Barnabas Monkeypants

Tomorrow, Henry will turn 3 months old. This is mind boggling to me. I’m not sure, though, if it’s gone incredibly fast or incredibly slow.

In some ways, it seems like we came home from the hospital yesterday. In others, it seems like I’ve been a father for years (and that’s not a bad thing, mind you).

It’s fast because Henry’s gotten so big, so long, so hairy (okay, I lied about that last one: he’s still pretty bald). He’s doubled his weight since birth and probably grown 6 inches, and everything about him (except for his flat stomach) has gotten so much bigger. I was looking at some of the pictures of when he was born, and, my God, was he small. I could easily hold him in one arm, have him curl up next to me in the crook of my elbow, and never tire. Now, it’s a two armed job (one under the butt, the other around his shoulders), and after only a few minutes, I have to start shifting him around or put him down or hand him off to Kristen (or if she’s not around, some stranger).

But it’s slow because, if you think about it, everything he does for the first time takes so long to actually happen. What I mean is this: one day, Henry was able to grab something and hold on to it (not a reflexive grab like when you let him wrap his hand around your finger but actually reaching out). Of course, it just didn’t happen like that. When you look back, you see that at first he started waving his arms around; then he waved his arms at something; then he started to open and close his fists when he touched something; then it became less of a wave and more of a reach. Well, you get the idea.

Babies don’t suddenly roll over or crawl or play poker. The start with moving their hips or pumping their legs or Go Fish.

And I like this incrementalization. I like the (pardon the pun) baby steps. It’s completely fascinating and heart warming. Because everything we’ve learned each week, he’s learned too.

So… with that out of the way, what have we learned.

We learned that Rich Little had better watch out because Henry is now the best mimic on the planet. I’ve already written about how he loves sticking out his tongue or opening his mouth or smiling when Kristen or I do it. But now, he’s gone on to sounds. The other day, I was playing with him, and he was chattering away (he’s quite the gossip), and I said “goo” to him. This is something you say to a baby; I have no idea why, but it is. Well, who “goo’s” in return but Henry. I don’t really think anything of it because he was yapping him gums and that could’ve been just the next thing on his mind. Until the next day when, picking him up from a nap, I again say “goo”. “Mmmmmmmm-goo!” says Henry, smiling his toothless smile.

Well hot damn! That’s something! Yesterday, Kristen said “hi”, and Henry said “hi” back. He doesn’t always do it, and I don’t think that he really knows what he’s doing, but it’s still pretty exciting.

We also learned that Henry can laugh. Our little monster is one heck of a smiler. All the time he’s smiling, whether it’s to Kristen or me or the cleaning lady or the mailman. Smiles all around. Sometimes, when he’s really excited, he would grunt while smiling. But a couple of days ago, after coming home from work, I was holding Henry and singing a Jackson 5 song (“ABC”) and Kristen was dancing and making funny faces and waving her arms in the air. Well, Henry thought this was the funniest, silliest thing ever, and he smiled and start to laugh.

We didn’t record it, but it sounded something like this: uh uh uh uh ee ee uh oh. Okay, there are no hee hee’s or ha ha’s or guffaws there, but believe me, it was a laugh.

Of course, right after laughing, Kristen and I got so excited, we tossed Henry in the air (that’s a lie) and screamed like a banshee (another lie), that Henry was a bit shocked and began to cry (that’s true). We have to learn to be a little more subdued in our baby excitement.

And we learned that Kristen is going to be a complete and total wreck in about 4 days when she has to go back to work. I’ve made many suggestions to Kristen about how we could still be financially solvent if she could quit her job and stay home with Henry all the time (stop paying the mortgage, rob a bank, win the lottery), but none seem particularly wise in the long run. Our friend Melissa went back to work this past Tuesday, and as we shared a train ride downtown, I tried my best to distract her, make her not think too much about her daughter Talia, but I’m sure by the time she got to her desk she was a bit of a wreck.

So if you see Kristen on Monday or talk to her or e-mail her, just tell her that everything will be okay and reassure her that I’m not at home trying to see how long Henry can go without napping. (Not to worry, honey. No experiments involving Henry for at least a year.)

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 20th, 2008 at 5:46 pm and is filed under What We've Learned. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.