Dear Baby Jack: 3 Months

Dear Baby Jack,

Happy 3 months! I've been told that this officially marks the end of your newborn stage and throws you right into the infant arena. I'm hoping this means longer stretches of sleep are in our futures. Every time you don't feel like napping or sleeping more than a few hours I remind myself to remember this when you're a teenager and value your sleep almost as much as I do now. (I realize this is about the 100th time I've mentioned sleep, I hope that lets you know how much I love and miss it). We all survived through your colic period and I think we can all breathe a little easier now that there are less tears involved in the afternoon. (ETA: SOME afternoons...not all...)

(Not really loving taking selfies yet...)

Developmentally, you are right on track for other babies your age. You can hold your head pretty steady if someone is holding you upright, you rolled over from tummy to back, and you have been noticing everything around you more and more. Unfortunately, this includes when I watch Real Housewives of Atlanta during your feedings, so if you end up with a little bit of a diva attitude I think we'll blame it on that. You've also become a lot more handsy, leaving some pretty gnarly scratch marks on your face and my arms/chest. I'm pretty sure people are going to start assuming we own a cat based on my battle wounds. 

(This is how we all felt watching that Alabama game)

You still hate doing actual tummy time and spend most of it craning your neck around to look at me with a "WHYYYYYYY MEEEEEE" kind of face. Listen. I don't like to exercise either but I refuse to have a noodle neck of a kid. 

Overall you've become much happier and smile at people when they offer you a smile to begin with. You still like to tell us "agoo", sometimes with an "aboo" thrown in for good measure, mixed in with high pitched squeals. I keep trying to teach you mama but you haven't quite caught onto that. We aren't sure if you learned it from Oliver, but you've begun panting like a dog and will smile really big if someone makes the same noises to you. Hopefully you'll learn to be better behaved than Oliver...

It seems like every time we turn around you have a new skill or mannerism that you didn't have the day before. I do know for a fact that you grew a few inches overnight as all of the pants that were too long before have become Steve Urkel high waters. Hopefully you'll keep on learning (even if it is from Real Housewives) and will soon be able to teach us a thing or two.