Leif at three months

Leif made three months on Monday! I think that means he's officially out of the "newborn" phase and is an infant, though to me that happened about a month ago. Recently he's been doing a ton of vocalizing, and we have little conversations in which we coo and goo-goo back and forth. He loves to smile at us and suck his hands (he's really good at getting his thumb in his mouth - he usually tries to get both in there at once!). He can roll over front-to-back, and from his back he can roll onto his side. He's definitely becoming more awake and alert and interested in everything going on around him. He especially loves watching Augie play. (See Augie at three months here.)

His sleep changes all the time; we had two nights this week when he was up every two hours, which was sooo difficult. But then the next two nights he did 4-5 hours between wake-ups, so that felt so much better. He was either going through a growth spurt and needed to eat a bunch more (3 months is common time for growth spurts), or he was uncomfortable because he hadn't pooped in a week. Yeah, that's right - a week. It's not unusual for a breastfed baby to go days, even a week, between poops. Then he pooped three times in one day and slept much better that night!

Mama's baby boys

So I'll admit that I think of Augie less and less as a baby these days. He's getting the expressions, mannerisms, and language of a child now, and he's so big! But I finally understand what my mom has been saying all these years: he'll always be my baby.

Look at these two. Here's hoping they'll be the best of buds (and co-champions at Wimbledon!).

Augie getting ready for the tummy time shot:

Nope! Time to bounce around some more:

Okay, now he's ready:

So sweet:

Ahh, that's more like it:

And he's up!

Rolling over

I think we can safely say that Leif can roll over now, from front to back. I mentioned several weeks ago that he did it several times, and then it was a couple weeks before he did it again - but now he's done it several times over the last few days. So it's not a fluke!

By the way, he made 3 months today! I'm hoping to take some 3-month photos tomorrow to share with you.

Augie steps in to offer...encouragement?

...Or just to shake the bed up a bit to make it easier to roll over.

My two boys

Finally! I have some great photos to share with you...but I'm not going to tonight. I'm too tired to sort through them. Tomorrow Augie goes back to school, so maybe I'll have some time then (more likely I will try to nap with Leif all day to recover from the looong holiday weekend!).

But you can have one. This one.

Christmas

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days; not only have we been absolutely exhausted recently, but I wanted to take a few days away from the computer over Christmas in order to set those days apart from other days. It was nice: James and I actually talked and hung out with each other after the kids were in bed each night. That might be something worth keeping up...

We didn't get many pictures over Christmas, and very few of them were good. One of the things that I don't like about our apartment is that we get terrible light. Not only are we mired in the dark of a Scandinavian winter with limited daylight hours, but those hours we get the sun is only barely above the horizon. I don't think we've had directly light in here since September. And most of the light fixtures here are terrible and cast an orange glow over everything. All of this means that taking pictures is a technical challenge, and the pictures we do take don't turn out well. Which is so very sad, because we have this new baby and I'd love to be taking a billion pictures of him!

Here are the few we managed.

Leif snuggled in his bassinet after an outing (he barely fits in the stroller bassinet anymore; we probably only have a few more weeks of being able to snug him inside of it, then we'll have to switch to our other stroller):

Our Christmas tiger:

Packing his new bag for an excursion:

Playing with his new crane truck. He loves this thing; today after his nap he walked out of his bedroom cradling it in his arms:

Mama helping Leif open his present:

Augie trying on some of his new goodies:

Our little American

I never reported back on our trip to the US Embassy, did I? Well, we had our appointment a couple weeks ago, and it went just as smoothly as it could have and soon enough we'll have the paperwork - and passport - to prove that little Leif is an American boy.

Which is of course totally naturally, and also so strange - I mean, he's never even been to America! Unless you count the little tract of land that the American embassy sits on as "America", of course. He slept through his whole visit there, so he's never been awake in America.

We waited our turn in the American citizen section of the waiting room, lounging at a table, while the huddled masses packed into neatly-lined rows of chairs waiting for their turns to explain why they wanted visas to visit our exceptional, free country.

We'd gathered a ton of paperwork to prove our lives in the US (I had report cards going back to 6th grade, and school pictures going back to kindergarten!), and in the end the kind man made a photocopy of one of my high school report cards (all A's) and that was enough. A few minutes later we were called to another window to swear that we were telling the truth and answer a simple question or two (where did we meet?), and to show our sleeping baby to the lady behind the window, and that was that.

In a few weeks we'll have Leif's social security card, report of birth abroad, and passport, and he'll be officially instated (pun fully intended) as an American. He'll never be able to be president, but we have grander hopes for him anyway.

Recently

Augie's had a slight fever for a couple days, so he didn't go to school on Friday. It's actually quite nice for us when he's just a little bit sick - he's still himself, but he slows down. It gives us a chance. Leif is doing fine; he still fights going to bed at night, but it's not as bad as it was, and he sleeps anywhere from 4-6 hours for his first sleep, and then anywhere from 2-4 hours for his subsequent sleeps until morning. Not too bad.

Scattered pictures from the last few days...

Baking with Augie:

Leif chewing on his hand, which he's getting ever better at:

On morning walkabout with Baba:

Heading out this afternoon with my little bear friend:

Yesterday afternoon we stopped for glögg (mulled wine) and hot chocolate:

Getting Leif to nap this morning: