Touchy Feely

I've put mittens on you as of late Cesar. Not always, just mainly when I can't constantly pull your hands out of your mouth. You absolutely hate them, and I expect I know why. Originally we suspected you might be teething, but now I'm not so sure. I think you are beginning to explore your world, and you find your hands amazing.

Last night, (or very early this morning, since we stay up late due to Vincent's job), I was sitting on the loveseat with you. I had you propped up on my knees, as I was using the whole loveseat as a grand chair to spread myself out on. This meant that to your right was the rest of the living room, and to your left were cushions. I was relaxing, playing with you facing me. This way I could also watch TV with Vincent, who sat on the couch. I took off your mittens, so we could play. That's when you decided, to my surprise, to reach out and feel the cushions. It wasn't one of those fluke motions either. Typically your hands have just kind of flailed around, and if they just so happen to come in contact with something, you grab it. This was more than that. You looked closely at the burnt orange and dark blue pattern. You'd lift your hand an inch or so and put it back in a rigid motion, and try to grab the the square blue patch of material. I told Vincent, and we both watched in awe. Cesar, you're finally realizing that you can affect the world around you with your hands!

I grabbed your rabbit. It's an orange rabbit made by Infantino passed to us by my brother (who I might add got it at a garage sale). It's just the coolest rabbit, orange with all sorts of different textured materials on each long ear, and rattles in the feet, belly, and the butterfly it holds in its paw. You love your Infantino Rabbit, but yesterday you actually began to reach out and feel it with your hands like it was a study. I'm so pleased that you've taken such an interest in the world around you. Even this morning when I gave you your rabbit you began to feel him again with those jagged movements. Rocky as they may be, it's wonderful to watch. Soon you'll be playing with all sorts of toys, and probably sticking them in your mouth too.

Above: During "naked time" you are amongst lots of toys. Your Infantino Rabbit is to the right, but you can hardly see him in this photo. To the left is your monkey, George, another favorite. You started to reach your hands out during playtime earlier this month, as in this picture, but you weren't really coordinated to understand that grabbing for a toy was a completable task. (August 2011)

See You Smiling

Three Months Old

It’s a little on the late side to start a blog, I realize that. Cesar, you have become king of my world since you were born on May 18, 2011. At first, I was too shocked by everything that had happened to be overwhelmed with emotion. It took a while to feel everything I do now, particularly because I hate hospitals and being stuck in one for five days was probably the worst experience ever. But that’s another story, the ending in fact to my last blog, My Nothing To Something
 Cesar, I am absolutely devoted to making your life, and thus my life, the most profound it can be before you start talking and arguing with me about why you can‘t have two toys instead of one or asking me a million times, “Why? Why? Why?” (Of course, I look forward to that too.) I can honestly say that since you were born, I have been more active, dare I say, the busiest ever. I feel like I’ve just gotten a good grip on life. So much has happened, for me, and for you. Starting now, I’m afraid I can’t recall the exact date that you smiled, except that it was in your sleep and gradually came to be while you were awake. I cannot tell you how wonderful it felt the first time you gripped my hand all on your own, surely by accident, but it was a fantastic feeling none the less. Or the time I tried snapping your cloth diapers a little too tight, and accidentally pinched you so that you cried and I felt just dreadful about it. All those memories I had been meaning to account for, that way in your future I could tell you all about them. I wanted to brag about how the day after you finally came home from the hospital, we did not have the luxury of sitting around, but rather my mother and I went out running errands and Vincent got right back to work. Or how all that nonsense about not being able to cook or clean with a new baby was, as I suspected, bologna, since I cooked, cleaned, and even shaved my legs. You were also a good baby though, I have to admit, and I would have loved to have written about all that too.
But, here were are. Three months later. You’re still growing at an incredible rate, so all I can do is hop on the blogging bandwagon and try to keep up from here on out.

So here’s where we are at… you have just recently started to realize that your hands can actually DO things. You are starting to reach out, while uncoordinated, but  I have always marveled at how brilliant your motor skills were. When you were placed under the bili lights at the hospital, you had only your chupi (pacifier) to soothe you. Unswaddled, blindfolded, it was all you had. At first you would try to spit it out, but once we placed your hand on it, you started to hold it to your mouth. It was your only comfort besides the times I could take you from under the lights for feeding.

Below: I literally could not stand the ordeal you were put through. But, at least the hospital was kind enough to make arrangements so that you would always be with us and not in a nursery. (May 2011)

Also, you are trying to turn over. Today, you were laying on your back and you managed to push your shoulder off the ground. I don’t think you found it fun enough to repeat, but it’s the second time I’ve seen you do it, so I know eventually you will roll yourself over, and THAT I think will startle you.
Right now, my favorite thing is when you smile at me. You have a wide, BIG, smile, and a tongue that literally does look like bubblegum. I used to wonder where they got that saying, “bubblegum tongue,” because I have never met anyone who has a cute tongue like that. But you’ve got it, and it fills up your whole mouth. I just adore it, because it’s the grandest expression of emotion. There’s no questioning behind it, no distrust, no harbored emotions tucked away by it. Nope, it’s just the expression of happiness. I do wish you happiness for your life. I think that when you are older you will not remember how to smile like that. I am certain I smiled like that for my mother, and she for her mother before that. And then I think, perhaps the smile is a gift for me, because when you have children, you will get to see that smile too and it will fill you with so much pride and joy that you will probably feel more ecstatic than your own son/daughter. It’s truly a blessing from the Goddess that I am thankful for, and an addiction. I can never wait long enough to see you smile again.

Above: Grandpa Harley and Cesar! It's so hard to catch your smiles on camera, but you loved his naughty military songs as he sang their lewd lyrics to you.(July 2011)