Part 2: Vanya
Vanya is 2 1/2 months old. He is harder to write about than Katya. He is a sweet, good natured, patient baby. He doesn’t cry unless he is hungry or he wants to be burped - and even then he only cries if you ignore the vast number of squiggly grunting signs he gives that something is wrong. He hasn’t cried at night for at least 2 months now, which is just amazing.
Since he is so quiet, sometimes you almost forget he is there, sitting in his chair or laying in his bassinet. That doesn’t mean that occasionally he doesn’t demand a lot of attention. He does. There are days he seems to be hungry all the time or simply uncomfortable. And, he does like to be held and talked to. He completely lights up if someone bends down to pay attention to him. He smiles and laughs and coos.
He has developed a mesmerizing cooing repertoire. Accompanied, as it is, with laughing and smiling, he pulls you in so that it is almost impossible to turn away. He uses a great variety of sounds and tones, including some impossibly high ones. And he bats his eyes at you as if you were his whole dependence and delight.
For the last two nights he has been working at twisting me around his little finger by sleeping for 7 and 8 hours at a time. I am completely charmed. Although I have to relearn how to sleep for that many hours in a row. He sleeps soundly through. It is I who keeps waking up… to check on him, on how many hours he has been sleeping, on when I might need to pump, on whether I have to go to the bathroom, on how many hours might be left…
He is very healthy and growing right on schedule. At his 2-month visit, he was in the 50th percentile across the board for height, weight and head circumference. He now weighs more that 12 1/2 pounds. It still absolutely amazes me, as one of Vanya’s older cousins highlighted for me by continuously asking to see the milk, that though you never actually see the milk going from your breast into the baby, that the breast feeding thing really works.