Butterball Baby

I gotta say, the last few weeks elliot's been looking like that weight has finally caught up with his tiny body and now he's a fat little round baby with a big double chin and a belly that sometimes hangs over his diaper. I'll take that to mean he's perfectly healthy and maybe we're done with the growth spurts for a little while (which, in case you didn't know, usually involves a lot more eating and waking up in the night). He's starting to do more and more like holding objects, squirming his body around, and making new noises. He can roll over back to belly but not quite the other way around just yet, but I think so far it's really just because he simply hasn't had the need. He realizes that doing stuff on his own is much more belly-oriented so he's really just a pragmatist :) He's also drooling a lot, especially when he's doing something that requires effort, you know he's really thinking if you have to wipe his chin at least once a minute.

Oh, and we also noticed that he has a bit of an occasional lazy eye, it's barely noticeable except you can tell a little bit that one eye is a bit off, although sometimes it looks like the right one and other times the left one. We'll ask the pediatrician but according to the internet it's not uncommon and usually corrects itself by 1 year of age. I guess it's just too much world too quickly for a brand new brain.
This kid, I can't put into words how much I love him, he's just so cute and happy, most of the time, and even when he's fussy and testing my patience it's impossible to ever be anything but in complete adoration of this little person that seemingly came out of nowhere and gave a whole new purpose to my life. I enjoy trying to understand him, anticipate his moods and desires, and though generally my best reward is minimal fussiness and maximum smiling that's plenty satisfying as return communication on his part that he thinks i'm pretty cool too.

Working continues to be difficult and I feel like a zombie for most of the day because he still wakes me up at around 5am and then I have a full day at the office, followed by occasional physical therapy after work, and I rush home to nurse and bathe and put him to sleep, then I have a very small of time in the evening before I go to bed by 10 - usually spent on cleaning up, preparing a lunch for the next day, and doing my physical therapy exercises (oh yeah, still recovering from the birth 3 1/2 months later!). Although we're still pretty exhausted most of the time, it is getting a little easier now that he can chill for small amounts of time on his own, either in his gym or just propped up with a pillow and a toy. I know when he starts crawling we'll have to chase him around to make sure he doesn't hurt himself or eat random stuff so for now i'm enjoying his stationaryness.