3 Months

Dear Kellen,

Yesterday was your 3 month birthday.

You have become an interesting little baby with a huge personality all your own.  Every day we learn a little more about you, about what you like and dislike. Here's a summary:

Likes:

• Being naked. Oh man, do you love being naked. You kick and squirm and smile, and I swear you would live in an all naked world if we let you. Oh lord. Please don't grow up to be a nudist. 
• Your giraffe book. It has bright colors and fun pictures, and words like "knobbly" to describe the giraffe. It also has a page that states "If I were a giraffe, my neck would be so long I could reach the moon!" which is obviously wrong and stupid and so I don't read that page to you. But you don't know or care, because you're a baby.
• Your fists. They are a source of comfort to you and you try to fit them into your mouth whole on a daily basis. This never works, but you sure seem to enjoy the challenge.
• Your grandparents. Each has a different way of interacting with you. They all love you so much it's palpable, and you have a special set of smiles reserved for each of them.
• The kitchen fan. I have actually been meaning to take a video of you and your love for the kitchen fan. If you are fussing, all we have to do is walk you to the kitchen, turn on the stove fan and you immediately quiet down. Such a fun and helpful party trick!

Your comforting fists

Dislikes:

• Farting. To me this is not intuitive, because you also hate having gas, but so often when you fart you also cry. Which is adorable, of course.
• Getting dressed. When we pull those onesies over your head you cry and whine and just HATE IT. See "Being naked" above.
• Being put in your carseat. Why oh WHY do you hate being put in your carseat?! Once you're in it and we've taken you outside, you stop screaming and actually seem to enjoy watching the world go by. But the minute you realize you're being set inside the BUCKET OF HELL, you lose it.
• Lukewarm formula. The temperature of your formula didn't used to matter to you, but all of a sudden you have become very particular about how warm it is when it enters your mouth and will twist away from the bottle if it isn't juuuuust riiiight. I guess I can't blame you.

On my part, I am finding that there are so many things about you that amaze me and knock me off my feet. 

• The way you smile at me when I come to get you from your crib after a long nights sleep (normally your dad gets you in the morning, but some days when he leaves really early, I get to creep in and find you looking around your room quietly. Once you notice me, you smile as if to say "Hey, it's you! I know you! How nice that you're here!"). 
• How cute you are in the dresses we put you in to sleep. I think they're technically called layettes, but c'mon. Layette is a fancy word for nightgown, which is a fancy word for dress. You sleep in a dress, and I can't wait to tell all your middle school friends about it.
• Speaking of smiles, I love how there are times when you smile so big that you can't contain it, and end up wriggling with the pure pleasure of it all. It's as if you can't open your mouth wide enough to express how happy you are. 
• When you nurse, you close your eyes halfway, stick your elbow up in the air and wiggle your fingers slowly. Oh my son, this is a special sight that can only be truly appreciated from my viewpoint looking down at you, and I feel so privileged to be able to see you this way every day.

Just last week you learned how to roll over from your stomach to your back. For your entire life you hated tummy time, just hated it, and would kick and scream and cry whenever we set you on your belly with mere minutes of relief from this crying. Then one day, you propped yourself up on your elbows, looked around and PLOP! Over you went. One day you will crawl, and then walk, and then run and drive and date and move out and ohmygod. But I have been working very hard to remind myself to enjoy you as you are now, my sweet little bundle of a baby boy. Because while we will have decades with you as a man, years with you as a teenager and little boy, we really only have months with you as a baby. Your 3 months here with us so far have been an incredible journey, and we've only just begun.

I love you so much Kelly-Belly.

Love,

Mama