2 months

Dear Kellen,
You are now two months old, and what a crazy two months it has been! Your first month was all about figuring out when to change and feed you, and learning how to move you about without dropping you. Everyone told me that you would change fast, but I had no idea what that really meant until now. You've been alive such a short time and yet I feel like you have already become your own person. I have had so much fun watching you grow.

Nana Kris and Grandma Lois

One of my favorite things about this past month has been seeing you become more animated and interested in the world around you. In the span of a week, you began sleeping and crying less, and looking more, a quiet observer of the world around you. You started making eye contact with everyone (instead of just accidentally looking us in the face), and you can lay on your play mat and make googly eyes at the stuffed monkey for days. Your first little smiles showed up around 5 weeks, and have since evolved into full blown grins. These grins appear for me and your dad, grandparents, uncles, and anyone with a beard or glasses. If someone has a beard and glasses you smile at them like they've just told you you'll never poop your pants again.

Big Smiles

Grammie Ginny and Grampie Jeff

You are also starting to realize you have hands. HANDS! You love the way they taste so much that you try and stuff your entire fist in your mouth. Sometimes you will be so frantic to get...fist...into...mouth... that you smack yourself over and over in the face. I should probably feel bad for you, but whenever this happens I find I can't do anything but laugh at your frustration. Because really, watching someone hitting themselves in the face is always funny, even when it's my own son. Sorry. You are also just starting to understand that these hands (HANDS!) can grab things. Your little arms will swing wildly until you happen upon whatever toy you're looking at, and once you can touch it you will turn your hand towards it and grab it with all you've got. I am convinced this means you are a genius, and have begun filling out Harvard applications for you.

Speaking of body parts, you, my young son, are what I call an anatomical anomaly. You have monkey feet (inherited from your uncle Drew, I believe) that look like they could tie knots and cook dinner. Skinny chicken legs attach to the top of your monkey feet, and these join at the hip to your round frog belly (my favorite part!). When you're hungry, your mouth gapes open and shut like a fish. You also have a stretch that you perform right when you wake up in which you arch your back and jut your chin. This makes you look like E.T. and I can't help saying "Ellllliot" whenever you do this. Too adorable for words.

Monkey Feet

All of these things are bits of you that your dad and I have gotten to know in the last month. You are no longer a little blob of a person that we have to try not to drop. You are our son, and we are learning you. A week or so ago I was changing you, and you were looking at the window very intently (because venetian blinds are apparently the most interesting thing ever). I said your name and you turned your head, looked me square in the eye and gave me a big, wide grin. At that moment my heart broke into a thousand pieces. In the nine months leading up to your birth, nothing prepared me for how much I would love you. You are the most important thing I have experienced in my life so far, and I can't wait to see who you become.

Love, Mama

Let Me Count the Ways...

...that my child is like my husband. Because so far, I have seen little evidence that I was involved in the making of this kid at all.

Ways Kellen seems to be like Matt:
1. His forehead wrinkles, which were mentioned in a prior post.
2. His funny pointer fingers (also mentioned in said post).
3. His looooooooong fingers - all 10 of them.
4. His tallness (can you be tall if you don't actually ever stand up?). The kid is too long for almost all of his 3 month clothes, and he's only 6 weeks old.
5. His indiscriminate appetite. He will eat anything, warm or cold,  formula or milk, bottle or boob. He is a lover of all things made for his eating pleasure. We'll see if that changes once the culinary world opens up for him a bit.
6. His inability to wake up quickly. If Kellen had an alarm clock, I am sure he would hit snooze for an hour until it finally just stopped going off, not unlike a certain someone who shares the bed with me and has subjected me to this special kind of torture for years.

Ways Kellen seems to be like me:
1. He has a Holstad nose, although it is still unclear if it's MY Holstad nose.
2. He can frown like a champ.
3.
4.
5.
6.  ?


I digress.


Kellen is learning some lovely new skills, including how to coo and do push-ups. Below are videos of these amazing feats, as well as some adorable new photos.

Cozy after a bath

I may be brand new, but I've got a lot to say.

Grandpas are good for napping on

See how strong I am? That's right ladies. Take a number.

My kid is a MOVIE STAR!

When I started this blog, I had in mind a place where family and friends could go to see how Kellen is growing and changing. Much of Matt's family does not live in the area and it's hard to get together with all of the friends who want to see him, so we thought that this could be a fun way to share all of the exciting developments. My intent was that a huge part of this sharing would be in the form of videos - more specifically, video montages (can I get a MONTAGE!!!). So beginning with our stay in the hospital I have taken short video clips of Kellen and his interactions with family members, and have made them into two videos.  I plan to make just one for each month as he grows, but a few things made it so that there was not one video, but the two you see here.  First, we got a new camera the day before Thanksgiving, and I could not find a way to add the new, HD footage in with the video from the old camera. Second, it's my first month with this ridiculously adorable baby, and I had a hard time cutting out footage. Can you blame me?

And so I present the first video montage attempts! Before you begin, there are a few things that I would like to admit I am a bit self conscious about:

1. The shaky camera work. I am by no means a videographer, and I hope you don't get motion sick watching these! After all, I too sat through The Blair Witch Project and know that shaking camera = feeling like you're going to puke the whole ride home from the theater.

2. The music. I really struggled with this part - picking a soundtrack that conveys what I want without making it into a dopey, wanna-be tear jerker turned out to be harder than I thought. Also, our music collection is somewhat lacking as our iPod is filled with our CD collections from jr. high and high school (Mariah Carey's Music Box, anyone?). I do think I need to give credit to David Gray and Donovan Frankenreiter for the use of their songs though. Not that they'd care.

3. This is going to sound silly - the overwhelming amount of Kellen shots. I know these are videos made to show off my son, but only after putting them together did I realize there wasn't much to show what else was happening during these days, and that some of the shots are just plain loooooonnnnggg.. Also, I am sorry to the grandparents who didn't make it into the videos. I did get video of all of you, but it was just too dark to use. I promise that you will be in future videos, because  you are all important in Kellen's life.

4. This is actually not something I am self conscious about, but I would like to apologize to future Kellen. Dear Future Kellen, I am sorry for showing your dingy off to the world in the first video. And for giving you that awful bath - it was the first time we'd done it, and didn't realize how impossibly cold you must have been. Oops. Being cold builds character though, right? And yes, I do plan to show this to your first girlfriend. No woman will ever be good enough for you. Love, Mom

Hope you all enjoy. I would love any and all constructive criticism, but please don't be a jerk about it.

Oh yeah, and the music just cuts off at the end of the second one. Uh....

Video #1: 10/30/11 - 11/23/11

Video #2: 11/24/11 - 11/30/11, Kellen's first Thanksgiving