Three months old

Happy quarter-year birthday, Taylor-tot! Our baby-cakes has grown so much this past month, both in character and in size. She’s very alert and loves playing with her rattles and noise-makers. And she’s definitely getting bigger. The polite descriptions would be well-fed and curvaceous, but our “little” girl is already busting-out of her three-month outfits.

She is rapidly developing her personality and letting us know her likes and dislikes. She likes being outside and stretching out on the floor. She dislikes having the hiccups and anything that happens between the hours of seven and eight at night. Taylor is definitely a morning person. She doesn’t cry when she wakes up in the morning, she just lays in her crib and shrieks and coos to herself. And when I finally come in and she sees me for the first time, she’ll crack a huge smile and start swinging her arms and kicking her feet. And it feels like someone injected my veins with glitter.

She’s found her hands. She’ll slobber all over her fists and gag when she sticks her fingers too far into her mouth. She’s also grabbing for thing and has quite the kung-fu grip. I’ve given up wearing long earrings and necklaces, and there have been many battles over my hair while leaning over her on the changing table.

And now that Taylor is grabbing at things and rolling over, I now have THE FEAR. The fear of her lodging something in her mouth. The fear of her rolling over and suffocating. The fear that wakes me out of a dead sleep and finds me staring at the video monitor, waking up Chris because she’s NOT MOVING. To which he’ll reply, Because she’s sleeping. And then I’ll wait for him to fall back asleep before I creep out of bed, sneak into her room and stare at her in her crib until I’m convinced that, Yes, she’s breathing. And I realize how ridiculous this is, and when I ask other mothers how long the fear will last, they give me a funny look and say, FOREVER.