Aging rapidly

Another Thursday means Peter has aged another week, making him 8 weeks old today. As I’ve mentioned before the perception of time pre- and post-Peter is radically different. Before he was born 8 weeks would seem like a fairly long stretch, but now it feels like nothing. Not that it doesn’t feel like a long period of time, more like it doesn’t feel like anything at all. It’s Orwellian in a way (we have always had Peter…). Anyway…

He slept for 6 ½ hours straight the other night. He didn’t sleep much at all during the day, so by the time evening came around he was tired enough, but he didn’t really feel like going down. He wasn’t too terrible for being in a condition like that - he was more flaky than cranky. But his mom got him to fall asleep, though, around 8:45, and he was out like a light until a little after 3:00. Unfortunately, that was a freak event, as he was back on his regular schedule after that. Normally he’ll sleep in 3-4 hour chunks at night, with feedings in between.

I’ve found that I can get more giggly responses out of Peter if I speak to him in a higher-pitched voice. Normally my voice is on the lower end of the scale, and babies hear treble better than bass (which can be a good thing when those junkers with sub-woofers drive past our house, but I digress). The problem is that I sound like a Muppet that lasted one try-out before being sent back for further character design. Also, if I do talk like that I wind up stressing my larynx out, so I can’t do it again later on. But my kid likes it, so every other day I sound like Elmo’s neglected cousin Aloysius.

Peter has also started grabbing on to things more frequently now. Fingers, pacifiers, the towel covering his pee-sprayer while he gets his diaper changed, you name it. He seems to do it more often with his left hand, and he flails his left arm more than his right, so we think he’s a southpaw. We’ll see, though.

His mom has been carrying him in the Bjorn now, too, after having to wait a while due to recovery from the c-section. Peter likes it just as much as when his dad carries him around like that. But he’s also staying awake during walks more now. He even went a full 20 minute walk with his eyes open, until we got close to the house and he got bored. He definitely knows when he’s close to home. It’s like he has a little GPS in his head, and when he gets to within 50 feet of home he knows the walk is over and it’s time to complain. At least we can quickly get him to his changing table and distract him with a diaper switcheroo (which is becoming a favorite activity of his now).