River is ONE

post to come

River is 9 Months Old

River is 9 months old!

-He weighs 17.75 lbs according to our digital scale when he’s naked. 

-He is about 30.5 inches.

-He wears 12 month sleepers (I literally never put him in anything but a fleece sleeper).

-His hair is light blonde and his eyes are blue, but a greyish dark blue. Not a clear blue. 

-He has 2.5 bottom teeth (two middle and the one to his left of middle cutting through right now) and 4 top teeth (all in the middle). So 6.5-7 teeth.  7 if you fully include the one that’s slicing through at the moment. 

-He is still exclusively breastfed. The only food item he’ll ingest is smoothie (he’ll drink mine through a straw). 

-We haven’t tried using a sippy cup all month, so I don’t know if he would take one now. 

-He nurses every 1.5-2 hours during the day.  Sometimes shorter. 

-Just a week ago he finally became a non-distractable nurser!  For the first time since he was a teensy newborn I can nurse him around other people, with the TV on, etc. For pretty much his entire 9 months of life I had to go to a quiet room to nurse him, and now I don’t have to!  It’s amazing!

-He has also learned the value of comfort nursing. Which I love because it means I can relax for a bit. 

-His cooperation during diaper changes is hit or miss. I think cooperation was more frequent this month than it was last month. 

-Poop frequency is hit or miss. He still has EBF poop, and sometimes he’ll go a whole week without pooping and then poop eight times in two days. Other times he’ll just poop twice a week. 

-He wears Flip diaper covers on the middle rise with prefolds (Indian cotton and Thirsties hemp prefolds).  

-At night he wears a sloomb medium OBF with a Geffen Quick Absorber and a Sloomb wool cover. 

-He has two naps a day.  By about 8 months and 1 week this 2 nap stuff became permanent. 

-His awake periods are about 3.5 hours each.   

-I still wear him for all of his naps, with loud white noise. 

-He actually seems to like to be worn now. 

-He sleeps 10-11 hours at night total. He has had a couple of nights that were 12 hours recently. 

-His night sleep deteriorated this past month, and he started to nurse a LOT overnight. I had to do a bit of a repeat of the sleep training.  There isn’t really any crying at all, but it’s just not fun. If I nurse him for a few minutes he will go back to sleep no problem. But if I don’t nurse him he stays awake for a long time. So I get less sleep while “training” him then I do when I just nurse him every time he wakes up. But when he gets used to nursing less, he wakes me up less, which is less disruptive to my night. So it’s a payoff in the long run. 

-We are cosleeping and nursing overnight. 

-Since going to two naps he almost always falls asleep nursing at night. If he doesn’t he will fall asleep with us just laying in bed without any crying. 

-He is a tummy sleeper and has been since about 2 weeks old. 

-He is cross crawling on his hands and knees full time now. 

-He pulls up to stand on everything and never falls anymore. 

-He is standing without holding on to anything often, and he does pretty good at it!

-He is cruising along furniture very proficiently. 

-He can climb stairs no problem. He cannot go back down them. He can’t get down off of any elevated surface the proper way (feet first) even though we’ve shown him multiple times a day since he became mobile at 4.5 months. 

-He has found ways to climb up onto the couch. 

-He can climb on all the floor beds now, even the tallest ones. 

-He smiles SUPER easily.

-He like other people fine as long as they don’t want to hold him. He is getting better about this though, as long as you let him warm up to you first. 

-He is a HUGE mama’s boy.  He can only tolerate being away from me for so long before there’s nothing anyone can do, he’ll just cry and cry and not stop until he’s with me again. It’s still very pronounced but there have been some improvements in the past month.  His bond with Justin is strengthening. 

-He is still extremely drooly. 

-He puts everything in his mouth.  He always has to be chewing or licking something. Even if it’s just the floor. It’s shocking that he doesn’t like solids. 

-He still doesn’t take a soother, just chews on it. 

-He’s always laying his head down on things. Pillows, blankets, the couch, the floor. It’s so noticeable with him because he never stops moving. It’s really sweet to watch. 

-After two months of not using the doorway jumper we finally put its  away. 

-He hasn’t gone in his exersaucer in over two months, but he enjoys cruising along the outside of it sometimes so we still have it out. 

-He DESPISES the car still. BUT, starting a week and a half ago he would cry when I started buckling him in, and cry for a couple of minutes, but then give up and be silent the rest of the trip. We only drive in town, so I don’t know how long the silence would last on a longer trip. 

-I am in a flare of my autoimmune disease, ulcerative colitis. I’m very fatigued and sick, and it hasn’t been an easy month for me, flaring with a needy clingy 9 month old. The good thing is that he just wants full access to me. So I can lie on the couch, and as long as he gets to be on the couch with me he is pretty happy. He doesn’t require large amounts of entertainment. However, when I have to be on the toilet he will stand and SCREAM at me if he’s not on my lap. 

I think that’s everything!  Besides my flare, it’s been a good month for River, personality wise. 

River is 8 Months Old!

River is 8 months old!

-He weighs 17.5 lbs according to our digital scale when he’s naked (25th percentile). 

-He is about 30 inches (99th percentile).

-He wears 12 month sleepers (I literally never put him in anything but a fleece sleeper).

-His hair is light blonde and his eyes are blue, but a greyish dark blue. Not a clear blue. 

-He has his two bottom teeth, one top tooth, and the other top tooth is cutting through the gums as we speak.  So 3.5 teeth?  

-He is still exclusively breastfed. No solids or bottles.  We try giving him solids but he hates them. They make him angry.  He will happily chew on anything inedible, but if it has a flavour it’s game over. 

-He will suck water out of a washcloth in the tub, but if it comes out of a sippy cup he will open his mouth to let it fall back out. Breast milk from the boob. That’s it. 

-He nurses every 1.5-2 hours during the day.  Sometimes shorter. 

-He's very distractable while nursing. We have to be somewhere quiet, otherwise he pops off to look around. No people or TV.

-Unless we catch him at the perfect time, he’s pretty uncooperative with getting his diaper changed. He wants to roll onto his belly every time he’s laying on his back. 

-He poops more frequently than he used to. It’s several times a week now - every 2-3 days. Sometimes he gets into a heavy poop cycle, where he’ll have like 8 big poops in 2 days, and then nothing at all for several days. 

-He wears Flip diaper covers on the middle rise with prefolds (Indian cotton and Thirsties hemp prefolds).  

-At night he wears a sloomb medium OBF with a Geffen Quick Absorber and a Disana wool cover. 

-He has two or three naps a day.   Last week I was sure he was going to be consistently taking 2 naps a day by 8 months, but then the last three days it’s had to be 3 naps again. So we’re in the transition. It just depends on what time he wakes up and how long his first nap is. He can handle the 3 hour awake periods just fine, but 4 is too long for him. 

-He sleeps 10-11 hours at night total. 

-He has awake periods of about 2.5-3 hours. 

-I still wear him for all of his naps, with loud white noise. 

-He actually seems to like to be worn now (sometimes, anyway). He doesn’t like it as much as Isaiah did, though. 

-We are cosleeping and nursing overnight. 

-Night time usually has 2-4 wake ups now, which is a LOT better than before. Sometimes I nurse him at every wake up, but not always. It depends on how he’s acting. Sometimes he’ll go back to sleep easily without it. 

-He sometimes nurses to sleep. Maybe 1-2 times a week. The rest of the time he nurses and then pops off and I lay him down and he goes to sleep just fine with me laying beside him. I’m actually very impressed with this. He does really well.  Almost never cries. 

-He is a tummy sleeper and has been since about 2 weeks old. 

-He is cross crawling on his hands and knees full time now. That started a week ago. 

-He pulls up to stand on everything and almost never falls anymore. 

-He is cruising along furniture pretty proficiently. 

-He can climb stairs no problem. He cannot go back down them. He can’t get down off of any elevated surface the proper way (feet first) even though we’ve shown him multiple times a day since he became mobile at 4.5 months. 

-He started clapping a week ago. He started crawling on his hands and knees full time, so we were cheering for him. Eventually he would crawl a few feet, then sit up and clap for himself with a giant smile on his face. 

-He smiles SUPER easily.

-He seems to like other people fine as long as they don’t want to hold him. He is getting better about this though, as long as you let him warm up to you first. 

-He is a HUGE mama’s boy.  He can only tolerate being away from me for so long before there’s nothing anyone can do, he’ll just cry and cry and not stop until he’s with me again. It’s still very pronounced but there have been some improvements in the past month.  

-He is still extremely drooly. 

-He puts everything in his mouth.  He always has to be chewing or licking something. Even if it’s just the floor. It’s shocking that he doesn’t like solids. 

-He still doesn’t take a soother, just chews on it. 

-He’s always laying his head down on things. Pillows, blankets, the couch, the floor. It’s so noticeable with him because he never stops moving. It’s really sweet to watch. 

-We’ve barely used his doorway jumper this month. Maybe twice?  He has less tolerance for it now.  We’ll probably take it down soon. 

-We put his play mat away right after he turned 7 months because he hadn’t used it in ages. 

-He hasn’t gone in his exersaucer in over a month, but he enjoys cruising along the outside of it. 

-He DESPISES the car again. He went through a phase where he was fine for 5-10 minutes in the car. But a couple of weeks ago he started screaming the second he gets put in the car seat. I switched him to a convertible seat (a Radian, nice and roomy). I knew it wouldn’t help, and it didn’t. But it’s easier to get him in and out of than the bucket seat. 

I think that’s everything!  This month has been a lot better than last month!  Thank goodness. He is becoming slightly more independent (I would not classify him as “independent” under any circumstances, though). 

Sleep Training While Cosleeping

When River was 6.5 months I started “sleep training” him. This is my record of the process. I’m posting this today because it’s the last day of January, and January is when I began. 

So, I’ve determined that River’s horrible sleep is due to him being unwilling to fall asleep without nursing. If he would just nurse 3-5 times a night this would be tolerable, but when he wakes up more often than every hour, or 5 minutes after I unlatch him, I find this unacceptable. Because it happens ALL THE TIME. It’s not just occasional. It’s the rule. 

So I decided to do something about it. 

Night one

The first night he woke up shortly after nursing at 11:30pm and cried.  He cried for an hour and a half and any attempt by me to soothe him seemed to make everything worse. Eventually I just had to roll away from him and stop trying.  He slept “better” the rest of the night. (I didn’t record any more details for this night)

Night two

The next night he did his usual thing that he does at bedtime. He nurses and then pops off and starts crying and arching his back and trying to squirm out of my arms. What we normally do is I put him down for a few minutes and then pick him back up and nurse him to sleep. Sometimes this can repeat itself 3 or 4 times, which at 6.5 months old is pretty lame. So instead, when he popped off and started crying and squirming, I put him down and laid down beside him. Again, I tried to comfort him but he wasn’t having any of it. So after 15 minutes I rolled away from him. In total he cried for 20 minutes, then went quiet for 10 minutes, and then cried/fussed for 5 minutes, and then went to sleep. (I didn’t record any details of the rest of the night)

Night three

This night, after I was all committed to this plan, he nursed to sleep completely calmly. That has happened maybe five times in his life. And honestly I love nursing my kids to sleep so I didn’t have it in me to unlatch him and put him down awake. So I let him fall asleep. He woke up after 45 minutes and started crying. THIS TIME was different. I offered him comfort and it didn’t make it worse. He cried for 5-10 minutes, but I never had to turn away from him, and he fell asleep with me cuddling him, without nursing. 

The past two nights I have also been unlatching him sooner when he nurses in the middle of the night, instead of letting him nurse for 15-20 minutes (because he pretty much gets all the milk in the 3-4 minutes after I let down). He has been fine with rolling over and going back to sleep.  

He’s still nursing about every 2 hours, but that’s better than before.  I did get a 3 hour chunk each night, and he’s being less obnoxious about insisting he has a nipple in his mouth if he’s even semi conscious. 

I feel like I am going through this kind of blind. No internet information covers my situation. I don’t want to stop cosleeping. I don’t want to night wean. I just want my kid to be a little more reasonable at night with his wakeups. 

My problem is that if I do what i WANT to do, which is respond to every wake up and nurse him, he gets out of control and asks too much of me. I can’t sleep with him attached to my nipple all night, nor do I think I should be expected to at this age. He’s not a newborn. 

I do NOT want to stop nursing overnight. I also don’t want to stop nursing to sleep if he will peacefully fall asleep doing that. 

But I refuse to nurse him a million times a night. I don’t want to nurse him if it hasn’t been at least 2 hours. Nutritionally he doesn’t need it more often than that. And he clearly has had zero ability to fall asleep without nursing, and this was causing a problem. It didn’t cause this much of a problem with Isaiah. He would wake up a few times a night and that was fine. But River isn’t like that. 

All the sleep training articles have me all freaked out that I’m just going to confuse him by nursing him at some wake ups and not nursing him at others. I think I just have to ignore all that stuff. If I nurse him to sleep at every single wake up my nights are a nightmare. But I also refuse to night wean. It’s waaaay too early. He’s too young.  

Night four

I was originally thinking that River peacefully fell asleep while nursing, again. But then he popped off and nicely tried to get out of my lap. So I laid him down and he acted like he was asleep for a minute, so then I was fist pumping that it was so easy. And then he started rolling around at 8:20. And he rolled around all tired, but not crying, for about 15 minutes. Then he started rolling around whining and moaning for awhile. Then this progressed into fussing and very mild crying. So I backed off from laying my head on his bed and trying to soothe him by touching him. I just laid still beside him. Within a couple of minutes of that, at like 8:57, he went quiet and fell asleep. 

The good news is that even though it took awhile, there wasn’t much actual crying. And the crying that did happen was VERY mild.

He slept in 2.5-2.75 hour chunks, which is really good for him. Only three wake ups total. The night before he only nursed three times but had more than three wakeups where he cried out and then went back to sleep independently.

Night five

Last night River nursed, but popped off before he was asleep and squirmed to get out of my arms. I laid him down and laid down beside him (like always). He didn’t cry at all, and went to sleep within 5-10 minutes. He slept two 4 hour chunks, nursing after each one. Then he was awake for about half an hour, but went back to sleep on his own, without crying, for about an hour and a half. 

So only two wake ups!  Amazing!  That has maybe happened twice in his life before this. 

He seems to be following in Isaiah’s footsteps with these long awake periods. That’s annoying. But I’ll take this over nursing him 8 times a night.

Night six

River has slept SO WELL tonight, and I’ve slept like crap. He went to sleep with no crying around 8:45 I think. He only woke up to nurse once, at 2:30.  He slept until 7:07am

After his 2:30 nurse he had another short awake period and went right back to sleep on his own without crying again. He just played with my hand gently for a couple of minutes. Like it was his lovey. 

Which reminds me, I need to get him a lovey.

Night seven

Last night River wouldn’t nurse to sleep. When I laid him down he started crying almost immediately, and there’s been so little crying lately that it made me pick him back up and try nursing him again. After five minutes he just wasn’t having any of it so I laid him back down. He started to fuss and cry again after a few minutes, so I pushed a Pup toward him. He ended up soothing himself by sucking on Pup’s tag. He fell asleep peacefully. Then he was up after 2 hours, 2 hours, 2 hours, and 3 hours. Then he stayed awake for about half an hour, but he’d only had nine hours of sleep and really didn’t seem ready to be awake for the day, so I didn’t get him up. He started crying, but I knew if I tried to hold him it would just prolong everything so I just laid quietly beside him. The crying only lasted about three minutes and hen he went back to sleep for another hour and a half. 

Night eight

I thought River was nursing to sleep. He popped off after about 10 minutes and his eyes were closed. I laid him down and he kept him eyes closed for about a minute. Then he opened them and started fussing. I did my comforting, handed him his lovely, etc. The fussing/mild crying was off and on for about ten minutes. Eventually I just had to lay there next to him and stop touching him. He went to sleep. He slept 5 hours straight, then nursed at 2. He slept two more hours, and nursed at 4. He woke up again at 5:15 crying, so I nursed him, but he popped off before I even let down. Between 5:15 and 7:35 there were several instances where he woke up and cried a little (maybe 10 seconds of crying each time). It was probably 3-5 times. Each time I just waited to see what would happen, but he went quiet so quickly I didn’t have to do anything. 

Night nine

River cried for quite awhile at the beginning of the night. He refused to nurse and I kept trying to comfort him. I think that was my mistake. He didn’t want to be comforted. I finally left him alone and he went quiet within a few minutes. I think he cried for half an hour, only going quiet a few times. 

He fell asleep at 9:30. He woke up at 10:30 and I tried to nurse him since he hadn’t nursed since 8. I nursed him for a good 15 minutes because I don’t think I ever had a let down. Eventually I had to go to the bathroom pretty badly so I unlatched him. He went to sleep fine. He slept until 3:15. He woke up and nursed. Then he slept right through until 7:30. 

Night ten

River actually nursed to sleep peacefully tonight. He fell asleep at 8:30. He woke up at 9:07 and cried (not hard) for two minutes. Then he went back to sleep. At 9:30 he cried out, then went back to sleep. At 10:30 he woke up and I tried to nurse him, but after 15 minutes I still hadn’t had a let down. I unlatched him. At 11:30 he woke up and I nursed him (with a let down). At 1:45ish he woke again and I nursed him.

Then at 3:30 he woke again and I was like wtf is happening tonight?!  I knew he wasn’t hungry so I just laid my hand on him. He stayed awake for 45 minutes. For most of it he was just laying there quietly with his eyes open. Eventually he was crying, but it wasn’t a hard cry, it was more of a gentle complainy cry. He fell asleep on his own, which I think was the whole problem with the night. 

Night eleven

River nursed to sleep at 8. He woke up to nurse 3 times overnight, and woke up for he day at 7:15. The nursing sessions were short, like they are during the day. Just long enough to get the milk. His night was longer than it usually is. 

Night twelve

River nursed to sleep at 8. He woke up to nurse at 12:15. He was a bit restless getting back to sleep, squirming and making little noises for awhile. But he did it. Then he woke up at 2:40 and stayed awake until 3:20. I tried to nurse him three times in that period, but each time he latched for one second and then immediately popped off. He clearly wasn’t hungry. He seemed like he was trying to sleep the whole time but just couldn’t. He was mostly quiet, but he did do some soft moany cries. 

His last wake up was at 6. He seemed pretty hungry, which makes sense since he didn’t nurse for 6 hours. He popped off 3-4 minutes after my letdown. He was semi awake but went to sleep after some squirming and a few noises. 

He slept until 8am. 

Night thirteen 

River didn’t fall asleep nursing. I laid him down and he went to sleep on his own with zero fussing. I’m not sure how long it took.  He was still moving occasionally after 20 minutes, but a lot of time was spent laying still. 

He nursed briefly twice overnight and woke up at 7:30. 

Night fourteen

Once again River didn’t fall asleep nursing. I put him down and he squirmed and rolled around for about 20 minutes, but didn’t fuss or cry at all. He was asleep by about 9:15. 

He woke up kind of upset at 11:15. I tried to nurse him but my letdown took too long and he wasn’t interested. He cried very briefly and went back to sleep. 

He woke up again at 4:20. He nursed and went back to sleep. Same thing happened at 6:15, except he was very awake and going back to sleep took a bit longer (it wasn’t difficult though). 

He woke up for the day at 7:30. 

Night fifteen

River didn’t nurse to sleep. He quietly rolled around for 20 minutes and fell asleep around 9:20. He woke up to nurse at 2:15. Then he woke up at 6:20. He nursed, then stayed awake for awhile. He fell asleep around 7am until 8:40. Once again, a night with no fussing at all!

Night sixteen

River didn’t nurse to sleep. There was some fussing at the beginning of this night. It took River almost half an hour to fall asleep, and the first 10-15 minutes were a bit volatile. He was moving all over the bed and was acting kind of angry. He didn’t cry or fuss continuously, but he had several very angry cries that lasted 10-15 seconds. It really wasn’t too bad, though. He accepted comfort from me, spent some time holding my hand, laid his head on me... that sort of thing. 

He woke up to nurse three times overnight. Then he was pretty restless from 5:10 onward, and needed human contact to continue sleeping during much of that time. He woke up for the day at 8. 

***

I think I accomplished my goal. We’re still cosleeping. I’m still night nursing. But River knows how to fall asleep “independently”, and he has way fewer wakeups. 

I consider this operation to be a success!

River is 7 Months Old

River is 7 months old!

-He weighs barely 17.5 lbs according to our digital scale when he’s naked (32nd percentile). 

-He is about 29 inches (98th percentile).

-He wears 12 month sleepers (I literally never put him in anything but a fleece sleeper). We switched to 12 month sleepers before 6.5 months. 

-His hair is blonde and his eyes are blue, but a greyish muddy blue. Not a clear blue. 

-He has his two bottom teeth.  One came in two days before six months and he other came in a few days later. 

-He is still exclusively breastfed. No solids or bottles.

-He nurses every 1.5-2 hours during the day.  Sometimes shorter. He can no longer go longer than 2 hours. 

-He's very distractable while nursing. We have to be somewhere quiet, otherwise he pops off to look around. No people or TV.

-He’s okay with getting his diaper changed, but he’s not super cooperative because he wants to roll onto his belly every time he’s laying on his back. 

-He poops more frequently than he used to. It’s several times a week now - every 2-3 days. I do diaper laundry every three days and there are usually at least two poopy diapers in there (sometimes he poops a couple of times in a day and then not for a couple of more days). 

-He wears Flip diaper covers on the middle rise (I just moved the rise a couple of weeks ago) with prefolds (Indian cotton and Thirsties hemp prefolds).  

-At night he wears a sloomb medium OBF with a Disana wool cover. I *just* stopped putting the Geffen Quick Absorber on the outside because he is no longer nursing 6-8 times a night. 

-He has three naps a day. Typically the first one is about 60-90 minutes. The second is 40-90 minutes. The last one is 30-45 minutes. 

-He sleeps about 10 hours at night total. 

-He has awake periods of about 2 hours and 30 minutes. Sometimes he pushes it to 2 hours 45 minutes. I can get him to sleep earlier and faster when it’s in the bedroom, as opposed to in the kitchen (where we do his daytime naps when Justin is at work). 

-Three naps are getting harder to fit in the day because his awake periods are 2:15-2:30. His night time sleep is usually only 10 hours, and he’s starting to shorten his second nap more often, so that’s how we’re still fitting three naps in. I would like to go down to two, but with shorter night time sleep his awake periods would have to be longer than he can handle right now. 

-I still wear him for all of his naps, with loud white noise. 

-He actually seems to like to be worn now (sometimes, anyway). He doesn’t like it as much as Isaiah did, though. 

-We are cosleeping and nursing overnight, but I did some “sleep training” this month to improve night sleep. It had gotten so bad, it was intolerable. I have been keeping a journal on how each night has gone, and I’ll post that separately. 

-Night time usually has 2-4 wake ups now, which is a LOT better than before. We even had a night in the last couple of weeks with only one wake up!

-Now that I’ve sleep trained he actually nurses to sleep more often now. If he doesn’t, I lay him in bed and lay down beside him and he goes to sleep without nursing. This may or may. It involve crying. It depends on the night. 

-He is a tummy sleeper and has been since about 2 weeks old. 

-He’s a pretty good sitter. Considering how strong he is, and how advanced he’s been physically his whole life, I thought he’d be better by now. But he can do better now than he could a month ago 

-He is excellent at army crawling. He is super fast at it now. 

-He’s been rocking on his hands and knees since 5.5 months. He can take a few cross-crawling steps in this position but then flops to his belly to army crawl, because it’s easier and faster for him right now. 

-He pulls up to stand on everything (since 6.5 months). 

-He’s starting to cruise along furniture (inexpertly). 

-He can climb the fairly large step between the kitchen and living room. 

-He smiles SUPER easily.

-He seems to like other people fine as long as they don’t want to hold him. 

-He is a HUGE mama’s boy. Even worse than a month ago. He can only tolerate being away from me for so long before there’s nothing anyone can do, he’ll just cry and cry and not stop until he’s with me again. Even if he’s just laying on the floor of the bathroom watching me get ready, he’d rather do that than be held by someone. 

-I pretty much have to eat all my meals sitting on the floor so he can climb on me. 

-He is extremely drooly, but that’s nothing new.

-He puts everything in his mouth. He always has to be chewing or licking something. Even if it’s just the floor. 

-He still doesn’t take a soother, just chews on it. 

-He still likes his doorway jumper, but we’ve used it less this month than in other months. We only use it when Noah, Isaiah, and I sit on the floor next to him and play card and board games. 

-He hardly ever uses his play mat anymore because he immediately rolls onto his tummy and creeps off of it.  We haven’t put it away yet. I don’t know why. 

-He cannot, under any circumstances, be left on any elevated surface without being watched every second. He can creep to the edge of our king sized bed very quickly.

Unlike last month, this month has NOT been the best yet. He’s been really fussy, and separation anxiety is rearing its ugly head. Not that he’s ever been okay with being away from me, but it’s even worse now. 

Still. Anything beats colic.  And when he’s happy, which is often, he freaking adorable.