20 weeks

Oh sweet Succotash, your mama is tired today. It's not your fault, or at least not entirely. The batteries on the blackout shades died (speak to your father, please, for details about why one needs to have battery-powered blackout shades), and so this morning you awoke ready for tambourine practice right at dawn, or rather, an hour and change earlier than usual. It meant you were more than ready for your post-second breakfast boob nap, which lasted a comfortable hour and a half on the sofa, during which your mother read the newspaper on her phone and did not sleep. So here I am, at the library, trying to work in the three hour block I have carved out, and instead I am alternately staring into space and writing to you on your secret baby blog.

On Tuesday, Mardi Gras, you turned 20 weeks old. At 20 weeks you have become very interested in toys. You like sitting in your new high chair, which props you sufficiently enough that you might as well be sitting up all by yourself, and your hands bat with ever-increasing intent and specificity at the bead tabletop toy my friend Laurie gave you. You are now able to push the beads up and down and over, and they make pleasant clacking sounds, and then you want to put them in your mouth badly enough that you sometimes get frustrated and require a hug. You also enjoy this weeble-wobble green and white ball thing that my parents gave you for Christmas, which has nice nubbies on it for gnawing. The volume of drool you are producing is nothing short of immense. I have had to emergency order two packets of drool bibs from Amazon, and you can go through one in ten minutes. I will change your bib when I change your diaper, cheerily saying "Bib! New bib!" when I fasten it around your neck, and you grin up at me and wiggle in glee.

You have the best most charming and wonderful toothless grin I have ever seen, and lately since I've been taking you into bed for snuggles and breakfast in the predawn darkness and a little more dozing for me, I get to see your toothless grin first thing when I open my eyes to begin the day in earnest. I am addicted to your grin, I think. I am thinking about it now, and how eager I am to see you again, which I will in two short hours, when my work time comes to an end.

And that is how things stand in this, your 20th week of life.