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