3 months

Magnus is 3 months old today! And it's hard to believe, but according to the calendar, this was my last day of maternity leave. As of Monday, I'm back at work full-time.

The week after that, he's scheduled to have his Glenn on March 3rd. Yes, the timing of the surgery and my return to work makes no sense, but I planned to come back to work next week when we were thinking his Glenn was going to happen in April or May, and our nanny share starts next week, so I may as well take advantage of that and go back to work for that one week before taking time off again for his surgery.

I tried to make the most of my last week of leave, especially since we also happened to have some beautiful weather. We took Magnus out to brunch and on some long walks, and he also had his first trip to the beach (he was awake in the car all the way there, and throughout our pre-beach lunch, then fell asleep 2 blocks from the beach, only to wake up when we were 2 blocks away again).

Unfortunately, Magnus has decided that he hates riding in the car, and will scream continuously unless there is someone back there with him to keep putting his pacifier back in his mouth after he spits it out every 20 seconds or so. Actually, if he spits it out and it lands on his shoulder, I have developed the ability to reach behind me while driving, grope around until I find the pacifier and then grope around to put it in his mouth. Which is probably not the safest thing in the world, but trying to drive when you're in a car with your screaming baby is also not that safe. I'm not sure if this new-found aversion to the car is a result of the fact that his car trips usually end in doctor's appointments, but our attempts to break this association by taking him other places have not been successful. I hope he gets over it soon, though!

We are very relieved that Magnus has been doing really well with weight gain in the last couple of weeks. He did lose weight one day (which meant another doctor's appointment, ugh) but then gained it right back after we increased his Zantac dose. And in addition to getting bigger, he's getting to be more and more mature. Yesterday, he laughed for the first time, and today he held a rattle (after I put it in his hand) and put it in his mouth (which might have been an accident, but I'm counting it anyway!) He knows our voices, and he smiles when we do something funny, which is, apparently, pretty often. He's also vocalizing more and more...I have to try to make a video of him "talking" one of these days.

But the biggest excitement of the week was the birth, on Tuesday, of Magnus's new cousin Oscar, my sister's baby. He weighed 7 lbs, 8 ounces, which is good, because I've been saying for a while now that my goal is for Magnus to weigh more than Oscar! Magnus is now 8 lbs, 7 ounces, and hopefully he'll maintain that lead! We're very excited for these two little guys to meet, but that probably won't happen until this summer, since Oscar lives in Massachusetts.