Dear Nate,
I know. Second children get the shaft. Your first letter and I'm two days late already. Who knows if I'll even get to finish this today. Let it be said that two children under age two is not for the faint of heart. You are a pretty easy baby, but your brother makes up the difference by being (ahem), shall we say, less than easy.
However, you have done several things in your first month that Harry never did, including weighing in at 12 lbs, 2 oz at four weeks. First, you spent nearly two weeks peeing all over Daddy whenever he would change you. Harry rarely did that. Second, you actually pooped ON the changing table, which we had never experienced before. Also, you have flipped yourself from your tummy to your back, twice and today got yourself from your back onto your side and were looking like you were going to go all the way to your tummy. You kind of just hung out on your side, but I can tell you won't wait too long before you start rolling. Other firsts include putting yourself to sleep. We always thought the term "drowsy but awake" was a myth. It didn't exist in this house, anyway. You have proved that it does and more than once, you have woken yourself up only to gracefully fall back to sleep on your own. Huh. I didn't think babies could do that. You are showing us lots of new things.
On your one month birthday, you outdid your brother with the most amazing poop blow out we had ever seen. We were at a park play group for Harry and you were happily snoozing in your car seat on the stroller. You had been saving up your poop for several days, as breastfed babies do, and I knew there would be a doozy coming. Well, as I sat chatting with another mom, I heard a "rumble" come from your nether regions. At first, you were fine, but you quickly started to fuss. I picked you up, wrapped in a blanket (it was a cool, gray day) and very quickly smelled something. I opened the blanket to see poop on it. Then, I saw it on your legs. Uh oh. I set up the stroller as a changing table and got to work and quickly saw that this was the diaper buster to end all diaper busters. It was everywhere: up the back, down the legs, up the front, on the outfit, on the front of the diaper, the back of the diaper, on the blanket, on the pad. I didn't know your colon could hold so much. You get the idea. I quickly enlisted your father's help and we got the outfit and diaper off of you. The highlight was Daddy lifting you up over his head, naked, screaming and covered in poop like that scene from "Roots" or "The Lion King". Half a package of wipes and a new onesie later, we were all cleaner, but still a bit sticky. I nursed you back in the car and put you in the mei tai carrier so we could finish play group. We got home and gave you a major scrub down. You slept really well after that. We joked that we should have just dunked you in the toilet and flushed. Either that or we could have turned on the sprinklers at the park and held you over them. Man alive! That was a lot of poop! No diaper could have contained that mess, and it just happened to be your first time out of the house in a cloth diaper, so we got to carry the mess home. I should have taken a picture to give to your prom date.
Anyway, Nathan. Little man Nate. Natey, Natey, sweet potatie. My Grizzly Bear. Grizzle. Griz. Clark W. Grizwald. My little Whopper with Cheese. You fit right in around here. We're glad you decided to join us. We've started to see hints of your goofy grin already and can't wait for you to emerge from your nursie, newborn phase. We'll keep the baby wipes handy and expect the unexpected. Welcome to the family, baby boy.
Love,
Mama
