My Claire, 3 months

My baby girl is three months old! I never thought of myself as an "attached" personality type, but I love to be around her. She smiles when I smile... we talk about things (mostly I ask her what she's saying, and she just repeats "Ay ay ay")... she's grabbing my face... she loves to play rambunctious games with me.



It's crazy to watch her grow so fast. She's out of 0 - 3 month clothes already and fitting into her 3 - 6 month clothes very nicely. When I'm feeding her from a bottle, she's eating between 7 & 8 oz. and we've had to move the straps on her car seat twice already.



She enjoys being out. We'll go on our regular Target or Sams Club trip and she behaves pretty much the whole time. We have to be creative about when to go out however... it needs to be far enough from a feeding that she's not going to spit-up all over herself, but soon enough before her next feeding so she doesn't get grumpy while we're out. Mostly, she just looks around or stares at us as we push her in her cart... a pleasure I never knew I would have... just watching her be content is a joy to me.



I never was a kid person. I was one of those types that shy'd away from little people like they were going to explode if I got too close. And babies... that's a whole different kind of fear. It became a bit of a joke trying to get me to hold a baby.



I remember the first time Michelle forced me into holding a baby x 2. We were just hanging out with our friends the Denham's back in Kirkland WA. I was relaxing in the recliner when all of a sudden, a pair of twins were dropped on my lap from behind. Michelle thought this was great... I thought I was stuck. She called Heidi (their mother) over and of course she thought it was great to. Ignoring my plea for them to remove the tiny people from my space, they went and grabbed the camera and solidified the memory.

I wanted a boy. I have had my boy's name picked out for most of my life, so I was ready for him. When I learned it was a girl (a week before Michelle knew), I had some thinking to do. As it turns out, to overcome my fear of babies, I think God knew that only a girl would do this for me. You see, if I had a boy first, I imagine myself being one of those rough dads... one of those "hey tiger" and punch him in the arm type of dads... even as a baby I think I would have found ways to be rough and non-affectionate with him... that's just me. But Claire changed me. She's so beautiful and small and sweet, I know I can't rough her up, or get her dirty, or call her "tiger". With Claire I have to kiss on her, and hold her close, and buy her ponies, and treat her like a princess... that's a 180 from what I instinctively want to do around babies.

I think having a boy first would have cemented in me my tendency to be distant and cold. Imagine being second born girl to that daddy. I thank God for Claire and I thank Claire for changing my heart. I hear her in the next room wrapping up a feeding, so now it's my turn to go and love on her.