Three-month milestones

According to experts, there are tons of milestones you should expect when your newborn reaches 3 months old. In Austin’s case, those three months total 92 days, and today marks his entrance into infanthood, because apparently he’s an infant now. Whichever way you want to slice it, this kid is pretty cool.

Milestones vary from person to person, baby to baby, family to family, and to be honest, I have to do a better job or recording/remembering them. So, here we go …

Milestone 1: Raises head during tummy time
He’s got this one down pat. He raises his head/chest and with the help of Nolan (sometimes Graham) looks around for a few before making his descent. He likes it better when we place him on his back because he’s been tooling around with rolling over, which usually happens around 4 months. So yeah, he’s an overachiever.

Milestone 2: Brings hands to mouth
At the same time, yep. Add his legs kicking like an MMA fighter, and this kid has four extremities that are lethal weapons. He’s still sleeping in bed between Linds and me and loves slithering to my side, often grabbing my pillow or arm at which time I reposition him in the middle.

Milestone 3: Smiles at the sound of our voices/sight of our faces
He does this with all four of us, and it’s awesome. Nolan has really warmed up to him and gets all up in his grill, but Austin enjoys it. He wakes up and smiles immediately upon seeing our faces.

Milestone 4: Begins to babble
He’s babbling a lot, definitely earlier than the other two. Nolan took almost two years before he really took off with speaking and Graham is getting there at his own pace.

Milestone 5: Be unique
He’s got red(dish) hair and blue eyes! A far cry from Nolan, who’s got a dark complexion, brown hair, and brown eyes. Graham has a paler complexion to go with dirty blonde hair and brown eyes. So a redhead with blue eyes was completely out of left field.

Milestone 6: Imitate movements and facial expressions
I’ve noticed that when I squint at him to make a funny face, he squints back. Often I get a smile, which validates the stupid faces I make (mostly behind closed doors).

Milestone 7: Decrease poop diaper output
Safe to say he still drops bombs when he does poop, but they’re nowhere are frequent as the first two months. This is totally normal and totally appreciated.

We don’t go back to the doctor for another month—so we’ll get his stats then—but I was looking at him lying in bed the other day thinking to myself, Look at the size of this kid!? Granted, Nolan and Graham were in the fifth percentile of weight for at least a year. Austin is well beyond that already and is growing steadily.

Linds heads back to work next week, leaving me to tend to the brood by myself. She’s done an awesome job these past three months, and I’m truly appreciative of everything she’s done. She has exhausted every vacation and personal day at work along with her maternity leave to stay home as long as she has. She’s going back at zero. She continues to be an awesome mom and wife who shows the boys tons of love and divvies up time to spend with each. That’s my plan when it’s 3-on-1 in seven days.

I’ve done the stay-at-home thing before and am giddy to try it again despite being outnumbered.