we have smiles!

Jude is getting this smiling thing down pat! Good thing, too - he's got a cute one. His favorite toy right now is his Baby Einstein playmat, so I thought I'd include a few pictures of him smiling there.

That baby in the mirror IS pretty funny.

I've begun playing a game with Jude that results in huge smiles from both of us. It involves Jude laying on his back while I put my face close enough to his that he can reach out and touch me. Jude kicks his little legs and swings his little hands until he can figure out how to touch my mouth, which is when I basically smother his hand in kisses. While he hasn't made much of a noise yet, he throws his head back and the smiles pretty much overtake his face. Go ahead and make fun, but seriously - it's the best fifteen minutes of my day.

Along those same lines, he's getting better about learning hand/eye coordination and is getting pretty good at reaching what he's trying to get. Shawn will set Jude on his lap and put his hand out, palm up - slightly to the left of Jude. Jude will reach out and "high-five" Shawn. Then Shawn will put his right hand up, and after a few tries, Jude will high-five Shawn's right hand. He'll keep switching hands for a good ten to fifteen minutes and Jude will eventually get to where he can get the switched hand the first time. I think that kind of coordination might be a little bit advanced for his age, but I'm not sure.

I seem to have a lot of people asking me how cloth diapering is going lately. My theory is that they thought we'd give up after a month, so they're asking to see if they were right. I'm pretty proud to report that cloth diapering is still going really well. Jude is in cloth diapers all the time except at night (so we don't have to change him in the middle of the night, hopefully encouraging him to sleep through the night) and occasionally when we're out (though we're keeping him in cloth more and more even in those cases). In his two months of life, we've had to buy one pack of newborn diapers. Right now, he's in size One diapers and we've been using the same pack for at least two weeks now- and we're only halfway through it. You can imagine that my thrifty little heart just beams at those savings! Because he's also not using formula, the only thing we buy on a regular basis for him is wipes. We bought an economy pack several weeks ago, but once we go through those, I think I might try to make wipes. You can bet that Shawn will think I'm crazy for doing so, but he's always excited about the money I'm able to save. I've not found that washing the diapers is particularly annoying, at least not yet. They wash completely clean (the poo of breastfed babies is water soluble, so it just dissolves and there's no trace of poop in the washing machine at all - I promise!) and since it's been too rainy to hang them up outside, I hang them on the back of our kitchen chairs for a few hours and they're good to go. At this point, I think I wash diapers twice a week - though I think that will lessen once he's big enough to be in the diapers Mama and Papa Maurer bought him, we have several more of those than we have of the ones I made.

I'm also extremely proud to report that breastfeeding is going well. It really did get ten times easier at six weeks, and seems to only get less painful as each week passes. I think my biggest complaint right now is that I'm not getting much sleep. A couple of times a week, Shawn will feed him a bottle of pumped milk so that I can sleep a bit longer in the mornings, but I'm still operating on about four (he DID sleep for six hours two nights in a row and we're working on getting back to that schedule) hours of sleep a night. Let me clarify - I know this is a lot more than many moms of infants this age are getting. I'm grateful for the sleep that I do get, but two months of sleep deprivation can get to a girl! My friend Monica told me that she made it through her daughter's first three months of life by repeating the mantra, "To everything there is a season, and this too shall pass." While I love everything else about this stage, I've found myself repeating Monica's mantra to myself on many a sleepless night. Soon enough, he'll be sleeping through the night, and all I'll remember about this stage was the first smiles he shared with me.

While I'm completely rambling, can I just say how much more respect I have for mothers of boys? I was so frustrated with Jude one night - all he wanted to do was be held and cuddled by me, and all I wanted to do was be held and cuddled by my pillow and blankets. I couldn't imagine why the heck he wanted to be held so badly. My mind suddenly flashed forward to thirteen years from now when this same little boy will utter a grumpy "fine," in response to my queries about school that day and jet straight to his stinky teenage boy bedroom, only to emerge for dinner three hours later. I felt Jude's one arm around my neck, and the other arm securely tucked under his body. I felt his feet curled up tightly and listened to his breathing. I was reminded that he wanted to be held because he felt safe with his Mom. Realistically, I only have a few more years of cuddling my son before he morphs into an independent little man. I look forward to seeing him becoming a man, I look forward to watching his relationship with Shawn grow, and I look forward to helping him learn the difference between real men and adult males who act like boys. I genuinely do look forward to him maturing, but for now...my little boy needs me.

I make him feel safe. And I will not take that for granted.