Dear Adrian,
You were four weeks old last Tuesday, and will be one month old tomorrow. I would have said you were one month old last Tuesday, but apparently one month is not necessarily 4 weeks, so might as well be precise about it. But close enough to congratulate you on a milestone!

You're such a little cutie pie. That fantastic hair of yours, it's so David Beckham! Your Aunt Gail even asked me what styling products I was using on you the day you came home from the hospital. Um...IV tape residue? Amniotic fluid? Whatever, you still looked great. That tape residue is damn hard to get out though. I think you still have a little tiny bit in your hair, even after three shampooings.

Your hair looks especially great when it's freshly washed...all blonde and extra-fluffy. Then it eventually gets slicked down from everyone kissing and petting and nuzzling your head non-stop. I practically have to pry your big brother off you with a crowbar at times.

You look a lot like Julian when he was a baby, but maybe your eyes are a little wider apart and your face is a bit slimmer at the chin. You're definitely blonder. Hard to tell what you'll eventually look like though. I was stumped by Julian until he was about three months old, and then all of a sudden I realized that he looked like me. But before that? No idea really. So I'm making no predictions. And who knows, your glorious hair might all fall out and grow in a different color.

I certainly wasn't expecting you to come out so fair...what happened there? Here I thought you would be perfectly genetically engineered to have darker skin than me, what with your Daddy practically blackening in the sun and all. He turns into a shadow with teeth and eyes when he's tan. For me, a tan is an utterly foreign concept. I go straight to pre-cancerous lesions with UV exposure. I'm just glad that I realized that fact at age 18 and went into damage control mode.

But you're still perfect. Just don't forget your sun hat, and your Mexoryl-SX combination sunscreen. I'll remind you, don't worry.

So far you are really, really mellow. For 3 out of your 4 weeks you have not done much but sleep and eat. Even when uncomfortable you don't do much more than squeak in protest. Lately you have been going through a witching hour from about 8-10pm where you are fussy-fussy and just want to nurse nonstop, even though you get so full you puke most of it up. Typical baby stuff. Unfortunately that's the only time that Daddy has to hold you, right at your Peak Fuss Period (PFP). He's been very nice about being handed a baby at PFP, but there's not too much he can do with you. Rocking helps. He's good at that.

Last night I bounced you in your bouncy seat with my foot while I was creating an Evite for your brother's third birthday party. That seemed to help. So I guess it's a movement solution, pretty typical as well. For your brother I remember putting on a swing CD and dancing around for 20 minutes with him in a carrier and that would knock him out of fussiness into deep sleep.

You are super strong. Already you can hold your head up, even when held sideways. Your torso is strong too, you are making attempts to sit up, and to stand up even. Strong little legs! Not like that's any surprise, we weren't exactly expecting a weakling, but it's still impressive. When I hold you, you tend to hurl yourself in the direction you want to go. I have to keep a pretty tight grip on you, you're not the passive newborn you used to be.

You sleep fairly well at night. There are a few nursings here and there of course, but I barely wake up for them. Around 3:00-6:00am or so you start snuffling and wheezing, and I'm not sure if that's reflux or a little cold congestion or what. I usually have to stand up, hold you upright, walk you around a little bit, then it clears and you're ready to go back to sleep. By that time though, your brother is awake and ready to kiss you endlessly and talk to me and play with toys and eat breakfast, all at once. So usually once I wake up to hear you snuffling I know that's it for the day. We're up from that point on.

On some days, that's OK. On other days I feel like I'm going to die if I have to open my eyes and stand up. But then I don't die, I make it through somehow and just try to take a nap later on.

I can't wait for Spring to come. You love being outside. When we go for walks (still very short) you strain to see as much as possible, absolutely quiet and rapt with concentration. Then you slowly pass out.

Makes me long for a blanket outside under a tree on a warm Spring day...you are going to love that. And hiking, we'll do lots of hiking, as much as your brother can handle. Or maybe we'll sneak off sometimes when he's in preschool. There's a good idea.

I almost forgot to mention your amazing potty skills. I hold you over your potty at every diaper change, and if you wake up super-fussy needing to pee. You totally hold it until I get you over the potty, then let loose. I just took you after you woke up from your nap flipping out and you let loose a gargantuan pee as soon as your butt hit plastic. I couldn't believe you were holding all that in your bladder. Other times I can tell you don't *really* have to go, but you push a little and give me a courtesy pee anyways. How lovely and polite of you! I do appreciate it, since it saves me a diaper change each time, and you don't quite fit into your Gdiapers or your cloth diapers yet, so that still means saving a disposable that is not only expensive but persistent. Good for you. You're still not much for pooping in your potty, the total opposite of your brother in that respect. But since I didn't even try him on the potty until he was 8 weeks old, it's not really a fair comparison.

Well, I'm starving. Time for lunch. I'm going to make my first attempt at grocery shopping today with you, so I had better get my act in gear. I did just discover how easy it is to nurse with you in the Ergo today, so that takes a load off my mind. If you need to eat all of a sudden, we can do it relatively discreetly while strolling down the canned goods aisle.

Boy, are you fussy right now. No more computer time for me, you need to MOVE!

Love,
Mama