16 Weeks and Three Days

On Feb­ru­ary 12, Mark is turn­ing four months. The tiny lit­tle thing we brought back from the Civic Hos­pi­tal on Octo­ber 12, 2012 mor­phed into a cute lit­tle boy. Mark doesn’t look like a new­born any­more but a baby with his own per­son­al­ity, quirks, likes and dis­likes. He is much more fun than dur­ing the first cou­ple of months—ahem, much louder and less sleepy too.

Feng and I are doing okay, most days. Yes, we are tired and life with a baby can be very intense with plenty of “get me out of there!” moments but Mark is smil­ing and appar­ently enjoy­ing us so… I guess we are doing some­thing right.

This win­ter is pretty cold even by Cana­dian stan­dards and it makes daily life a bit more dif­fi­cult. I can’t really take Mark for walk out­side when it’s –30°C, no mat­ter how “Cana­dian” this baby is. And it’s a pain to dress in lay­ers every time we step out of the house.

I think Jan­u­ary and Feb­ru­ary should not exist, period. Let’s rebel!

Mean­while, after month one, month two, and month three, here is month four… in numbers!

Num­ber of “Man­neken Piss” moments: Three, includ­ing a funny one before his bath. I was hold­ing him naked in front of the bath­room mir­ror, laugh­ing at the way he was dis­cov­er­ing his own reflec­tion, when he decided to pee every­where. Ah well, my fault—it was bath time, anyway!

Num­ber of movies watched: Dozens of French come­dies, Hol­ly­wood dra­mas and thrillers and a few indies. We also watched Django Unchained, the lat­est Taran­tino movie. I just hope Mark’s first word won’t be “nig­ger” or “fuck”…

Num­ber of toys bought: Two brand new toys, includ­ing a cud­dly ele­phant (on sale at Chap­ters) and a “crazy cow” (on sale at Win­ners) I hooked onto the car seat to keep him busy. Mark is start­ing to grab objects and to enjoy rat­tles but I don’t want to buy too many toys—no need to.

Num­ber of pyja­mas that are too small: Four. I keep on retir­ing 0–3 month clothes, he grew a lot the past few weeks appar­ently. We tried to mea­sure him with one of these free IKEA paper mea­sur­ing tapes (not an easy task, he moves a lot!) and he should be around 65-centimeter tall (he was 45-centimeter tall when he was born).

Num­ber of fin­gers Mark play with on a daily basis: 30. No, we don’t have a thirty-finger baby but I’m includ­ing my fin­gers and Feng’s since he keeps on try­ing to suck our thumbs and pinkies. This is why I wash my hands a hun­dred times a day, and why my skin is so dry!

Num­ber of times we left Mark alone with his grand-parents: Twice. I bet my in-laws had a good night’s sleep after that, an hour alone with Mark can be intense! We are try­ing to “teach” my in-laws to take care of him and to teach Mark to go with other peo­ple a bit, but it’s not easy—he screams when mommy or daddy are not around.

Num­ber of times Mark laugh at my (lame) jokes: Pretty much every time, no mat­ter how silly my jokes are. This kid is eas­ily pleased! That said, I hope he doesn’t under­stand every­thing we say—gosh, I really hope he doesn’t.

Num­ber of new baby skills mas­tered: Putting his fin­gers (and entire first, some­how!) in his mouth; hold­ing his bot­tle when he feels the milk doesn’t go down fast enough; grab­bing objects (and his pants leg); rolling from sit­ting; putting my fin­gers in his mouth; play­ing with toys hung above his head; doing mini push-ups on his belly; mov­ing his neck with­out sup­port… All these lit­tle things we, grownups, take for granted!

Related arti­cles:

1. May & Seven Months… in Numbers!
2. March & Five Months… In Numbers!
3. Three Months… in Numbers!
4. Then and Now (Or Five Months of Devel­op­ing Mother Instinct)
5. April & Six Months… in Numbers!
6. Two Months Later—Pee, Smiles and the Month in Numbers