James is 9 weeks old (Two months) and has hiccups every day

Lisa writes: James has hiccups EVERY day and has started blowing spit bubbles.


Dear Friends and Family ... Dear Framily,

James had his two month checkup today. He had to get 4 shots and an oral vaccine which he spat out. Way to stick it to The Man, James! He is now 10 lbs 10 oz and 23 1/4 inches long and will never get polio.

In just the past three days, he has outgrown all the newborn-size baby clothes and when I lay him on my lap, his head sticks out an inch past my knees. Carrying him on his own is no problem, but carrying him in his carseat carrier is really a chore. Every time I hoist him out of the car, I think of the (supposed) Greek athletic training regime of giving a young man a calf to raise and he has to carry it every day. As the calf grows and gets heavier, he gets stronger until he can eventually lift a bull. I assume that's where I'm heading with the infant carrier.

Like everybody does, he put James on six airplane flights by his seventh week. We were not crazy enough to plan it this way. All of these were planned pre-James. We were only crazy enough not to CHANGE the plans post-James. I had to present at a conference in Denver in May and we took advantage of that trip to let James meet my parents and sister Debbie and her family in Colorado Springs. And then we had a Seattle-to-Kauai and back trip where James got to meet my sister Lori and her family in Washington State and try out his new swim trunks on the beach in Lihue. He was a champion flyer. His favorite hobbies are being held and sleeping, which is exactly what he got to do for each of the five-hour flights. One interesting discovery [warning: skip to the next paragraph to avoid a poop story]. As a plane descends for landing, the ambient air pressure increases. This makes big people pass gas and little tiny people very abruptly fill their diapers. Caught us off guard the first time, but we were ready for the rest of the flights. [Poop story is now complete]

Daytimes in Hawaii were fun. Nighttimes, with the six hour time change, were hard. Tom and I are both very, very familiar with the pattern of the hotel carpet after pacing the halls in our PJs with a disconsolate James in the wee hours. During the day, we were pretty careful to avoid eye contact with any other guests on our floor.

Now we're back home and back to work part-time. Tom stuffs 40 hours of work into a 3-day work week while I work the other two days. With D.C.'s 16-week FMLA law, I figure we can drag this arrangement out until October. "And then what?" We're still figuring that out.

The first couple of weeks we had James were very strange. It didn't seem real and felt like we were babysitting and just waiting for somebody to come pick him up. Some days, it felt like a really long, unpaid babysitting job. Since then, he has gradually warmed into being "our" baby and the 2 a.m. feedings feel less like a chore and more like a privilege. We are so lucky to have this little guy in our lives. I love his big brown eyes and the way his hair sticks up and his long fingers and the way he curls up into my arms when he's sleepy. I love the way he smells and his coos and grunty noises. We are really in love with him.

Love,

Lisa