An ode to T-Bone

No, not the steak.

This is an ode to the funny little boy who entered my life silently a few months ago, only to make up for his lack of crying at the moment of birth with a loud, crazy bout of screaming that lasted several weeks.

Turns out, what they tell you about colicky babies is true. At age three months, he is a new man.

From zoo and Thomas 3 months

From May fun

(In the above photo he has a flower in his hair from his big sister, who wanted him to look pretty.)
Thomas, known in our house by his street name, T-Bone, started smiling when he was about 6 weeks old, but he didn't choose to really use it much then. And there is no one who looks more angry than he does when he screams. Once, when I was clothes shopping, he started screaming uncontrollably, and the woman at the cash register looked at me like I had beaten him or something. His face screwed up, and his wails were high-pitched and shrill, like a hurt child. Her face softened noticeably when she saw he could be calmed down by my mother running around the store with him at top-speed (he's kind of a thrill-seeker). She admitted that she thought he was hurt at first when he started screaming. Those screams were so hard to handle, and I was scared to go out in public for anything that required more than 15 minutes because I didn't know when he would go off.

But when he was 10 weeks old, some kind of miracle occured. He smiles almost constantly. He belly laughs at the mere thought of me tickling him. He is finally human.

I hope that doesn't sound too cold. I kind of want people to know that it's OK not to totally fall in love with your new child immediately. Soon enough, we all love our kids more than anything else. We still bonded immediately, but in a different way. Mostly I just worried about him. I loved him from the beginning, but it took us three weeks to really get to know each other, and another few for us to have fun together.

Today, I couldn't love T-Bone more. He brightens up a room with his adorable, full-body smile, and I love the way he is constantly trying to move- demanding to sit rather than lay on a blanket.

From another zoo, Thomas sitting up

Yep, he's sitting up, just two days after his 3-month birthday, although he does still hang out by his toes. When he does lay down, he spends his time kicking and pushing forward in a baby army-crawl.

He is a major talker. He doesn't have consonants down yet, but he'll coo for 10 minutes at a time. I love our conversations.

During the day, he still doesn't sleep. He prefers to be up and around the action. At night, however, he goes down peacefully and gives his tired mother a good eight hours rest.

Really, who could ask for more?