Words!

My genius child has been communicating words to me since she was thirteen months old. In the last month she began understanding me well enough to fulfill my requests, get something for me, put something away, select the pink shoes from the shelf, pick up the cheerios off the floor. She even seems to get a modified version of “time-out” that I tried this week, putting her in a chair that faces the wall and counting to 30. She actually stayed in the chair the third time I tried it. I explained what she did was wrong and asked her to say sorry. She looked at me and rubbed her closed hand on her tummy in a circle.

“Sorry,” she signed.

She uses a combination of sign language and one syllable words. My husband and I try to brainstorm all the words she knows, but we lose count. Here is what we can remember:

GENERAL
Dad*
Ball
Mama
Mimi
PawPaw
New
Day
Night
Star
Watch

Please
Sorry

Moon*

Baby

Signing

Time

ANIMALS
Dog*
Frog
Giraffe
Lion
Bear
“z-raffe”
Horse
Bird

CLOTHING
Shoes
Socks
Sleep Clothes
Hat!*

FOOD RELATED
Drink
Food
Juice*
“All Done”*
Finished
Water
Cracker
Milk
More, More, More*

MODES OF TRANSPORT
Bus*
Train
Car

ACTION
Swing
Happy Dance*
Bath
Play

Boobs**

*denotes a particular favorite

Leg Rolls

An Afternoon at The Grove

Baby Steps

Nine Months Old

My dear sweet Story, oh what an amazing month!

Between eight and nine months you quickened your crawl, started standing straight up from a squat, learned to wave bye-bye, turned the pages in the book by yourself, stopped eating baby food, spontaneously began a game of Peek-a-Boo in the back o f the car with your Daddy and took your very first tiny step. Are you exhausted? I am.

It started on a sunny afternoon, mommy typing emails on the couch while you played on the cow hide rug. You squatted, your legs covered in striped legwarmers that mommy bought at the The Mini Social sample sale. Then suddenly, without any hesitation, you stood straight up, turned your head and smiled at me. What might you have been thinking at that moment Ms. Story? What drove you to rise up and explore the world upright? Perhaps you were bored?

After you learned this trick, you began to add little flourishes like holding your stance for three minutes or hopping with both feet off the ground. Mommy watched with wonder as you experimented a little more each day. And then, it happened. You just simply shuffled one foot in front of the other and remained standing. I grabbed the camera and followed you around the house waiting for you to do it again. You added a few more steps that looked more like you were trying to break your fall as you leapt into my arms. But to my trained mommy eye, it looked a lot like walking.

When Daddy got home from school tonight, you fell to the ground and crawled across the floor like a monkey at the zoo when the trainer drops a carrot into the cage. You whimpered and wrapped yourself around his legs, pulled yourself up to his knees and raised up your hands over your head.

“Daddy’s home,” he said and picked you up to rest you on his left hip. Ms. Story Brynne, you smiled your toothless grin, hugged your Daddy tight and tried to bite his face. Then you laughed and clapped your hands, waved at me and said, “bye-bye”. This might be your first word.

You like to say it when you are ready to get out of the high chair. This morning I made you some toast strips, cut up a slice of turkey with some scissors, and left some scrambled eggs on the side of your tray. I was able to make myself coffee and a bagel while you happily fed yourself. You smacked your lips, made sucking noises and sang loud nonsensical songs between bites. When I tried to give you a bite of oatmeal you pursed your lips and turned away as if to remind me, “Mommy, I feed myself now.” To let me know you were done, you threw all the remaining toast on the ground, twisted your wrist and opened and shut your hand while you said, “bye-bye”.

Daddy and I took you to the mall last weekend for Asian noodles and there were a ton of screaming pre-teen girls at the Millions of Milkshakes watching a live concert by Dylan and Cole Sprouse. We wheeled you past the chaos and I poked Daddy in the ribs, “There is our future.” His eyes got a little misty as he no doubt imagined taking you to your first annoying pre-teen concert. My eyes got a little misty as I realized that you are going to grow up. At your current rate of growth, your Jonas loving days are right around the corner.

Slow down little lady. You have lots of time to be a big girl and only so many years left to be little.

Today you are nine months old. I still can’t believe how much fun you got in month eight, what is in store for month nine? It’s like your personality was born the moment your muscles flexed enough to hold your body upright.

I love you so much it hurts,

-Mommy

Story Provides an Update ...

To my fans,

Story here! And I’m writing my own update this week because my Mom is super busy with job interviews, chasing after me, and wiping my runny nose! I told her, “Mom, people need to know how many times a day I poop.” And she was like, “Story, Mommy only has two hands and right now I need both to pin you to the changing table to keep you from rolling around in said poop.”

I told her, “That is what toes are for.”

Well, she didn’t think that was very helpful, so I pulled up my iPad and got to typing. Let me give you the headlines: Mobility, Food, Poop, Sleep.

Mobility
The big news around the house is that two weeks ago I started crawling. Had I known the attention it would garner, the “oohs and ahhs”, I would have started it months ago. Seriously. My parents went nuts. Then three days ago, I decided to just stand straight up and hold my stance for a five second count. I thought my Mother was going to pass out right there in front of me. She gasped and cooed and followed me around the house with a video camera for the rest of the day.

Here are my top ten observations since crawling, cruising and standing upright:

1. Must my Mother follow me everywhere?
2. The view from 2’5” off the ground is spectacular.
3. Since learning to pull up and cruise, I noticed my parents have a lovely white couch stretched like a blank canvas across one entire side of the room.
4. My parents recently bought a cage and they throw puffs on the ground to entice me to crawl into it.
5. All of the chairs in our house are great teething elements, I especially enjoy the walnut finish.
6. Electrical cords are pretty much the tastiest things ever, I recommend you get the entire cord and plug into your mouth to really appreciate the sweet taste of copper wiring.
7. My parents have a lot of books, magazines, printer paper, newspapers and other munchies just lying around the house.
8. I’ve noticed a direct correlation between my increased mobility and the number of times my Father says, “No”.
9. There are so many rooms in this place! Who knew?
10. Did you know there was a little round sink in the bathroom just for kids?

I’m holding out on the walking thing until I milk this crawling/standing bit for all it’s worth. I figure if I pull out the big guns around Christmas then I’m getting all sort of new toys.

Food
Mom has me eating a bottle every four hours along with a breakfast, lunch and dinner of solid foods. Sometimes I just feel like I am eating non-stop. I mean, I wake up, I breastfeed and just two hours later I’m eating rice cereal, fruit, and toast. Two hours later I’m drinking a bottle, taking a nap, waking up and then, you guessed it, I’m eating again!! Lunch is rice cereal and vegetable puree and maybe some cheese. Well, I’m stuffed like a turkey on Thanksgiving by the time I get through the afternoon bottle and dinner. But Mom still feels the need to pop a boob in my mouth right before I go to sleep. I think the woman is trying to fatten me up so I fit in the 18 mos. sized clothes. Sometimes I try to trick her by taking my food out of the bowl and spreading it all over my high chair tray so it looks like I ate more. But she is relentless; she scoops it right off the tray and into my mouth. And don’t get me started with the songs she sings to try and get me to eat. It’s embarrassing. But it works! I just want her to shut up so I slurp it down as fast as I can. The only up side of this entire food experience is the puffs.

I love puffs. Puffs are these heavenly fluffy little star-shaped cereal bits that melt right in my mouth. I could eat them all day. And I do. You see, I hide them all over the house so whenever I want a snack I can just crawl right over to one of my hiding spots and pop one in my mouth. Favorite hiding spots include, but are not limited to, the following: Behind the door to my bedroom, under the couch, squeezed between the floor pillows, tucked into Mommy’s brassiere, pushed up under my car sear, in the sugar bowl, in the creamer, along the bottom of the fridge, in Daddy’s slipper.

Sometimes I find other things in these hiding spots. For example, today I was searching for puffs and found something special that I wedged in my cheek and managed to hide for around six hours until my Mother discovered it half way through swim class. I had just popped up from a dunk under the water when I thought it would be a good time to sneak a chew, but Mom gave me a puzzled look, stuck her finger inside my mouth and removed the fibrous end of a green onion I had been savoring since breakfast. She can be a real kill-joy.

Poop
Most of my fans know that I struggled with solid waste for a while. Well not any more. In fact, I’m pretty regular now. Mom even suggested to me that I slow down with the nasty output, but I can’t help myself. I mean, with all the food that woman crams down my throat it’s only natural that I poop three to five times a day. She acts like it’s all strange that I poop like a normal kid, reading the ingredients off my baby food, consulting blogs and taking my temperature all the time. I just want to shake her and say, Look, lady, it’s NORMAL. But the truth is that my Mom can just be a little paranoid sometimes. Don’t get me wrong, I love her like crazy and can’t get enough of her soft lady lumps, but she worries about every little thing. Just the other day I was eating her parking ticket and it got lodged in my throat so I threw up like ten times in a row until I was sitting in a pool of creamy spew and my Mom just freaked. She pulled out the parking ticket, wrapped me in a blanket, plopped me down in the kitchen sink and started calling people on the phone. Really Mom, is this so traumatic that we have to use the kitchen sink? I’m bathed in the essence of breakfast and lunch, must I also be bathed in dish soap?

Sleep
All my Mother’s friends ask her if I sleep at night. Which got me thinking, what happens at night that all the Moms are trying to keep to themselves? Is there a Mom party at 2:00 AM? Does she serve banana pancakes topless at 3:00 AM? Do Grandma and Grandpa come over at 4:00 AM with a pile of gifts? I decided to launch my own investigation, waking up at various intervals to try and catch the adults off guard. I noticed it takes them at least five minutes to come and collect me from my bedroom. What are they hiding in those five minutes?

When I wake up at 2 or 3 or 4 in the morning, I need someone to come and get me so I can investigate the perimeter. If I just lay there and ask nicely for them to please come in and pick me up, they don’t even have the courtesy to come to my door. So I’ve learned that the only real way to get them to show some respect is if I scream with every ounce of energy I’ve got, turn purple and act like I’m throwing up. Mom is a complete sucker for this and will almost always come running, scoop me out of the bed, rip down her shirt and stuff her boob in my mouth. If I’m lucky, I can get her to walk me around the house to check things out. Dad on the other hand, takes a lot more energy. Whenever I realize it’s his shift, I just have to do a little cost/benefit analysis because chances are I’ll cry for twenty minutes before he comes in the room. It will take me another ten to get him to reach into the crib and touch me and then it will take a good fifteen more minutes before he finally wakes up my Mom who just comes in and puts her boob in my mouth. Sometimes it’s just not worth it and if my wails bring Dad I may just roll over and go back to sleep until I know Mom’s on deck. Annoying!

Mobility, Food, Poop, Sleep - those are the big headlines over here. A lot has been happening the last few weeks as we approach the holiday season. I've left out all the little stuff about how I smile all the time, give kisses, wave hello and make the sign for milk. To all you babies out there, save some big stuff for the Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas holidays, it’s sure to mean more candy, more turkey, and more gifts. I’m gearing up for some big stuff this week that my Mom can show-off about with her M.O.P.S. group, ‘Mommy and Me’ sign and song class, swim lesson circle, UCLA wives clique and urban sewing club. I plan to use my new tricks to gather chocolate for Daddy on Halloween. I figure I can find a way to get the chocolate to make him pick me up at night. Stay tuned for a Halloween update with some pictures of a surely ridiculous get-up that my parents will make me wear.

To my fans – Keep it real. I love you all. Nigh Nigh.

It Crawls

Hold on to your hat....

Story takes a stand. And life will never be the same.

Freedom is sweet.

Swimming Lessons

Dear Story,

Happy seven month birthday!!! So by now we know each other pretty well, and it should be no surprise to you that I occasionally isolate from the world, seemingly drop off the end of the earth and have no time to update my blog. But just because I don’t have time to write you love letters, doesn’t mean I don’t notice every tiny little changing detail in your world and note it with significance.

For example, just the other day, as we lay on mommy and daddy’s bed, bathed in the yellow glow of morning sunlight, you outlining mommys face with your cherub chubbed fingers, you took your hand to your leg and itched a little spot on your upper thigh where you had recently had your tetanus shot. You scratched an itch! While I know this may seem insignificant, it involved the type of pain-hand coordination that little babies can't grasp. But you my dear, you are not a little baby any more. I sighed and was overcome with gratitude that I am privileged to watch you as you blossom.

Of course, there are many more exciting developments then your ability to scratch an itch, but each one is special to me and daddy and I want to make sure that you know we see them all.

July and August were very busy months for our family and while you emerged unscathed, there were a lot of challenges and adjustments. For starters, we camped our way from Ina and Poppa’s house to Aunt Katryn and Pearl’s house and then to our new home in sunny LA. You LOVED camping. Please see evidence below.

I theorize that you just loved sleeping all night next to mommy and daddy and having every day together as a family. But you may have actually loved the camping experience of roughing it without daily baths, wearing the same clothes all day and sleeping in the car. All I know is that you smiled and laughed throughout it all. Even when mommy and daddy were yelling at each other about missed exits, what is considered a reasonable amount of time between bathroom breaks, and where we should stop for lunch.

Once we arrived in LA, we set up our new house and then mommy and daddy turned all their attention to you. This is when we discovered that you had developed some bad sleeping habits and we had to do a little Ferberizing. Mommy read the book and then Daddy read the book and we were all ready to put it into action when you suddenly decided to sleep right through the night from 7pm to 7am, all by yourself. Just like a little angel.

Of course, you didn’t stay in this zone, so eventually we had to Ferber. And here is what we did. We bathed you and put you in your footed jammies, made you a big bottle and laid you gently on the floor in your new room to feed you. Daddy read you a story and then we both kissed you, collectively about 100 times so that you knew how much we loved you. Then mommy put you in the bed and said, “Goodnight sweet Story Brynne. Mommy loves you so much. You are going to have a long sleep and feel so refreshed in the morning. Dream about colors and feathers and whatever babies dream about when they are sleeping soundly. See you in the morning.” And then I left the room and you screamed so loud I thought you were going to bust open a vein on your forehead.

Oh how it hurt mommy’s heart to hear you scream, but I knew we had to let you learn how to put yourself to sleep. I wanted to make sure you didn’t feel abandoned or ignored, so after about three minutes I came back in the room and kissed your tears away and told you I loved you and that I would see you in the morning. You calmed as I left the room again and then you worked yourself back up into a frenzy and I set a little egg timer for five minutes and paced outside your door. But then something amazing happened. You stopped crying at about the four minute mark. The longest four minutes of my life!! But you stopped and you didn’t make another peep until 7 am the next morning. I praised Allah, Jesus, Joseph and Buddha and told everyone you were now sleeping through the night.

But like always, just when I think I have you figured out, you switch it all up on me. Within a few days, you were waking up again at all hours of the night and I had to do the egg timer again to set you straight. I think you started to understand that we were not far away and were just on the other side of the door. You cried less and less and then it happened that you just started closing your eyes before I even left the room.

So now it’s been about two weeks of solidly sleeping through the night. Sometimes you sleep 12 hours, but most the time you sleep 11. You go to bed every night at 7pm and wake anytime between 5:30am and 7:30am. And some times, you just eat and go right back to sleep until 8 or 9. This is called "sleeping in" and only allowed on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

Sleeping through the night is such a big milestone and we are so proud of our little honey bear. But don’t think we haven’t noticed that you are quickly approaching a second big milestone; crawling.

We have tried our best to retard your movement and slow your mobile growth. Daddy would like to bind your legs together so you never figure it out, but even with your legs bound I have a feeling you would find a way to scootch yourself across the floor. Right now, you roll over on your back, arch into 'bridge', and push yourself across whatever surface you are on by balancing on the top of your head. This particular move frightens me and I much prefer you learn to crawl on your belly like the cartoon babies on the corner of the Gerber food.

You definitely want to move. Things that motivate a creative rolling or scootching technique and requisite tears of frustration include, but are not limited to, the following:

• mommy’s phone
• daddy’s phone
• sharp objects like mommy’s scissors and Global knife set
• mommy’s new 3G iPad
• medicine bottles
• full and empty baby bottles
• full cups of hot steamy coffee
• and the sight of mommy's naked teets

I’m pretty sure that any one of the above will finally get you up on your knees. But for now, I’m content with your frustration. What you like to do instead of crawl, is pull yourself up on things like mommy’s leg, the coffee table, your crib and the chest of drawers in your bedroom. You like to stand up in your new high chair when I try to feed you. And food is another one of your exciting developments.

This last month, you have started getting bored with a single serving of solid baby food number 1 strained sweet peas. So we started with the twos and adding oatmeal and giving you puffs and yogurt drops and cheerios and letting you hold the spoon and trying out a sippee cup, and wouldn’t you know it – you LOVE to eat!! You pretty much start giggling whenever mommy gets close to the high chair. When you eat something you love like pears with oatmeal and cinnamon, you smile and throw your head back and hum, “mmmmmmmmm”. It’s only the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard, besides the sound of you laughing in the bath tub.

You love bath time and you are usually so tired by the time it arrives that you deliriously laugh through the entire experience. Dad usually gives you a bath. It’s his special time with you when he gets home from school and I love to hear the two of you playing with your bath toys over the hum of the bathroom fan. Daddy has voices and accents for all the little squirters in the tub and when you are not trying to drink the water, you smile and grab daddy’s wet arm hair and coo and scream and laugh.

Your laughter is so delicious that mommy could eat it for breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert. Though I would have to get a side of baby babble, because that is also very nourishing. And mom needs a lot of nourishing these days. I’m a little homesick for familiar faces, spaces and sounds. I’ve never loved change. But I’ve always loved the idea of change.

Starting out new somewhere involves a period of transition where everything and everyone is new and you have to date new places, new meetings, new friends and new modes of transportation. Awkward first encounters are to be expected. But with each visit to the new coffee shop, each new AA meeting, each freshly discovered route home from the grocery store, it gets easier. And that’s a lesson worth learning and worth passing on to my baby girl. The quicker you push yourself into the uncomfortable abyss of newness, the quicker you emerge on the other side. When we go to swim lessons, we don’t put our toes in the water and then our thighs and then our heads, we just jump right in, take the shock all at once and we are used to the cold water before we know it! Which reminds me, we are late for swim lessons.

My dear sweet Story Brynne Hesson, one more thing about mommy is that she is always late. But again, like the isolating thing, this doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you or appreciate you or see you and all that you are becoming.

Let’s get kicking - Mom

Happy Birthday To Me!

Hello world!! Today, I am five months old!

I thought I was five months old when I was twenty weeks, but Mom says that’s not the way it works and from now on we are counting month to month. So since February only had 28 days this year I am only just now turning five months old (even though I’m twenty-one weeks and four days old!). Mom says not to make a big deal of it – it works out in the long run and lets her tell people I am developmentally advanced for my age. It has been sort of a big month for me.

The Move
The day after my Auntie Elizabeth and Uncle Kevin got married, my parents packed up all my toys and clothes and stuff and Mom took me on my very first ever plane ride. Mom seemed real nervous about things, but I slept through most the ride. She was really uptight for the next few days and I had to wait ten whole days to see Daddy again. I thought once she saw Daddy she would chill out a little bit, but she just complained that he took up too much room in the bed. I could feel the tension, so for that first week, I woke up every few hours to make sure they were doing okay and had someone to talk to.

I think it helped because they seem much happier now and I don’t need to wake up so often to check on them. Mom has me sleeping in my own little room that she calls ‘the closet’. It’s super cool and dark and I have my very own night light. I got to meet my Papa for the first time and see my Ina again. They love me! Ina is always making lots of funny noises and sounds and smiling at me. Papa like to take naps with me and somehow he always makes me feel safe.

Mom says we are only here for a little while before we move to our new home in Los Angeles. She says I am going to love LA because it’s sunny all the time and there will be lots of other kids to play with. Don’t tell her, but I miss our home in Philly, our daily walk and going to the Park every day. I think Mommy misses Philly too. She got a little emotional when she saw Philly Cheesesteaks on the menu at Jake’s. Moving wasn’t my choice, but I can see that it makes Mommy and Daddy pretty excited about our future. And Daddy says that Home is wherever we are all together. So I’m excited about our new home too. I hope we can bring Papa and Ina with us when we move to the next place. They are really fun to play with, Papa cooks dinner for Mommy and Daddy and Ina takes me shopping all the time!

Toys
Ina took me shopping right the day after we got off the plane. She and Mommy bought me all kinds of strange things to play with that I had never seen before. Thank goodness! Boy was I getting bored of staring at Mommy as my main form of entertainment. I love the noisemakers and the jumper-thingy is awesome. I could spend all day in that jumper-thingy. It plays music and let’s me sit up like a big girl and watch Mommy making dinner with Papa. It makes Ina do some crazy things, like yell in a high-pitched voice, “Boing, Boing, Boing, Boing little Geraldine McBoingboing.”

My least favorite toy is the Bumbo. Mommy brought it home from Target and I tried to tell her I was too big for it but she crammed me into it anyways. When I stood up, the Bumbo was stuck to my butt and I had to have my thighs pulled out of it. I am now 18 pounds, can sit up all by myself and stand with support, so Mom – too big for the Bumbo. Told you so.

I love all my new books, toys, jumpy-things and noise makers, but my favorite toys of all are my toes. I could talk to them for hours, they taste delicious and I never have to ask Mom where she put them. My piggies are spectacular.

Sir Poops-a-Lot
I poop more now. I know my Mom would want you to know. Maybe the plane ride jostled things around a bit. Mom thinks it’s because she is now feeding me solid foods. That’s right! I eat big people food now. Well, I haven’t actually ever seen a big person eating the food from those little jars, but I see them eat with a spoon and now I eat with a spoon too! I like sweet potatoes, green beans and sweet peas. I don’t like carrots. I scream when they try to feed me carrots. Mom just doesn't understand my issues with texture or the way they turn my fingers orange. I just don’t like them.

I get to eat with a spoon twice a day and I try to keep it fun by banging on the table and making raspberries when my Mom least expects it. Mom makes the best face when I spit peas at her, it's classic. Tonight, I showed Papa how I didn’t even need Mommy to feed me. I could just pick up the bowl and put my face in it and then throw it on the floor. I think he was very impressed because he got down on his hands and knees with a towel to wipe away the tears of laughter.

Mommy and I went to Target and picked up a few new flavors for this week. She wants to make it fresh for me – but I just think that’s crazy when we can just buy up a variety pack at Target and I can eat Pears and Prunes and Apples, something different every night. I hope she doesn’t try making me dinner the way she makes it for Daddy. Because then she might want me to start doing dishes and I hate dishes.

Lullaby and Goodnight
Mom would want me to report that I no longer sleep with a swaddle. I made it as tough as possible for Mom to break me of the habit, but she finally did it. No more sleeping in a straight jacket and strangely, I now just go to sleep when Mom puts me in the bed. Of course, I whine a little, but Mommy just puts her hand on my tummy and looks at me until I fall asleep. I wake up once at 3:30 AM to check on Mom, but she seems to be okay, so I might just start sleeping through until my alarm goes off at 8:00 AM.

Night time is my favorite part of the day because Mom feeds me sooooo much. She starts at 6:00 PM with the green beans and then at 7 PM with a bottle and then we take a bath together and she lets me breastfeed while she reads me a story. Then we listen to music together and I doze off around 8:00 PM. She tells me, “Shhh, shhhh, shhhh, go to sleep now Ms. Story. Sleep makes you feel good. You are going to feel so fresh and happy when you wake up in the morning for another day full of adventures.”

I take two naps for about 1.5 hours. Sometimes longer. Mom or Dad lays me down around 10:00 AM and then again at 2:00 PM. Unless there is the World Cup or a boating trip or something else more exciting going on. Then I get to sleep on Daddy’s shoulder or in my stroller. Or in my favorite spot, inside the Ergo baby. Here I can hear my Mommy’s heartbeat and she rubs my toes and kisses the top of my head and whispers sweet things in my ear.

Today she whispered, “Happy Birthday little Story. Mommy and Daddy are so proud of you. We love you so much. You are going to have a very special day.”

And she was right. Today I woke up and went for a walk on the beach with Mommy, took a nap, watched the world cup with Dad, ate peas, took another nap, opened gifts from the big party, ate green beans with Papa and Ina and spent an hour in the jumpy. Mommy took a bath with me and made up a different voice for everyone of my new bath tub squirters. So the Nederlands lost the World Cup. It was still a good day. And every day I spend with Mommy and Daddy is special.

So, Happy Birthday to me on this very special day! And go Nederlands!

Love - Story Brynne

Happy First Four Months Story!

Dear Ms. Story:

Today you are FOUR MONTHS! I simply can’t believe how quickly you are developing. It kinda blows my mind that four months ago you looked like this:

And now you look like this:

You have changed so much Ms. Story. I remember when daddy and I first laid you down in your play gym. You looked like a little peanut. All you could do was stare, your little arms unable to reach the dangling monkey and lion. Now you easily reach for Mr. Monkey and Mr. Elephant, grab onto them both and shake the gym with your mighty fists.

You seem to have discovered the little mirror in the gym and I catch you flirting with yourself frequently. You smile and coo and bat your eyelashes as if to say, look at me Mommy, I’m so funny. I park you in the gym so I can make your Daddy dinner and you follow me with your eyes, waiting for me to begin something complicated before you scream with the force of a police siren. It seems you have learned that a particular pitch of scream will get you just about anything you want.

SWF, HWP: According to the highly accurate method of weighing mommy without you in her hands and then weighing mommy with you in her hands, you weigh 16 pounds. And you are 25.5 inches long. But I measured you yesterday, so you could be 17 pounds now and 26.5 inches long. If you keep up this rate of growth, you are going to have your own reality TV show on TLC. You already wear clothes made for a six month old. I scramble to get you in all the pretty little outfits that people have bought for you before you outgrow them.

The Poop Report: Poor Ms. Story – you only poop when I feed you 2 oz. of prune juice and water mixed together in a bottle. You get one bottle a day and you still go three to four days with nothing to report. So two days ago, Daddy and I decided to feed you your first taste of rice cereal. You were skeptical at first, but then you loved it! Last night, after Mommy fed you for your ususal nightly feeding, you ate an additional 3 oz. of rice cereal mixed with mommy’s milk. That’s a lot of food. And it wasn’t even enough to hold you through the night! You woke up at 4:00 AM, ravenous. Which brings me to your latest little issue.

Sleep Stats: How is it possible that a baby goes from sleeping 8-10 hours a night, back to waking up every 4-5 hours to eat? What happened here? Me and the other detective working the baby mystery desk, started with the theory that it was the swaddle.

While you have been swaddled since birth, lately we can’t seem to keep you restrained. Wouldn’t you know, you are just about the strongest little three month old in the world?! We put you to bed at 10:30 PM , but by 4:00 AM you have squirmed your way out of our little velcro straight jacket. Dad wrestles with you while you whine, until he has you tied up like a little Christmas package. Just as his head hits the pillow, we hear the rip of velcro, followed by massive tears and screams that should only be appropriate if having your leg amputated in the ER. Oh the fight goes on, and on, an on, throughout the night until you are so exhausted that you sleep. Swaddled or not.

I try to convince Daddy to just let me feed you, but he is very stubborn. You see, I theorize that you are just growing (very quickly) and mommy may not be making enough milk for you these days. While I slowly build up my supply, you are hungry more often and I just can’t seem to get you satiated without two feeding a night. Don’t worry Story, I will get there.

Walkie-Talkie: Perhaps the most exciting thing to report this week is this little sound you make with your mouth. It sounds like the one my mom would make in the mirror after she had applied a fresh coat of lipstick. A little popping noise with your lips is now your favorite trick and I can actually get you to do it if I go first. It’s so amazing. I just love watching you learn new things.

Speaking of learning new things, in the tub the other night you actually stood unassisted for about 1.2 seconds before you grabbed my legs to steady yourself. Yep, Ms. Story you can hold herself up. And it’s so incredible. You are so strong and so determined to walk. It’s absolutely fascinating to watch you kick your legs out in front of you while Daddy and I are holding your little hands. I just hope you are happy with standing for about another year, because I’m not ready to have you walking yet.

Hand-eye coordination: These days, you know what you want and you grab it. Usually, it is the hair on Mommy’s head, or the hair on Daddy’s chest. You love to make us scream. You can grab your binky out of my hand, you can use the rattle to hit the dolls on your gym, and you have recently discovered the crinkly noise when you grab Mr. Lions feet. Right now, your favorite toy is the colorful little toy in the video below. You love to put it in your mouth and I never thought I'd be so happy to see you suck on something other than my boob.

Oh Story - four months have passed so very quickly and the next four will pass even quicker. I want to be present for every milestone moment, and not lost in my head with moving details or career ambitions. To unwind, last night, you, me and Daddy went to the park and had an evening picnic. We took off our shoes and felt the green grass under our toes. We laid out a red and pink blanket and ate a big salad, pork loin and brown rice. Daddy and I drank water out of a metal thermos and Mommy breastfed you under a tangerine twilight sky. The next chapter of our life will be starting soon - but I just want to linger in this day a little longer and be grateful for all the happiness in my life in this very hour. You, Daddy, me, the city, the warm air, the sunshine, our loving friends, our health, our family.

Just when I think my love for you has reached its capacity, you expand my heart. I love you sweet girl.

Mom

Look out LA, here I come!

Dear Mom, I can't wait to get to LA! I hear the weather is hot but not sticky hot. And I don't really like the sticky part. I'm so excited I could just pee myself. 27 days!!

xoxo Story

P.S. Like my hat?

Daddy Dressed Me Today.

I'm not sure what I think about this bonnet.

Tuesday's Photo Op

Weekly Update, by Story Brynne Hesson

Hi friends, Story here! My mom has been in bed for the last week with a bad back, so I decided to write this week’s update and get you up to speed on my progress. For starters, I'm now ten weeks old! But don’t tell my mommy that because she gets very confused and always tells people I’m a different age than I actually am. When I was only nine weeks old, she told someone I was eleven weeks old and then twenty minutes later she told someone else that I was six weeks old. So I’m here to clear things up and answer your most important questions.

EATING: I really like to eat. My favorite activities are to eat, to spit up, to play in my baby gym, and to watch my birdy mobile. In that order. My favorite thing to eat is Mommy's milk. My second favorite thing is Vitamin D drops. And my third favorite is infant Tylenol. I like the pink stuff.

WEIGHT: Mommy weighed me this morning and I’m fourteen pounds. “Fourteen pounds!” Mommy said to Daddy. And then she threw me up in the air and I spit up three times. Once on her face, once on her chest and once down her back and in her hair. I love the way my mommy smells.

THE POOP REPORT: I’ve pooped three times since the H&M incident. Once, on my mom’s friend Caroline. Mom had to pay for her drycleaning. Once, when mom had her friend Elizabeth over, up my back, through two layers of clothing and all over my swing! And once when mom was taking my temperature. That last one was the most disgusting. I squirted all over the bathroom rug and got some in mommy’s hair. Whenever I poop she gets really excited and calls daddy to tell him all about it. She says, “Good job, Story.” If I even grunt a little bit, mom smiles. So I grunt a lot. Sometimes I grunt really hard and turn red just to make mommy pick me up and take me to the changing table. She gets pretty disappointed when she opens my diaper and there is nothing in it. It’s so funny.

BED: Mom and dad have me on a schedule now. I eat at 10AM, 2PM , 6PM, 10PM and again at 11PM. At 10PM, I get a bath. I just love the bath. Daddy holds me and mommy pours water over my head. After the bath, I eat again and then mommy and daddy turn off all the lights in the bedroom but one. Mommy holds me while daddy reads from Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein. Then daddy and I play the most fun game. Daddy wraps me up super tight and I have to try and get unwrapped as quick as possible. Then daddy wraps me up again even tighter and I have to try and break free again. Sometimes it takes me a few hours, but I always break free. I only wake up once at night now, usually at 6:00 AM. When I wake up, I’m so hungry. Daddy is very quiet when he slides me into the bed next to mommy. Mommy doesn’t speak to me while she feeds me, but she runs her fingernails over my head and I try very hard to stay awake so I can eat as much as possible.

This week, with mommy in bed all the time, daddy and I have been spending a lot more time together. Dad lays me on his lap and we listen to all kinds of music. Sometimes dad just sings me funny songs and makes funny faces. He especially likes to talk to me in funny voices. My favorite is when he pretends he is Shrek. My second favorite is when he sings the Hallelujah song like Count Dracula. Mom hates this and groans really loud whenever he does it.

Daddy’s skin is furry and he smells like tooth paste. When he holds me, I feel safe. He lays me down in the bed so very gently, he rubs his scruffy face on my forehead and gives me a kiss saying, “Goodnight sweet Story. Daddy loves you. May you grow up to be brave and honest and kind.” This makes me very happy.

That’s all the news for this week. I hope mommy is better soon so she can get back to telling you all my stories. Happy Monday!

Xoxo,

Story

Breaking News... baby sleeps through night...

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Friday's Photo

Weekly Update

Dear Story,

Today you are eight weeks old and I’m still amazed at how much you have grown since we first took you home from the hospital on that snow covered Philly afternoon. All the books tell me that eight weeks is an important turning point. They say that this is when you begin to smile and play more during the day and sleep more during the night.

Let’s take a look at how you measure up, shall we? This week…

WEIGHT: Mom was both delighted and distressed to discover you now weigh 12 lbs. and 7.5 oz. Delighted, because it puts you in the 87.7th percentile and means I’m feeding you well. Distressed, because girl, you are getting heavy! And not the kind of heavy to which the singers from the seventies refer. I mean heavy, like the last time I worked out I was only using ten pound weights and you already weigh more than that and i can tell! Since your Mommy hasn’t worked out since she was 32, this is an extreme jump and leads to a lot of arm and back cramps with no hunky trainer rubbing them out at the end of the workout. Mom is out of shape and thinks the lifting of M&M's into her mouth are not going to help her work up the strength needed to carry you around as you continue your record growth.

HEIGHT: After the doctor announced that you are 24 ¾ inches and greater than the 97th percentile for your height, she asked me, “How tall are you?”

I told her, “5 foot, 2 inches."

“How about your husband?” She inquired. And this is where I got a little Mommy brainitis.

"5’8”, no six foot, oh gosh, 5’11? That can't be right." The entire experience reminded me of when I cheated on my Health badge in Girl Scouts by making up a three month chart of my fluctuating weight and height, all in one night. The Girl Scout troop leader informed me that people don’t normally get taller and then shorter on a daily frequency.

You doctor just looked at me a little confused before shaking my head and informing me, “She is going to be taller than you."

Okay. Well that’s not hard, I’m pretty short. But I think she was trying to say you were going to be tall. The thought of you growing up and sprouting like a beanstalk under my nose made me imagine you as a gangly teenage girl, forcing the enormity of motherhood to wash over me and warm my heart.

HEAD: Your head has a circumference of 15 inches, and that is in the 16.7 percentile for head circumference. I have to admit, I find this a little disappointing. Your Mother and Father have very big heads and I was hoping that you would as well. And well, your Grandpa Wiese has the biggest head of all and I was sort of hoping you might get a little bit of Wiese in you somewhere. But I guess it’s not a bad thing to not have a big head. We will have to settle for a humble little lady.

BOWELS: After unloading an assplosion of mythic proportion in H&M, you didn't poop at all for the last six days. The doc says this is perfectly normal - but I must admit it makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong. Every time I hear a little toot or smell a sour stank, I get all excited and rush to the changing table - only to discover a lackluster wet diaper. The doc points to your weight and says it is nothing to worry about. But you know your Mommy, always striving for perfection, I am drinking eighteen glasses of water a day and have added a lot more fiber to my diet this week.

SKIN: We go to see one of those pediatrician offices with rotating doctors and this week your latest doctor thinks your rash is just baby acne that will clear up by three months old. I pointed out that it was already clearing up in the areas it first appeared, which makes it much more likely to be a viral rash. Whatever. This doctor thinks it will clear up by the end of the month and that otherwise your skin looks pink, healthy and totally normal. I am just glad that she didn’t see all the little bite marks from where your Daddy and I try to eat you while we say, “Nom, nom, nom, nom, nom."

SLEEP: Dadddy and I started implementing our first efforts at sleep training this week. I swear we have been gentle. Especially Mommy, who breaks the rules all the time – even though it really pisses Daddy off! Your Father and I began by reading Twelve Hours' Sleep by Twelve Weeks Old. Since you were already letting four hours go by between feedings, you were ready for the next step. We chose a twelve hour period of time, 10PM to 10AM and that is supposed to be your night time. I know, I know, it’s late, but we are late night people and when we move to Los Angeles the time zone shift will make you much more normal. So we feed you now at 10AM, 2PM, 6PM and 10PM. At night, we let you eat whenever you want – which is currently at exactly 2AM and 6AM. But the book has a few tricks to eliminate these feedings. I’m not quite ready to introduce the new tricks yet. In fact, I was reluctant on the whole thing, but it has been nice to plan a life around your eating schedule. And unfortunately, your doctor confirmed the facts in the book and made a strong case for making sure you eat every four hours during the day. Even if it means waking you from a nap. Dad is constantly catching me cheating on the schedule. When he does, he sighs heavily, lowers his head and says, “We don’t have to do this you know.” And I insist I will try harder. I’ll keep you posted on this.

VACCINES: At your doctor visit today, you got your two-month vaccines in the form of two shots in each thigh and some drops in your mouth. You loved the drops and didn’t even cry on the first two needles. But the third needle made you frown and your lower lip quiver. And the fourth! Oh the fourth! The fourth made you scream and look at Mommy for the first time with real pain in your eyes. It felt like you were saying, Why Mommy, why? And it broke my heart. But then you stopped crying and fell asleep in your stroller. Mom spent the rest of the night babying you and Daddy came home from work early. We let you sleep in the bed like a real princess because we both want to make sure you know how much we love you.

AUDIO: Another big reward of the week is the increasing amount of time you use your emerging voice to melt me and your Dad. You hum when you eat, you coo when we change your diaper, and you make all sorts of happy little noises when you are playing in your baby gym. You look at Mr. Monkey and make a high pitched coo and pull the bright string that makes his tail rattle. Then you flash a smile at me and Daddy and you make a different sound. Sometimes when you cry, I think it sounds a bit like maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmmy. Which is very close to Mommy and a sign that you are getting closer and closer to saying it.

Of course, the very best part of the week is that I can tell how much you trust me. You push your body into me when I hold you. You hold my hand when the nurse comes near because you know I will protect you. You stop crying when you hear my voice. You don’t worry that I will drop you when we are in the tub. You don’t wince when I cut your fingernails. I know it won’t last forever and one day I will cut too close to your little fingers and make you cry or turn my back when you are in the bath and let you slip under for a moment. But for right now, I make you feel safe. And you may be the only person I’ve ever known whom I have yet to disappoint.

This trust is something I treasure with all my heart and fills my soul with a sense of importance and responsibility like nothing that ever came before it. Mommy is right here Story, she loves you very much and will try her hardest to take care of you.

For as long as you will let me.

Xoxo - Mom

A Picture Perfect Easter