He is no longer in, what I called, "the larva stage".
He is now in a stage which I like to refer to as "the immobile pet stage".
Since he became about 2 months old, he started reacting to the environment and people around him.
He has learned to identify his mom and me and other relatives who visit us often (like grandparents and such).
I've been told in advance that there's something wonderful that comes with this post-2-month-old stage, and that is the smiles... And indeed they are wonderous.
You truly don't know true happiness until you see your own child smile back at you for the first time with a wide, unadulterated, toothless smile.
And when you do silly things and he starts laughing uncontrollably? That's just utterly priceless.
It really becomes rather addicting at some point.
I find myself 'milking' a smile or a laugh as I do something as little as pass by his crib... Peek a glance and make a funny face, just to see him crack a smile and laugh for a bit.
I even accidentally found that he's prone to tickles near the back of his neck.
If I combine silly faces, noises and tickles, then he's laughing like crazy and it's truly hilariously contagious :D
For example, here's a clip of him being histerically amused by a nylon bag:
He is still mostly immobile, although he's already capable of turning from the stomach to his back.
He's lately been trying to turn from the back to the stomach but his double diapering seems to hold him back (the doctor said double diapering is needed in order to widen his leg spread or something).
Even though still being mostly immobile, he's got a lot of energy and when he gets excited he's "running" and flailing his arms around while laying on his back.
Speaking of arms, he still doesn't seem to have much control over them, but it's definitely better than before: He's semi-able to 'reach out' and try to catch something (usually for the purpose of putting it in his mouth). But it seems to be mostly reflexes.
I can only imagine what he would be like in a year or two from now... He's definitely going to make us run around a lot.
His language skills are also slowly improving.
His first "word" was "ooh-geh" and he still uses that a lot as a sort of 'catch-all' expression (other than the obvious "uh" sort of moan).
But since then he started developing "ooh-gah" and most recently started combining it with "ga-ga" and "ya-ya". He seems to be most linguistically "prolific" during feeding time when he gets upset due to an incoming burp, so he could spout something like "ooh-geh-geh-ga-ya-ya-ya".
Occasionally he's also experimenting with other noises such as something reminiscient of blowing a raspberry ("ppfpfpfp" sort of noise). And when he has the pacifier in his mouth he can make additional noises such as "weh-oh weh-oh", "kuy-kuy-kuy" (usually when he's trying to laugh while suckling a pacifier) and "ah-vuh".
It's all very amusing :)
Part of being a parent is also doing things which you never even thought you'd ever have to do.
But that's what really makes the parenting experience so unique.
I'm already mostly unphased by the dirty diapers at this point, and I'm starting to find that I'm less and less disturbed by the presence of shit in general. I don't know whether that's creepy or normal... I guess humans can get used to almost anything, huh? Although some people tell me that the smell is going to get A LOT worse later on, so I shouldn't get all cozy just yet.
My wife is still on her maternity leave so she's finding stuff to do. There are all kinds of activities for babies and their mothers in several malls in the area. For example, baby massage classes, dance/movement classes and simple socializing meetings for mothers living in the area.
After one of those meetings, my wife told me how we got it lucky with Oz... Apparently he's sleeping and eating much better than the other babies in the group, and he's a lot more friendly and happy in comparison. So I guess we're doing things right :D (or we just got a lucky streak... time will tell).
After one of those meetings, my wife told me how we got it lucky with Oz... Apparently he's sleeping and eating much better than the other babies in the group, and he's a lot more friendly and happy in comparison. So I guess we're doing things right :D (or we just got a lucky streak... time will tell).
