A little one-month-old photoshoot.
(Thanks for the awesome stickers, Caden!)
"Maybe I'll play along and give them a smile..."
"Here it comes..."
"Oh yeah, they're gonna love this smile!"
"Phewsh, that smile was hard work"
Deep in thought.
Oh! We are distressed!
"Heh"
Taking a little paci break...
"This photoshoot business is hard work..."
How big you are:
At two weeks, you were 9lbs 4oz and 20.5 inches long, and you haven't been weighed or measured since then. You were supposed to have your one-month appointment this week, but the doctor isn't in her office, so we have to wait until next week to find out how much you've grown! I'm guessing you're at least 11lbs by now... you are a little chunker!
Things you love:
You LOVE your bath time. As soon as you are put in the water, your whole body relaxes and you make happy little sighs and coos. We always make sure the bathroom is nice and warm so you don't get cold. You often fall asleep while we're bathing you!
You LOVE to be held, especially with your head on our shoulders. You love having your back patted. You are quite the little monkey, because you know that if you cry (when you're laying in your play gym or bassinet or something) we will usually pick you up. Most of the time the only reason you cry is so that we will pick you up, and you are as happy as a clam as soon as you are in our arms! We love it. Maybe we are spoiling you, but I don't think babies can be spoiled by being held... they just need lots of snuggle time. It must be quite the shock to the system to suddenly be out in the big wide world after being snuggled up in mom's belly for so long! Sometimes we fight over who gets to hold you :)
You LOVE your food - you are a very good eater (as evidenced by your very healthy weight gain!) I feed you every 3-4 hours during the day, and at night you go 4-6 hours between feeds. We introduced a bottle (of pumped milk) at 2 weeks, and you sucked it down like a champ. You get one bottle every day so you stay used to it. That way someone else can feed you if mom needs to go somewhere!
You LOVE to suck on things. I figured this out when you would nurse for up to an hour - really you were just using me as a pacifier! You suck on your fists, and you try to suck on anything that comes close to your mouth. So we introduced a pacifier and you love it. Unfortunately you're not great at keeping it in your mouth (and when it comes out you tend to get upset) so we have to keep plugging it back in, but you'll get it soon enough.
You LOVE music... and being sung to. Daddy makes up silly songs for you, and I often sing you to sleep. You love it when there's music on, you go very quiet and look like you're listening intently.
You generally like tummy time... it depends on what kind of mood you're in. You do love to sleep on your tummy, but we only let you do that when we're awake and watching you.
Things you don't like:
You DO NOT like having your diaper changed. It makes your little bottom cold and you do not like anything cold! Anytime we touch you or pick you up with cold hands, you start crying! You will usually cry while we change your diaper (as quick as we can), and as soon as we are done and pick you up you are perfectly happy again.
Sometimes at night you decide that you don't like being alone in your bassinet (which is in our room), so we move all our pillows and blankets and put you on the bed with us. Then you can sense us next to you and you sleep like a rock! Little monkey. Being close to us makes you feel secure, so we don't mind.
There's really not much you don't like... you're a pretty laid-back baby!
What you've been up to this month:
It's incredible how much you've changed in just a month. You've gone from a helpless, floppy (but oh-so-cute) newborn to a happy one-month-old who can hold his head up for short periods, smile at us, and "talk" to us. You've figured out that your arms and legs are attached to your body and you kick and wriggle and wave your arms around happily. You like to put your fist in your mouth and suck on it.
You started mimicking simple facial expressions when you were about a week old. You can make "kissy lips", stick out your tongue at us, and smile :) You smiles are now becoming more purposeful and sometimes you give them spontaneously which makes us squeal with delight :) (OK, maybe the squealing mostly comes from mom, but it makes daddy very happy too!).
You get hiccups all the time, just like when you were inside me. Usually you get them after you eat. So far we haven't figured out how to get rid of them... they eventually just stop on their own. You are starting to get more annoyed with your hiccups as you get older! Poor baby... I would be annoyed too!
You've "talked" to us from the very beginning with your little body. When we talk to you or smile at you, your whole body starts moving, you mouth opens and closes, and your hands start waving as you try to communicate with us. More recently you've started using your voice to talk to us too... with little oohs and aahs and agoos. It's so cute. You've made grunting and squeaking noises since you were born... often in your sleep. Sometimes you sound like a horse and we laugh at you :)
You've developed a pattern of being very wakeful and playful from about 2am to 4am. You wake up to eat at 2am, and then you're wide awake usually for a couple of hours, and you just want to have our attention! We're working on getting you back to sleeping then, but we're enjoying the happy smiles you give us during that time. We just wish it was more like 2 in the afternoon instead of 2 in the morning :)
Oh, what joy you have brought to our lives Judah William! We love you so very much, and we are so grateful that God has chosen us to be your parents! We are excited to watch you grow (but not too fast, ok?) and explore and learn about this big wide world of adventures and possibilities.
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