Baby Gabe’s cold is over, and he’s all better now. He’s back to his usual eating and napping routine. Unfortunately, his days of sitting contentedly in his bouncer while his parents ate are over. He always wants to be up at the table with us. We got him a space-saver high chair so he could sit with us during meals. We usually feed him his dinner before we eat. So far it’s been a success, but we sometimes put him to bed before we have dinner in case we want a more leisurely meal.
Baby Gabe has taken this crawling business to a whole new level, and it’s driving both him and his parents to exhaustion. Lately, he’s been sleepcrawling. We would wake up to him whimpering and find him on his stomach with his head up against the bumper at the top of his crib. He’s crying because he can’t go any farther. The craziest thing is that he’s still asleep and doesn’t wake up until we turn him over and move him back down to the middle of the crib. Last night, he figured 3:30 AM was as good a time as any to get back to crawling. His poor mom had to put him on the mat as he rolled and crawled around for a good 30 minutes before he got it out of his system and could fall back asleep. She thinks this is karma. When Baby Gabe’s mom was a baby, she would wake up and want to play at 3 or 4 AM, and it drove her mom nuts.
At this stage of his development, we know that Gabriel can barely see us, let alone understand what we’re saying. But there have been many times when we’re left wondering. Just the other day, his mom had to wash her hands and face in the bathroom sink. Gabriel was sitting in his bouncer and started to whine. His mom looked over and said, “Baby Gabe, you’re going to have to wait another minute. Mommy doesn’t have a daddy to wash her all over like you do.” He stopped whining. The day before, Baby Gabe’s dad was in the kitchen steaming some fish when the fussiness started. His dad looked at him and said, “Baby Gabe, I’m not done cooking yet. The fish still needs to steam for another minute, and I’ve still got to make the sauce and heat the oil to sear the fish. You’re going to have to wait five more minutes.” And he did.
Baby Gabe’s dad then tried pushing it a bit later that night when Gabriel got fidgety again: “Baby Gabe, I’m in the lead with one lap to go, but Bowser and King Boo are close behind, and I need to watch out for those blue shells. You’re going to have to wait five more minutes.” That one didn’t work. Gabriel started screaming so his dad had to pause the game (which he later lost when Luigi came out of nowhere and zapped everyone right before the last turn).
Gabriel turned three months old this weekend! We celebrated with a nice lunch out with friends at a Japanese BBQ restaurant and cooked up a yummy meal at home for dinner. It’s weird because on the one hand, it seems like only yesterday when we first brought him home from the hospital; but on the other, we can’t really remember our lives without him. We never forget how lucky we are to have such a sweet, good-natured baby who allows us to continue indulging in dinners out, nature hikes, shopping, and movies. Of course, the best parts of our day are all those moments we spend playing with him, nursing him, soothing him, or even just watching him sleep. Unfortunately, our love for our little marvel still hasn’t expanded yet to kids in general. There was an eight-year-old at a party we recently attended… Let’s just say we’re glad we didn’t meet her BEFORE we decided to have Baby Gabe. She would’ve waterboarded that idea right out of our heads.
Baby Gabe’s dad was a very picky eater who didn’t eat fish, vegetables, chicken feet, or thousand year old eggs. Baby Gabe’s mom ate anything and everything, including hand lotion, which required a quick trip to the hospital when she was 2. We’re trying to raise Baby Gabe to be like his mom (except for the hand lotion part), figuring he’d get a taste for all the different foods we eat from mama’s milk. So we’re throwing everything at him from Jamaican pork chops to Portuguese bean soup and, of course, all the requisite Asian foods. The only limitations we’ve imposed is high-mercury fish and cabbage (it gives him gas even Mylicon can’t solve). For his part, Baby Gabe just sits and waits for us to finish eating. He doesn’t extend the same courtesy to the dishes. Maybe he’s just trying to get us to use the dishwasher more often. That’s what it’s for, after all.
Baby Gabe has become a pleasant spectator in the kitchen. His attention span there is probably about 45 minutes so we haven’t had to change our cooking habits much. The dishes that take longer like stews or soups or roasts we can pretty much leave alone to cook on their own while we entertain Gabe.
Baby Gabe celebrated his 2 month birthday with three vaccination shots. He didn’t much appreciate them at the time, and he remained a bit surly for a few hours after them. Neither feeding nor bouncing nor singing “99 bottles of beer on the wall” could soothe him. However, Gabe’s mom knew exactly what to do. She laid him down in his bouncer and told him that in 21 years, he’ll have an entirely new perspective on having a bunch of shots on his birthday. He immediately quieted down, and the slightest smirk crossed his face.
