1 Month (Already!)

This is more of a one week old shot.

Three weeks-ish

I can't even believe that Neko has been on the outside for a whole month already! Holy cow has that time flown right by! It's like he's not even "new" anymore, like he's always been part of the picture (except that he is still a new little baby)...

We had his one month check-up this morning and as the doctor said, "He passed;)" He is now (already)11 pounds on the nose--90th percentile and 21.25 inches--50th percentile...very similar to where Keller was although with a bit more smooshiness to love!

He spent the first 2 and a half weeks pretty much sleeping all day and waking up briefly here and there for what we lovingly called "eyeball time" because those baby blues were such a rarity to see for awhile. Now he's up more, usually a good stretch in the morning and then again in the late afternoon. More recently he has become a little "fussy" if you can call it that and prefers to be held during the day when he's up and then pulling the wake up when we put him down trick...which I shouldn't even write about because it's just a standard Coming of Age right of passage I think. Not to mention that when you're the second child, life is a little different because Mommy and Daddy are sharing their time more than with the first, but really, I think we're doing just fine around here. Keller still gets plenty of time and Neko has his "after hours" Mommy and Daddy time in the evening after Keller goes to sleep.

So Neko is still sleeping in our room in the bassinet. Keller was "kicked out" of our room at 5 weeks, but Neko really has no place to go just yet and hasn't been too bad of a roommate at all. He'll sleep a decent stretch for the first 4ish hours of the night--so roughly 10-2 or 11-3 (although last night was 10-4!!!) And then go another 2-3 hours after which he begins his morning grunting session. He is not necessarily awake during this period but he sure manage to keep us awake...I usually will feed him again and if the grunting continues, he gets rolled out into the kitchen so Trav and I can enjoy the last hour or so of sleep! So, really, we can't complain about sleep. Sure we look forward to sleeping through the night, but Neko still is entitled to somewhat of a newborn sleep schedule for a little while longer!

Keller has continued to be a great big brother. "Look Neko" he says regularly, showing Neko his toys and his sippy cup and how he eats with a fork. It's very cute. He points out every time he hears Neko squeak or crank or cry "Needs a bink" and will try to put the bink in Neko's mouth. Cute:) He is also warming up to letting Neko's body touch his body. If I was holding Neko and Keller came up for a cuddle and Neko's little naked toes touched Keller, Keller would curl his lip and say "back up, back up" as he backed away from the imposing piggies. No interest in "holding" Neko either (which is fine;). Now though he is getting a little "bolder" and is experimenting with "picking up" Neko's leg or trying to touch his head, etc. He definitely needs someone over his shoulder reminding him to be gentle though...

We've been getting out little by little here and there...My first out alone with the two boys excursion was to the walk-in clinic to get a steroid cream for my poison ivy that was allllllll over my belly, boobs, back of my knee, my forearms, and triceps...That began about a week after being home after Trav had done some yard work. "Somehow" the poison ivy clothes from yardwork must have made it in with the regular laundry??? I'm guessing because I don't know how else I would have gotten it everywhere...It was horrible, on top of newly nursing nipples and being up several times in the night and a healing "down there"---lovely. But we made it through all of those discomforts thank goodness! After two full days of the cream I was mostly cleared up.

We celebrated our 4 year anniversary down here at the beach. While it wasn't the Cape Cod beach sunset we've grown accustomed to, it was a nice evening with a Thai food dinner on the beach followed by Strawberry Rhubarb pie (the very flavor we had for our wedding first-bite) and a lovely French wine. Keller was a whack-a-do and Neko slept. We (I) just enjoyed the not-so-relaxingness of celebrating my love for my husband as Keller "tested" limits and Travis tried to get him to stop touching the sand (hmmm, good luck with that: 20 months, way past bedtime, at the beach!!!) Once Keller was safely strapped back into the booster chair thing I was able to enjoy my glass of wine before the bugs came out in full force!

We've had visits to the grandparents', hose-time in the backyard, and Keller's first lake/pond experience this year over the weekend. He ran right into the water and kept throwing himself down. He loved it! He had no fear and no sense of danger/water depth...By the end of the day, Trav had taught him somewhat of an awareness of "Don't go over your bellybutton" sort of...He'll get it eventually. He drank a lot of yummy pond water and didn't really like the pondweed too much but he was clearly exhausted from all of the fun! I loved watching his excitement...What a big boy he is already! (But really just so little still:)

And so all is good here. Two healthy happy baby boys. And a smelly dog. And a Mommy and Daddy who pretty soon will have time for each other again...right??? Now that we're settling in to life with two, that's the next priority:)

Keller's first ice-pop!!

And when the little boy actually wakes up, I'll try shooting an official One Month Old series of shots...