Well, I intended to write a two month update, but then the days passed and I put it off in favor of changing diapers and falling asleep at 8pm and now here we are, a little closer to three months. And I just can't believe that my baby boy has left the newborn stage. If the last three months of pregnancy went as quickly as the first three months of his life, I would have done 100% fewer jumping jacks in the month of August.

So, let's talk new milestones. And I'm going to skip the boring stuff, like tummy time and muscle control and get right to the part where he belly laughs when we say things like "poop soup."

Giggling. It's on and I'm telling you as a new parent, there is no joy like hearing your kid laugh. I took this tip from Ry's sister, Kellye, because she's a working mama too, and with (close your eyes Kell) grown up kiddos, she's also a veteran -- she told me that she would ask her babysitter to never tell her when her kids did something for the first time. She didn't want to know if she missed it, so she just made like the first time she witnessed it, that was the first time. I'm rolling with that, and maybe Duke laughed for the first time while I was parked at my desk on some mundane Tuesday afternoon, but the first time I saw it was this week, so that's the first time it happened. You feel me?



A real and definite first, this Monday when I came home from work, Ry's mom was over and holding my sweet baby boy. I walked in and she turned him to me and said, "hey Duke, look who's here" and that little turkey gave me the biggest, gummiest smile, like he'd been waiting for me all day. If emotions could kill you, I'd be a million kinds of dead, because the drowning was real.

Going back to poop soup - let's call it PS - Duke went for like, six whole days without any PS and Ryan and I are freaking out wondering where all that food is going. Like, his body is tiny you guys and I have concerns about explosions. Whatever, he was going about life like it was no big deal and I'm ten seconds away from calling the pediatrician to ask if we need to perform surgery or something, and boom, fifteen gallons of PS. And another one of those little giggles.


My big boy is growing pretty dramatically. In the last three weeks, he gained three pounds and is hanging out at a hefty eleven pounds. Last month, I almost exchanged some Christmas pajamas that I thought he'd never fit in, but apparently he got inspired by the fat man himself, and started chugging the milk. Long story short, he's in the big boy jammies.

This little guy - he is just the absolute joy of my life. Ryan and I have been doing the love thing for almost a decade now, and I just remember feeling for so long that there is no possible way I could love anyone as much as I do him. But then we had Duke and it's like there's two chambers in my heart, each one has a door, and there is a sign on them. One says "Duke" and the other says "Ryan". The space has always been there, I just didn't know that my whole life, I've been waiting for Duke to fill it. Sometimes I wonder if there's more rooms, more babies, I just haven't realized I can't live in a world without.