially survived 4 weeks without me dropping you on your head, breaking your scarily fragile neck, or rolling over you in my sleep. How, I don’t know. But you did, so points for me. You’re currently napping (IN YOUR CRIB. Hell froze over), so I’m taking advantage of these few minutes to do some laundry, pump more milk for you because I’m nothing but a dairy factory, and send out some woefully neglected emails. And hark, I hear you grunting and fussing in the other room, so I will check on you soon and make sure you’re not choking to death on spitup, suffocating in the mattress, stuck in the bars of your crib, or pulling blankets over your head. THIS IS WHY MOMMY GETS NO SLEEP AT NIGHT. I mean, I love you.

This week you saw your first full moon. Hard to believe that last full moon you weren’t born yet. Everyone says, “I can’t believe ‘x’ is ‘x’ months old!” Well buster, I can surely believe you’re a month old. It feels like 6. No doubt about it, newborns suck. I love you to pieces, and I love that you’re learning how to smile, but wow. I never even dreamed it would be this hard to raise a little person. I have so much more respect for my parents now. If I stop and dwell on the fact that I can’t just walk away…well, that way lies a pit of despair. I don’t regret you, and I know you’ll be amazing, but having a child is the biggest upheaval a person can experience - ever. I think even moreso than getting divorced, or having a spouse die. The only more significant impact than the birth of a child is probably the death of a child. I have nightmares I’ll never tell you.

The doctor started you on Zantac last week. It’s woefully over-prescribed in infants, but I believe it’s working for you. You don’t scream after eating and there is less arching of the back and red-faced pain. You’re still fussy, especially at night when I’m trying to get you to go to sleep, but it’s not as bad. I think you just take after me - you start waking up after the sun goes down. Too bad I can’t currently function like that. Papa calls you Vlad the Inhaler because of your habits. Did I tell you that?

Well, time to switch loads of laundry, process this milk into bottles, and get your medicine, for the beast within is awakening!

In you, not me.

You’re 3 weeks old today. Your new thing is grunting - a lot, constantly, especially at night. I worry that you can’t breathe, but I think it’s one of the only noises you can make right now, and you’re aggravated that you can’t move around on your own yet. Right now you’re lying on my bed listening to Stairway to Heaven. You seem a lot more interested in this song than in some of the previous bits on Pandora (although you do like The Beatles).

You fussed in your crib last night for Papa Mike, so that experiment didn’t work (it took 3 weeks, but you finally frustrated him). As soon as I picked you up, you stopped. I guess you just wanted Mommy. And you actually slept on and off for 6 hours! That means I got to sleep on and off for 3. Funny how 3 hours of sleep can make one feel invigorated. Good thing, too, since you shit up your back, on your clothes, all over my comforter, and up my arm at 6 a.m.

Today your Christmas train comes in the post! Papa ordered it for you last week and he’s certainly more excited about it than you are.

Yesterday we went to Elly’s for breakfast and you slept through it. I think you like the car. Last night I tried giving you something called Colic Calm, which is this scary-looking black homeopathic liquid. At least it tastes okay. But it gave you a black mouth. Kind of neat, actually. My parents don’t trust it. You slept through the Blackhawks game, and so did I.

Now it’s time for waffles. I hope you like waffles. I love you, Bee.

Yes there are 2 paths you can go by, but in the long run there’s still time to change the road you’re on.