Well, Che has been drooling a lot lately, and gnawing on his little fists. Wednesday night, my husband thought he saw a bit of tooth developing below Che’s gums. Yesterday morning, that tooth had broken through! For you dentists out there, it is tooth 81 using the FDI two-digit notation; tooth O using the Universal system.

Fortunately, I had purchased a few teething rings on sale at Target last month, so I’ve been helping him chew on them for the past two days. Normally, babies are around 6 months when their teeth start coming in, and they can hold their own teething rings. Che started grabbing and holding on to things this week, too. But, he can’t manage the teething ring yet, so I have to hold it for him. However, he generally prefers his fists anyway.

I’m a little perplexed by the speed with which Che is developing. I had hoped he would stay a little baby for a while, but he seems determined to grow up fast.
He has even started pushing himself with crawling motions. He’s not strong enough to actually lift his tummy and his head off the ground yet, but at the rate he is progressing, he’ll probably be crawling in a few weeks.

I’m glad I made the choice to hold him as much as possible during the first three months while I was home with him, because soon he’s not going to let me hold him very much. He’s going to be too busy exploring everything there is to explore.

I meet a friend in Harvard Square this morning for breakfast. She took the adorable pictures below. Yes, Che is eating his carrier. I think he’s started teething. It’s a little early for that, but he’s been early on everything else too. Che was also fascinated by all the trucks and cars that drove by. He would literally focus on one, and his head would rotate right as he watched it for as long as it was in sight. Then he would snap his head back to the left to watch another one.

His day care provider says that the “truck book” is his favorite. I thought she was just applying gender bias, but after this morning, I believe it.

Che is officially 3 months old today, and he celebrated by rolling over! I’ve been casually working on this skill with him during the past week. While laying down, Che would twist and squirm such that he was almost laying on his side. When he would do this, I would gently “help” him roll over. I did this gradually and slowly, rolling him back and forth once or twice during his squirmy periods. Today he did it on his own. It was a nice birthday present for us all and we cheered him on.

As a general observation, Che doesn’t smile much. Instead he as what Feech calls his bewildered look. He just stares at you with his eyes wide and his mouth open in an I-can’t-believe-my-eyes, slack-jawed gape. Fortunately I find this almost as adorable. When I clapped and cheered over his new roll-over trick, he responded with his bewildered look instead of a smile. Maybe the smile will come at his 4-month birthday.

A couple of pictures of Che sporting his bewildered look after a bath. These pictures are old. I need to get on the ball and post some current ones

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