First real smile!

The very first signs of a responsive smile came around 3am on August 25th, when I was checking to make sure he was going to sleep before heading back to bed.  He wasn't, but I got a little smile as soon as I looked into the pack n play.   I got a real smile a few hours later when he was in his swing.  I told him I loved him and got this huge toothless grin in response.   Two days later I caught it on camera.

He is definitely a morning person...unluckily Mommy is not, but those smiles do make it easier on those days he thinks the day starts around 5am.

In addition to getting smiles, he "talks" much more now as well.  He started happy shrieks several weeks ago, but now he has expanded his vocabulary to bah (usually sad) mah (angry/frustrated) and gah (happy), as well as experimenting with various decibel levels.

Slept 7 hours.

Him, not me.  I was still wide awake from 2:30am to 3am expecting him to wake up, but after a very fussy evening, Colton slept from 9 until almost 4am.  Hopefully this is the start of sleeping through the night.  We tried a new swaddle last night too, but it is undecided whether that had anything to do with it.  We put him in the miracle blanket, which had a ton of good reviews swearing their babies slept all night as soon as they used it. Normally I don't put much stock in those things and call it coincidence, but if he keeps this up I'll buy a few more.

So here's to sleep!

Smiles

Tonight I was so excited because as soon as I laid Colton on the changing pad after Daddy handed him off, he gave me this big smile while looking right at me.  No gas followed so I really thought this was it....he knew who I was and was smiling because he was happy.   Thrilled, I told him smiles were the best as I re-did his swaddle for bed.  Then it came.  The delayed sneak attack spit up....out of the mouth down the neck to pool in a small puddle that he can then smear in freshly washed hair in.   ::sigh::    At least he is still giving us warning signs.  A week or so ago it was this wide-eyed surprised look, but now apparently spit up is funny.  Oh well, just seeing the smile, for whatever reason, makes everything that much more worth it.

2 month check-up and shots...

equal a very unhappy little baby.  At this age, when he is actually crying a hurt cry...he starts tearing up (as opposed to the regular feed me/I'm bored/change me cry) which makes it all the more heartbreaking.  He did settle down and sleep on my chest for several hours, but was just plain sad again when we fed him around dinner time.  I think the Infant Acetomenaphin helped and he is asleep in his crib now.

The rest of his appointment went great, he is hitting all his milestones for an adjusted age of 5 weeks.  He weighed 11lbs, 11oz. and was about 22inches tall today.

2 months old!

We had better luck with this month's pictures...still a few months away from hamming it up for a camera, but like his one month picture, the results are pretty cute.

 

First Trip

Last week we took our first family trip together and drove all the way up to my parent's summer house in Michigan...a 12-14 hour drive with a normal number of stops, closer to 16 stopping every 3 hours to feed and change him.  We did stop overnight though, because I didn't think driving straight through was a good idea.  Colton was a champ going out and slept almost the whole way.  He was wide awake once we stopped, but luckily we stopped early and R took him into Cabela's, where he could stare at the ceiling lights while R checked out all the hunting/fishing stuff.   He did really well in a new environment too.  Our biggest concern was of course his sun exposure, but we took walks in the evening or early morning when there was still plenty of shade, and we took his bouncer and put it in his little outdoor baby play tent when we were outside or out on the dock since there was always a nice breeze and it soothed him right to sleep.  That tent was awesome.

We plan on going back up in a few weeks when my parents will also be there.   I'm hoping by that point he is starting to focus more on faces and objects, but since he falls anywhere between 3 weeks adjusted age and 8 weeks, I've got a pretty broad timeline to guess at.

Newborn photos.

I had looked around for a photographer back in May, but most were ridiculously expensive, charged a la carte for the prints, or didn't offer a high res CD with reproduction rights, or all of the above.  Rich found our photographer, a co-worker in the process of expanding his photography hobby into a full time business.  He came to our house, did about a 2 hour session, and gave a CD with all our photos.   These are a few of my favorites.

Photos taken by Matt Schreier Photography.