Yesterday, we celebrated one week since Evan joined the outside world. Yes, I did bake cupcakes for the occasion, but mostly because I was in the mood for cupcakes :).
It's incredible to think that this sweet little boy has already been a part of our lives for a week, but at the same time, it's hard to imagine life without him. Parenthood has been a learning experience, but I think less scary and crazy than we imagined. Thank goodness, after all the stress leading up to his birth.
After this, I will probably do a once a month kind of update on how he's doing, but since this is the first week, and he's already changed so much, I wanted to document some of the things we love about him.
The last few days, Evan has really started to become a little person. He opens his eyes so much more now, and sometimes will just stare up at me. His eyes are a beautiful, dark blue, which I know is normal for infants, but he gets such a pensive look at the time. I wish I knew what he was thinking about. We spend most of our time feeding and sleeping, which has forced Ed and I to slow down and relax.
His sleep has grown by leaps and bounds. The first 4 days, he would really only sleep when someone was holding him, so Ed and I would sleep in shifts. Now, he has been really good about letting me put him back to sleep after each feeding at night, which means we're getting some good chunks of 2ish hours during the night. Last night, we got three of them! The first couple nights where we put him down, we let him sleep in the swing, but he's now sleeping in the rock n play. We're hoping to move him to the pack n play eventually, but we aren't in a rush. Feedings take about 45 minutes, including diaper changes, which happen in the middle to wake him up. Evan is a very sleepy baby and often falls asleep while he's eating. Even wet washcloths and ice cubes have little effect on him.
At our first pediatrician appointment, we learned that Evan unfortunately had a tongue tie. This explained why it was so painful to feed him and why he wanted to eat all the time but wasn't getting enough food. Even though it broke our hearts a bit, we okayed the quick procedure to cut the too tight tissue so that his tongue was freed up. Thankfully, at our one week well appointment today, he had gained 5 ounces since Friday! He's now up to 9 lbs 8 oz, which is 6 oz up from his lowest weight at the hospital. It seems like he's now very much on track :). He otherwise is a very healthy little boy.
Other people's fingers are also acceptable, as is a pacifier now, but his first love will always be his hands.
One of the funniest things that we love about him is his obsession with his hands. He loves going to town on them - sticking as much as he can in his mouth and then sucking as hard as he can. When given the option of food or his hands, he usually will choose his hands, or abandon food partway through to be with his hands. It is so incredibly cute, if sometimes a little frustrating when we really want him to eat :).
One of our favorite activities has been taking him for a walk in our neighborhood every day. Each day we're going a little longer, as I'm slowly recovering, and we are really enjoying taking advantage of the nice weather before the heat officially arrives. Tonight, we went out in the evening, which was really fun since it meant we didn't need the shade down. Evan was awake and just taking in everything. We are very much loving our stroller and can't wait to go on bigger expeditions in it.
We started cloth diapers over the weekend, and so far have really been loving them. They really are easy to use (and wash) and they look so incredibly cute. They have also done a great job of containing messes that would have easily escaped a disposable diaper. Right now we're still using the newborn sizes, but I'm not sure how long they will last. We have our larger diapers ready to go, but are still hoping to get some good use out of these.
We have both dabbled in baby wearing, and are really happy, so far, with the moby wrap. I helped Ed put it on, but was able to put it on correctly by myself. Since I'm still healing up, I'm not doing a whole lot of active things, but once I'm up for it, I can definitely see this coming in handy. It wasn't nearly as complicated as I thought it would be, and Evan seemed to like it.
Evan also had his first "bath" at home this week. He definitely wasn't a fan, but I know it takes a while for this to become a fun activity. Still, we loved dressing him up in his lion towel :).
So, that's basically what we've been up to this week. We are having such a good time figuring out this parenting thing with the sweetest little boy imaginable.
No comments:
Post a Comment