Somehow, Bean is already three months old. I realize I haven't written her birth story yet- and truth be told, I may never do so, as this one was both rather uneventful and also extremely personal- but here we are with a recap of the first three months!
For the first time ever, I have been able to use real maternity leave- 12 weeks of paid time off that I didn't have to earn, that doesn't come out of my regular reserves of vacation or sick time. Plus, I used almost no vacation time during the pandemic, so I had lots of hours saved up, so I added an extra month on to the end. All this means that I will not be going back to work until the school year starts, when Bean is just over 4 months old- the longest I've ever had with any of my babies. And also the most stress-free- I'm not worrying about whether we'll be able to pay rent, I'm not worried about whether we'll be able to visit with family over Christmas because my vacation hours haven't been completely wiped out, I'm not worried about whether my freezer stash of breast milk will be big enough, and I'm not rushing back into the grind while my body is still physically recovering from nine months of pregnancy and the stress of birth. I still think the perfect amount of time would be 6 months, but I'm still excited to have as much time as I do and I recognize this is a privilege that most American moms do not have. To top it all off, Mr. Geek has been working from home since the beginning of the pandemic, so even after his 3 weeks of parental leave were up, he's been here at home, helping me when I need it. Sometimes that means changing a diaper between work calls, and sometimes that means taking his laptop outside while the big kids draw with sidewalk chalk and I sneak a nap with the baby. He's obviously not a full-time parent during the workday, but eliminating his commute has meant slow rather than frenzied mornings, and he gets to spend quality time with all three kids while I cook dinner in the evenings instead of sitting in traffic.
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| Day 1 |
Growing quickly! She was my smallest baby at birth, and in the first few weeks grew the fastest of the three, but now she's on a nice average trajectory, growing at a perfectly average pace. She had a small head at birth, so hats and headbands slipped into her eyes and upset her, but some time during the last three months her head got much bigger, and headbands and things that should fit her now are much too small. So, once again, we have a baby who won't let me do her hair! Baby clothes are definitely a big weakness for me- my favorite thing to shop for when a new baby comes along- but I haven't needed to do much to stock Bean's closet. She's got hand-me-downs from both older siblings, and they love knowing that she's wearing their clothes- I try to find pictures of them in the same outfits to show them. Add to that the fact that grandparents don't listen when you tell them you don't want them to buy her any clothes, and we've got more outfits than she can possibly wear! Plus, I've really enjoyed sewing some outfits for her, so she has a few special handmade pieces along with some girlie touches added to more masculine things she inherited from her big brother.
Eating exclusively breast milk, which once again feels like an enormous achievement. Like her big sister, she had a natural instinct to latch from the moment she was born, but her latch isn't all that great, technically speaking. I had lots of IV's poking into me when I was in the hospital, and my hands were the only places that they could catch a vein. Let me tell you it is REALLY difficult to hold, much less nurse, a baby when you've got tubes running out of your hands! Plus any time the IV line would get kinked, the machine administering my medicine would set off an alarm, and I'd have to move my arm back to a limp position by my side so that the line could straighten out. All of this meant that nursing this baby in the hospital consisted of quickly getting her mouth where it needed to be and then just holding her with one hand- or no hands at all, propped up on a pillow- without any time to carefully adjust how wide her mouth was opened or the angle she was lying at. And although we only did this for two days, it was enough to establish some bad habits that we haven't been able to shake, so nursing is sometimes painful (though it's gotten much better as she's grown and her mouth has gotten bigger) and I'm dreading the arrival of her first teeth. It's obviously not affecting her ability to eat, so I haven't been too worried. However, she won't take a pacifier, which doesn't have to be a big deal, except for the fact that she pokes herself in the eye trying to suck on her thumb and makes herself mad in the process. And also, we're really struggling to get her to accept a bottle, which is kind of necessary if she's going to go to daycare next month, and I think it's related to her bad nursing habits. I have built a small freezer stash and still have time to add to it, but we've really got to figure out the secret to getting her to drink it!
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| wearing a skirt I made for her, and a headband that was, in fact, too big and kept slipping into her eyes |
Talking less than her older siblings did at this age, but I think that's mostly just because she prefers to listen to what they have to say. When the house is quiet, after they've gone to bed, she'll tell me all about her day in coo's and goo's, but when everybody else is talking, she'll just watch with wide eyes and a big smile on her face. She will, on occasion, squeal for her big siblings, but mostly she prefers to listen to them talk. She doesn't really cry much, either. Mostly she'll just grunt when she wants something- if she actually cries, something is urgently wrong (generally a gassy belly, or she's slept more than 4 hours during the night and is now very hungry and Mommy isn't waking up fast enough). People have labeled her a "good baby" for this tendency to not cry, which makes me uncomfortable- there's no such thing as a bad baby, and a baby who cries is certainly not bad, she's speaking up for what she needs the only way she can.
Making facial expressions exactly like her big brother, it's uncanny! It's funny- when Chief was born, everyone pointed out her resemblance to me, and when Peanut was born, everyone immediately noticed his resemblance to Mr. Geek. But when Bean was born, all anyone would say was how much she looked like Peanut- not Mr. Geek. As she's grown, her face has started to look more like her big sister, but her nose is the same as her brother's, and the faces she makes are exactly like his- especially when she's uncomfortable or upset.
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| wearing another skirt I made for her, and a onesie handed down from her big brother |
Listening to her siblings talk and act silly to make her smile. She rewards their antics with big, beautiful grins, and so they continue to sing to her, and read her stories, and make all sorts of noises that they hope she'll imitate.
Sleeping sometimes, I guess? We hit a stride about a month ago where she would sleep for 5 or 6 hours at a time at night, but we've got another growth spurt going on, I think, so we're back to only getting 4 hours at night, if we're lucky. I try to take advantage of her long periods of sleep to pump some milk, but if that "long period" is 1am-5am, I'm not exactly leaping out of bed between those times to hook up to my pump.
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| wearing leggings that belonged to her big sister |
