William, Month Two

Happy two-month birthday, William!

William's big accomplishment this month was learning to smile, at six weeks and one day.  He smiles often but unpredictably, so it's hard to capture on film, but our friend Michael got this photo of him smiling at a party at Kjerstin's house.  Sometimes he will stare very intently at someone's face, with a smile in his eyes, and start trying to work his mouth into a smile.  You can see him sort of twist and wiggle his lips around, sometimes for a minute or two, before he opens his mouth in a grin - so it's still a work in progress.

Smiling with Zoe

William has also started making his first non-crying sounds. The other day, while smiling, he looked at me and said, "Aye-you." 

Keep up the intensity, Kumar!

At his one-month appointment the pediatrician described William as "intense," and he really is.  When he is awake he will stare at things with an almost panicked need to figure them out - I described it to Mina as the look you would give a bomb you were trying to defuse.  At first I was a little concerned by his fixation on staring at things (especially lights) but now that he's discovered smiling and interacting with others, he seems a little more well-rounded and not quite so obsessed.

Newborn clothes outgrown already

The hardest thing about having William so far is that I feel sad in advance about him growing up.  (And he's growing quickly - he's already outgrown all his newborn clothes, something his siblings didn't do for months.)  I love having infants around and whenever I have a baby in the house, I wish again that I had a baby in the house forever.

Baby feet:

It helps that William is an easy baby.  He sleeps through the night and spends most of the day happily looking around or dozing in his seat.  Unfortunately he gets fussy in the evenings and pretty much demands to be held from around 4-8pm, which makes dinner difficult.  Not to mention that in order to sleep through the night he has to eat near continuously all evening.  But I can't complain - feeding him from 7-9pm beats feeding him from 3-5am.

William has had a more peaceful infancy so far than Arthur did.  Both Beatrice and Arthur treat him gently, and they both clearly love them, but they are mostly too busy with one another to pay him much attention.  Which means he isn't constantly poked, prodded, and attacked like Arthur was by his sister.  I worry a little that he'll feel left out when he's older because B and Arthur are so close, but at least for now it means he gets almost as much attention as a first baby, with far less bruising than his brother had.

 

 

 

 

 

Stephanie sent me this personalized infant bath robe and it's my favorite thing in the world:

 

Dev and William:

 

 

This man has three children.

Last night Arthur asked me, "Is William our baby?"
"Yes."
"And he will always be our baby. Someday he will be a grown-up but he will still be our baby."