Nathan

Several people told me that being a grandparent was great, because you get to spoil the child and then go home. All the nighttime feedings and doctor visits and worry and aggrevation get left to the parents, and the grandparents get the fun.

Nathan is our first grandchild, the son of our first child, Benjamin. Nathan is 16 weeks old today. Starting this week, I will be his Nana Nanny two or three days a week. Tuesday this week was the first day I spent with Nathan. During the past 16 weeks, I have spent lots of time with him, so Jen could nap or shop or whatever. But that was just for two or three hours at a time. On Tuesday I was with him from 8:30 in the morning until about 4:30 in the afternoon.

Nathan is a calm, sweet baby - a lot like his father was at that age. He is alert and interactive and smiley. I was amazed on Tuesday morning at how long he sat quietly on my lap, looking at cloth books that I read to him. He wasn't sleepy. He was looking, and listening. He has several toys that play snippets of music, and he seems to really like those. He spends a lot of time looking at a mirror over his head on his play mat, and talking to the baby he sees there. He is beginning to reach deliberately for things. When he does grab something, it goes directly to his mouth.

He is starting to "talk" a lot. He has a lot of different noises he makes - too complex to be called "cooing". He mimics facial expressions, raises his eyebrows, smiles, sticks his tongue out, and sometimes laughs out loud.

The fun thing Nathan did on Tuesday was mimic me when I made a raspberry noise at him. He was playing with his tongue, sticking it out and drooling - ah, the awful teething! I had changed his diaper, and he was still on the changing table. He was smiling at me, with his tongue out, so I just stuck my tongue out at him and gave him a raspberry. He did it right back at me, then laughed! I think it was an accident, because I couldn't get him to do it again, but it seemed very deliberate at the time.

Ben and Jen are phenominal parents. Both of them. Their calm, loving parenting is helping Nathan be the calm sweet boy he is.

Today was also a good day with Nathan. He didn't do anything as exciting as a raspberry, but it was a good day anyway.

I told Jen I would journal about Nathan while I'm spending all this time with him. That's what this blog will be. Some other stuff will get thrown in, I'm sure, but mostly it will be about Nathan.