Three months!

Ethan is officially three months old today, and since this blog is an honest space, I have to admit that I'm having mixed emotions about this particular milestone.

Of course, I love that he's a healthy growing boy and is doing lots of cool things-- smiling, interacting with other babies, trying to stand. I could do without the early teething and spitup, but it's all part of the whole baby package. He's also got some really great 3-6 month outfits, so it's going to be a pretty stylish phase!

My big boy!

But, on the other hand, today marks the 'official' end of the so-called fourth trimester, the stage where Ethan adjusts to life outside the womb, and I'm feeling a little emotional about that. I know he's not off to university yet or anything, but time is rushing by. While I was pregnant I insisted that I would pump daily so I could maintain my independence, that we wouldn't co-sleep, blah blah blah, and now I love our cuddle-naps and our nursing bond and I'm (mostly) totally okay with spending 99.9% of my time with him. Plus, on a practical level, some of the developments on the horizon terrify me a little, namely crawling and starting solids, because a baby that can escape AND destroy the carpet sounds like a lot more work. In other words, Ethan might be ready for these next leaps where he doesn't depend on me so fully, but I'm not quite sure that I'm ready.

On a positive note, the three-month mark is supposedly when moms start to get back to their 'old selves,' which is a pretty loaded term, but I'll try to illustrate. My pregnancy was pretty run-of-the-mill from an aesthetic perspective-- a 35-pound weight gain and a case of acne that lasted the entire nine months. Like many women, I lost 25 of those 35 pounds within two weeks of giving birth, but the pesky extra 10 has hung around-- mostly in weird and unflattering places-- and my skin has remained pretty spotty. Not a big deal, you may say, but when most of your clothes don't fit and you look longingly at makeup-free clear-skin selfies from two years ago and cry, it's not awesome. Anyway, now that December is here, I've noticed a slight dip on the scale AND I've gone almost a whole week without a new blemish, so that is something to feel really good about!

Well, ready or not, here we are-- Ethan is a quarter-year and time is passing. I'll just have to take the good with the scary (not bad!) and to try keep in mind that so many awesome milestones and adventures with Ethan await us. Oh, and writing this has convinced me that I should probably start therapy at least a year before Ethan goes to kindergarten because it's a fairly safe bet that I'm going to be a hot blubbering mess when that day comes.