Feats of Strength

Hello everyone! Ezra's mommy here. Just wanted to share some positive news from the homefront... and some continued challenges on the sleep front. 

First, the good news. Ezra can now roll over from his back to his stomach! He had been rocking back and forth up onto his side for a while, so we knew it was coming. But just last night he rolled over in slow motion on the futon. Because it's so soft, and it was slow motion, I didn't really count it. But today he demonstrated on the floor that he's perfected the skill. 

He gets more and more interactive with each day. He opens his mouth in one of those gigantic full-face Ezra smiles when I come home from work, which is pretty much the highlight of my day. And he's having fun with peek-a-boo (when it doesn't freak him out and make him whimper). The other day, Gabe emailed me a series of pictures. The first one was titled "Um, I lost the baby." And the second was "Oh, THERE'S the baby!" 

And as for feats of strength, the kid's grip could rival that of my homestate governor, Bill Richardson, who made the Guinness Book of World Records for the most handshakes by a politician in one 8-hour period. Ezra grabs onto stuff and WON'T LET GO. See the video below for evidence. Gabe says he read that the ability to let go comes later. I guess that's just one more evolutionary advancement to make sure the kid can cling on to his mom's hair when she's running away from the saber-toothed tiger. If only mom's hair weren't ALREADY falling out from post-childbirth hormone insanity.

Now... the bad news. Sleep still mostly eludes us. It just took us about an hour and a half to get the baby to sleep - by 10 pm! According to one of the well-respected baby sleep experts - the kid's supposed to be down by 7 pm. And last night he spent a good two-hour stretch awake in the middle of the night, fell back asleep, only to wake up again at 4:30 am. I worry we have a hyperactive kid on our hands. Swaddling seems to be our only salvation, but even that didn't help last night. And what are we going to do, swaddle him into his teens? 

Anyway, we're pretty exhausted. But happy. We head to New Mexico on Thursday - we're all craving some fresh Southwest air and sunshine and maybe some powdery snow. 

Love,

Ash, Gabe and Ez