Luca letter: 3 months old

3 months old…or 93 days, or 13 weeks and 1 day, or 2208 hours. It feels like we’ve felt nearly every single one of those hours. I’m sure I’ve been awake for at least 95% of them!

So, how was the last month for you, little man?

Your first Christmas

It was your first Christmas this year, and you were so cute! Nana O’Brien got you a cute little elf outfit, which you wore for your first ever photo with Santa. I gave you the nickname “Blobby Elf”, because when we handed you to Santa you turned into a blob. You stared in our direction, but were resistant to any attempts to make you smile. Secretly I was hoping you would cry, because the photo would have been hilarious. Instead you were gorgeous in a Blobby Elf sort of way.

Christmas Day was spent at Nonna and Nonno Sofia’s house (the O’Briens spent Christmas and New Years in Canada this year). It was a hot day, so it was spent mostly inside. You handled it like a champion! You didn’t cry at all, you fed well, and had lots of naps, all of those on either your nonno or your father. Secretly, I think they were using you as an excuse so they could sneak off and have naps themselves! You got lots of cuddles from the family, and everyone adored you

Sleeping patterns

Your sleep has been all over the shop this month. At the end of last month you got onto a good thing with a four hour stretch, then you regressed back to 2 hours. It stayed that way for the majority of the month.

Then one night we drove to Brisbane, which we’ll call the “drive from hell”. You were asleep when we started, but we only made it about 45mins. We pulled over to give you a feed at North Lakes, then back on the road. Not long after, we had to pull over at Bracken Ridge. We tried to walk you to sleep, but you weren’t budging. Finally another feed and we were on our way again. Rinse and repeat over and over again. It was a mission to get you to your grandparents house. That night was bad too. The longest stretch you slept for was 45 minutes. Your father and I were absolutely wrecked the following day. It’s one of the rare days your dad has ever gone back to bed for a nap during the day – something he usually stubbornly refuses.

Towards the end of the month things got dramatically better. You suddenly had a stretch that lasted 6 hours. It was amazing! Except I was waking every 2 hours to check on you. I was so excited I actually woke up your father to tell him. He wasn’t very impressed, he asked if he could go back to sleep since that sounds the benefit of your long sleeps. So lucky him went back to sleep, while I ended up having to express so my boobs didn’t get rock hard from the feeds that were skipped.

Now you’re averaging between 4 – 6 hours at the start of the night, it’s great! I’ve probably jinxed it now, but oh well. I’m enjoying the bits of sleep we get while it lasts.

(The photo above is from a nap during the day, when it was quite a hot day; you don’t normally sleep without a top on.)

Your weight

You’re starting to beef up now little man! I weighed you in the other day, you’re now at 6.5kg! I remember when we first brought you home; I could carry you in one arm while vacuuming the house with the other. I tried to do the same the other day, and well, I lasted one room. You’re getting heavy!

You’ve gotten thicker arms and legs, and filled out in the face. To be honest, it’s so good to see. You look more in proportion and healthy. People love to grab and squish your legs, it’s very cute.

Milestones

• Holding things: you’ve started to open your hands and hold things! This makes things so much more fun! I can give you a rattle, or your pirate toy, and you will hold it and shake it. One game you started playing was to grab your bib and flick it over your face, although you haven’t worked out how to pull it back down yet. Clearly my attempts to play “peek-a-boo” are rubbing off on you. The only downside to your ability to holding things? It makes it harder to feed you in public, since you enjoy grabbing the muslin wrap and trying to pull it off you. Sorry buddy, but I’m not keen on showing everyone my boobs

• Rolling over: this was a late entry in the month but it was so exciting to see! The first time it happened I wasn’t sure if it was intentional. You were sleeping in the bassinet, I came back and you were on your tummy holding your head up. Despite all the tummy time I never saw you do it again. Until one day when my Aunty was visiting, I wanted to show her how you held your head up strongly. When suddenly, FLIP! Over you went! The second time I managed to catch it on your video.

• Saliva bubbles: mate, you are the king. We have to keep a bib on you now because you dribble that much. You’re constantly blowing bubbles, which is kinda gross haha. Lucky you’re so cute!
• Strength: you’re already able to hold your weight on your legs! You’re so strong. I’m trying to teach you the motion for sitting up, but you’re not interested. You stiffen your whole body, and so when I pull you up by your arms you end up standing straight up instead. God help us when you start moving, you’re going to be unstoppable.

Fun times with the camera

I’ve gotten a bit of a kick taking photos of you this month, here’s a few of my favourites:

How the family is doing

Going well! I think we are finally settling into our roles as parents now. We are still on a roller coaster ride, but it feels like the good days outweigh the bad.

Your father and I finally went on a date for some alone time together, and it was amazing. We went to see the latest Star Wars film. By the time you read this, you will hopefully be familiar with the franchise. If not, well son, we have a movie weekend ahead of us. Maybe several days. I don’t know how many they will bring out before you are old enough. Point is, you need to watch them.

But back to the date.

It was good to get out! As parents, we hope to be excellent role models for you. Part of that is letting you see what a healthy relationship is. We aren’t perfect, but we care deeply about each other, which means we want to keep trying to make time for each other as partners. Every month we still have a date night on the 4th to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Hence the Star Wars date. And while sometimes it’s not that easy, we promise to keep trying.

Your Nonna looked after you, and by the time we got back you were fast asleep. You didn’t miss us at all! That certainly makes things easier for more dates moving forwards! But once you start movingly I think you’ll wear both your Nonna and Nana out quickly!

Anyhoo, that about wraps it up for this month. Until next month little man…