Tomorrow our little boy will be 11 weeks old. He is already quite big (at least from our perspective — he’s twice as heavy as he was when he was born) and is growing and developing so quickly.

Last Monday he started to stare at his right hand… and I mean stare. He would chill for a little bit and then suddenly pull up his hand and stare at it with this look of “wow, check this thing out!” Then he started to move it towards his face (hitting himself a lot but never seeming to mind). On Thursday he finally made it to his mouth and yesterday (Friday) he spent a good part of the day sucking on the side of his hand. It’s so funny to watch him; his left hand holds his right hand and he just sucks away.

He still loves his baths and I hope it stays that way. It is such a pleasure to bath him; he just sits there and stares at me and is so mellow. If he is crying or fussing before he goes into the water, he stops as soon as he is immersed. And since he is older, he doesn’t mind being naked as much as he did when he was a newborn so dressing him afterwards is easy peasy. In fact, he just laughs and smiles while we lotion him up and throw on his sleeper. We’re also trying to put him to bed by 9 regardless of whether or not he is tired and for the most part he will fall asleep on his own.

I keep on waiting for things to get difficult like everyone has said but he really is such an easy baby. Jay keeps on saying that if the rest are this easy we’ll have 40. I’m hoping that he’ll carry and deliver half of them because that delivery stuff is a bitch.

A note on the breastfeeding: still going ok but I think pumping is screwing with my supply. And nursing/pumping in general is making me damn tired. I don’t remember being this tired when I was pregant. I remember being constantly winded (since my lungs were all smooshed and I was carrying an extra 28 pounds) but I don’t remember being so tired that I felt like I was going to fall asleep at any given time. And then there’s the hunger. I swear I never ate this much when I was pregnant but now I am hungry all the time. I can eat a regular meal and an hour later I am starving. At least when I was pregnant I had an excuse but now I feel like people look at me and think, “Jesus Christ, does that girl ever stop eating?!”

I realized that in being so sparse with entries, I missed the first Monthday. And now I am two days late on the second Monthday…

Takeshi –

Your sleeping/eating schedule is getting somewhat more predictable. Somewhat. You still wake up once or twice a night but are always up around 6 am to start your day. You stay up until 8 when you start to get tired and hungry so we feed you and then you take your morning nap. Then you wake up for lunch and are out again for another nap and will usually wake around 4 or 5 to feed again. Sometimes you stay up until your next feeding, sometimes you sleep. But whatever you do you’re such a good boy and only fuss when there is a valid reason. A few times it seemed like you were crying for the hell of it but it turned out you were just overtired and cranky.

You can recognize us now and you love it when your Dad (he is still deciding on what he wants to be called) makes his ‘monkey face.’ You can mimic his ’shocked face’ and also when I stick my tongue out at you, you try to do the same. You love it when your dad plays Rocket/Freefall with you, although you always look like you’re going to crap yourself before you laugh. You also love sitting in your swing and talking to your fuzzy little friends that hang from above. You will talk (gurgle/coo/squeal) and smile and laugh at them until you decide it’s time for a nap and then you’ll fall asleep. You like it when I read to you and you love your ABC’s. One thing you do hate is Tummy Time but we are trying to enforce it since you have incredible lower body strength, but don’t have the upper body strength to match.

You love new faces and always have a smile for a kind stranger. You are always being told how cute you are and your cheeks are getting bigger and bigger — I’m afraid you’ll be like your Uncle Keisey and people will constantly be squeezing them. Lucky for you, you have a strong kick; don’t be afraid to let people know to stop harassing you. (You already kicked the doctor when she was making you upset with all her poking and prodding.)

I’ve been told that you may potty train early since you dislike sitting in your excrement so much. We can only cross our fingers and hope that that’s true — these diapers aren’t cheap and neither are the wipes.

You are so cute that Daddy takes pictures of you even when you’re crying. And your pouty face melts the both of us. When you are really upset, your head goes back, your lower lip sticks out and your cry sounds like, “Maaaa Maaaaaa.” It is both the cutest and saddest thing. When you are really hungry you will cry until you see me; once you know I’m there you will wimper and smack your lips and make a sucking face as if to say, “Insert nipple here please.” You have a (bad) habit of falling asleep while nursing and will often choke on the milk. I like to think that you fall asleep because you are so content but it frustrates me to see you coughing like that. You also do this funny little thing before you nurse; you will put your lips to the nipple but if there isn’t milk there you will pull away and keep checking and won’t latch on until it is squirting all over the place.

You are also very particular about having your arms covered. During your first week home, we swaddled you when you slept because you would throw your arms out and would wake yourself up. Then the swaddling quickly went from Good Thing to Bad Thing; you would try so hard to get your arms out that you would throw up and no parent wants to see their child throw up when they’re sleeping. So we stopped swaddling you and put you in the (lifesaving) sleepsack. Even when you are napping in your swing, we have to leave your arms uncovered. If not, you will immediately start fussing and fidgeting trying to get your arms out. Once they are above the covers you are happy as a clam and quickly fall asleep. You must be a mix of your mom and dad; the former must be covered (sometimes with 2 blankets, folded lengthwise so it’s like having 4 blankets) and the latter sleeps with only his underwear and sometimes not even a thin sheet can cover him.

I think you are looking less like me as the days go by but everytime someone we know sees you, they always say, “Oh he looks just like his mom.” But I also think I see some dimples when you smile; I’m still holding onto the hope that you will have them. And you (thankfully) have your dad’s long eyelashes but unfortunately, just like him, you also don’t close your eyes all the way when you sleep. This may not be too big of a deal if you don’t need corrective lenses (unlike both your parents) but if you do… well, as your dad says, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

Only 2 months old and you have us completely wrapped around your little finger… we love you, doo doo butt.

Mama & Daddy/Papi/Man Who Makes Monkey Faces

I didn’t ask the pediatrician about giving Takeshi cereal to help him sleep through the night — mostly because I didn’t want to hear her say to give it to him but also because he slept for SEVEN HOURS last night. It was probably a fluke and he won’t do that again for a while but I am so ecstatic. And of course it comes just days before I have to go back to work — figures. I’m pretty sure he was plotting with Jay all along to wake up every few hours until I went back to work. Now that daddy’s in charge he’ll sleep like a champ and Jay will say, “I don’t know why you were always so tired.”

As for his stats, our little boy weighed in at 10 lbs 14.25 ounces (15th percentile) and is 23.5 inches long (51st percentile). I was going to put money on him weighing at least 12 lbs. I guess it just seems like he’s huge compared to how small he was 2 months ago. It’s still hard for us to believe that we’re parents. I know it’s already been 2 months but it seems like it was just yesterday when we at the hospital joking with the nurses and trying to push him out. Someday we won’t be able to remember what life was like without kids… but right now we’re still in awe and still trying to adjust.

Currently I am trying to prepare for Grumpy Baby since he just got his shots about 4 hours ago and the doctor said he will most likely get a low grade fever. We gave him .4mL of Infant Tylenol and now we’re just waiting…

And it figures that I finally get the hang of this breastfeeding thing and am able to get my supply up to where he barely needs to take any formula and now I’m headed back to work. Shaw. I’m hoping the pumping doesn’t mess up my supply. I’m gonna kick some ass if it does.

Next Wednesday I go back to work but in the meantime, Takeshi isn’t getting any better at sleeping through the night. Saturday night he was up every two hours and when he slept through most of Sunday I thought he was going to do it again that night but he ended up sleeping for a five and a half hour stretch. Then yesterday (Monday) I tried to duplicate what we did on Sunday but he wasn’t having it and was up at 11:30 pm, 3:30 am and 6:30 am. From what I’ve read most babies are sleeping through the night by 3 months… we’re one month away from that mark and I don’t see any signs of him sleeping through the night. I’ve heard that giving him more solid foods (like cereal) will help him sleep longer but I’ve read about women that exclusively breastfeed and have babies that will sleep anywhere from 6 to 12 hours at his age. He obviously hasn’t read the same handout that their kids have. Plus, I don’t want to give him anything other than breastmilk or formula his first 4 months. We’ll ask the pediatrician when we see her on Friday but I’m hoping she doesn’t suggest giving him cereal.

I am getting really bad at updating this blog. Takeshi is awake for longer periods and it doesn’t seem right for me to be on the computer when he should be learning and taking things in. I’ve started to read to him and he seems to really enjoy it. We’re still doing tummy time but only for a few minutes at a time since he really hates it (although he can lay on his back and stare at his mobile for a while and his little legs will pump like crazy). He loves his swing and will talk to his birdy friends forever. He still smiles when he falls asleep and I think that’s the cutest thing.