This is Going to Sound Bad

Babies are boring. I've spent almost 2 months now with an infant, and I feel like I can say that with authority. I speculated before Max was born that he wouldn't be all that exciting at first, but until you do it you don't really know. Maybe this makes me sound terrible, but I know I'm not the only one who's thought it.

Peaceful yes, exciting... not so much.

The worst part about how boring babies are, is that for the most part the only times that they aren't boring are really terrible. When they are wailing and thrashing their limbs about it isn't boring at all, but it certainly isn't fun either.

The first few weeks were the worst, because he spent hardly any time awake. I almost felt like I was swaddling him too much and not encouraging him to be awake. Sometimes it seemed like all he wanted to do was eat and sleep. Like all his awake time was miserable for him and my efforts to soothe him by feeding, changing, cuddling, were only to help him get back to sleep. I worried I was a bad mom for not trying to keep him awake longer.

He doesn't know he can't read.

Now that Max is able to spend some time awake I'm much more secure with my decisions to let him sleep as much as he wants. If he's awake and happy then we play. He likes his activity gym, we can cuddle up on the couch, or lay on the bed listening to music, and sometimes we read. When he's not happy we troubleshoot: food, diaper, burping, and if all else fails then a little cuddling usually sends him off to dream land. Okay sometimes it takes a LOT of cuddling, but you know what I mean.

Still, these awake times are definitely getting to be more fun, and we still have so far to go. Just yesterday we were playing on the floor and I finally got proof that Max really does smile. I missed the best ones that happened when Bullet sniffed him on the nose, but I was able to grab this with my iPhone.