Over.

The Summer of Holding Jack is over. There are just a few hours left (and sadly, at the moment we’ve left him to sleep in the bouncy seat instead of holding him because we need to get some work done). Tomorrow we both go back to work full-time.

The Summer of Holding Jack has been pretty wonderful though, even if having a new baby is also really stressful. He’s awfully cuddly and, so far at least, doesn’t mind who holds him. He’s also awfully smiley. He enjoys the “Bip Bip Bip” game, in which we touch his nose three times while saying (wait for it!) “bip bip bip” and we almost always get a grin by the last “bip”. His other favorite game is playing “Spinny Spinny” with the giraffes on his swing. He also enjoys “Naked Baby” when he takes a bath and the “Jackarito” game at bedtime. When we ask, “Do you know what time it is, Jack? It’s Jackarito time!” we often get a smile and he’s nearly always grinning by the time he is swaddled up and we tell him that “it’s time for all the little Jacks to get aritoed and go to sleep.” At nearly three months he still can’t quite play with toys, but he does love watching various toys spin around on their own.

He seems to love people in general—especially ones who smile—and he loves to have his face touched (hence the success of the Bip Bip Bip game). He also seems to like being clean. He doesn’t play in the water yet, but he does like getting his baths. Mommy is also teaching him the importance of moisturizer and he seems to agree. We even lotion up his liver, in a nod to the beating he gave Mommy’s liver when I was pregnant. In a recent development, he gets pretty happy when I manage to remove snot/boogers from his nose. I feel that his enjoyment of having things shoved up his nose does not bode well for the future.