Moving On

After his bath one day, Micah decided he needed to go to the bathroom again (great timing, huh? At least it wasn't in the bath...). Mom hurriedly put the diaper on him and when she lifted him up, this is the view we got:

That's my age now. Doesn't seem possible. When I think of a 27-year-old, I certainly don't think of myself, but I guess that doesn't really matter because I am now officially in my late twenties! I've accomplished all that I wanted to do by this age, so while I really enjoyed my twenties, I can't really say that I'm sad to see them passing by.

This year, my birthday really snuck up on me for obvious reasons, but it was a fun day none the less. It was Election Day, so guess it really shouldn't have snuck up on me since everyone was counting down to the 4th, but it still did. My family still made it special for me and Micah slept almost the entire night into my birthday morning. I told him that's what I wanted for my bday and being the thoughtful, considerate little man that he is, he obliged :). Dave bought me beautiful roses from Trader Joe's (he was nearby getting his free coffee from Starbucks for voting). And we had a little dinner party: G&G, Rita, Ryan and Yana all came. That was also the night that Yana and Ryan fed Micah a bottle, which ended up being two bottles equaling seven ounces. He slept from 8pm until 2:30am (after eating at 5:15pm), so we are now experimenting with bedtimes and waking him up to feed him six ounces because we now know he's capable of sleeping through the night...we just have to make it the same night as ours!

This is basically the scene that surrounds Micah at some point each day. His aunties and uncles take turns visiting him and sometimes we're all together at once...together around the baby, that is. He responds so well to these familiar faces, it's so cute to see. Each of them have put him to sleep at some point, which is a cute and cuddly experience. He has taken to turning his head sideways and laying it on a nearby shoulder or chest, which makes you want to just eat him up...figuratively speaking, of course.

This. This is exactly why I wanted to move back home.

We discovered by accident that Micah l.o.v.e.s. the outdoors. It's magic, really: If he's crying or whining or fussing, all you have to do is literally step outside and his noise ceases to exist any longer. It's actually quite funny. And if you didn't stay outside long enough, the minute you step back inside, he'll pick up right where he left off. Mom was waiting for me to get home from an errand the first week I could drive all by myself and he was crying because he decided he wanted to eat RIGHT NOW. So she stepped outside to wait for me and she said the change was so instantaneous, so complete, that she looked down to see him sleeping and thought, "Oh my goodness, I killed Jess' baby!" Nope, she didn't, but she did discover a very useful tool in calming Micah down and putting him to sleep. I told him that he was born in the wrong season because winter will be upon us soon and I won't want to be stepping outside very frequently. I'm sure he'll be in another stage of maturity by then, but even on a few of the recently chilly days, we've taken him outside and he's still loved it.

So, in keeping with the spirit of outside, Auntie Kristina and I brought my outdoors man out to the leaf pile to see his reaction. You can gauge it for yourself:

I snapped this picture on our way out of the voting place today...do you see his "I Voted Today!" sticker?



Mom came with me since she already voted and held the little man. He was fascinated with all that was going on, so I'm glad he was able to go. After I filled out my voting paper and slipped it into the voting machine, the volunteer working the polls gave me two stickers: one for me and one for Micah. Now I'll be able to tell him that he started "voting" at seven weeks old!

D's parents bought Micah this outfit way before he was born. I'm glad I refound it because we just barely managed to jam my 12+ pound boy into it. It has a place on the pocket for all of his newborn stats, which I had to fill in with the special pen it came with.

We brought him over to D's parent's house like this and they enjoyed seeing him all dressed up. I guess this could have been a Halloween outfit for him, too, come to think of it.

In Dave and Jess news, life is starting to get back to its new normal. When we're not tag-teaming or co-teaming Micah, we do the things we used to do. Mom had our hairdresser over a few weeks ago and invited some friends and family over, so we all got our hair done and hung out while the men did their thing. There have been a few Ladies Nights (Micah is the only boy allowed) and a few Manly Nights. Mom and Dad are so awesome about watching the baby here and there if we want to go on a quick errand and he's sleeping. D took me out to Red Robin's for dinner on Friday night for my bday and we even stopped at Trader Joe's afterwards to get some goodies. The other week we had stopped by Best Buy to pick up our new 42" flatscreen TV that will fit nicely on our new TV stand at our house. Although I would have been just as happy with our old TVs, it is a very nice piece of equipment. So we get "us" time a lot more than I thought we would. However, our little man fits perfectly into our (and a lot of others') lives and one of our new favorite pasttimes is looking at his many faces. He is quite the entertainer. We're talking about visiting our friends in PA soon, we miss them a lot and would love to see them again soon. Lots going on, but for now I hear my little man squeaking and grunting, which are precursors to crying! Also known as, "I'm hungry!"

I won't tell you that I dressed Micah all up in his Halloween outfit yesterday fully believing that yesterday was Friday, therefore Halloween. My Grammy and I went out shopping with the little man and I even showed the cashier his Halloween outfit. Oh well. And if that wasn't bad enough, he had an overflowing diaper which created quite a mess on the outfit-that-had-been-worn-a-day-early. Fortunately I had enough laundry to make a full load and Micah is now (re)dressed in his Halloween outfit on Halloween. It's a candy corn shouting, "I want candy!"

On Friday, Dad, Mom, and I were going to go over Ryan's house. I had just fed and changed Micah, but desperately wanted a shower. Not wanting to wait around for me, they took the baby and left. When I arrived over there not an hour later, I was greeted with these pictures:

My child is an overachiever already. We went for his one-month check-up yesterday and here are the stats:

Weight: 12 lbs. 4 oz.
Height: 23 3/4 inches

Let's break it down. We were at the doctor's exactly one month ago where he was 9 lbs. 4 oz. and 21 1/2 inches. That means he has gained THREE pounds in four weeks and grew 2 1/4 inches in the same time frame. The doctor and nurse practitioner were very impressed with how strong he is and the doctor said that he is ready for tummy time. I didn't mention that not only does he have tummy time, but he's been sleeping on his belly at night now (he slept a five-hour stretch last night). He was such an angel the entire time. I had to strip him down for his weight and he didn't mind at all, matter of fact he was flirting with the nurse and the nurse practitioner. The doctor experienced the same affection and I was getting kind of worried that he likes older women...already! Oh, and the doctor mentioned that his blue eye color would more than likely stay that way. Again (I thought the baby would look more like D) I was hoping they'd be D's hazely color but again I am wrong! No shots this time, for which both Mom and I were grateful; he was in too good of a mood to have it ruined by a silly shot. The doctor and I discussed other things: the vitamin D drops make his belly upset so she suggested organic drops that are sold at Whole Foods. I would have gotten those to begin with, had I known about them. I told her I was using these homeopathic drops for gas relief and she said he should be growing out of that soon. It's true, we haven't had to give them to him nearly as much as a few weeks ago.

As Mom, Micah, and I were walking out of the patient room area, we ran into Ryan and Yana. Ry was there to see his doctor and as chance would have it, we were walking down the same hallway at the same time. And who was waiting in the parking lot when we got down there, but none other than my dad. He was passing by the building on his was to food shop, so we said hi to him. Mom asked a good question, "Who else gets to see practically their entire family at that point in the day, time or place?" It was fun, whatever the answer.

Micah and I went to Target where he decided that he didn't want the bottle I had pumped for him, yet he still wanted to eat. So we were sitting in the car for a few minutes while he nursed and then we were good to go. He was great and let me do all my shopping.

Later in the afternoon, in the midst of a good nap, his afternoon guests arrived. Yana's two grandmothers wanted to meet the little man, so we made arrangements. They are some of the cutest grandmothers I've met. They don't speak a lot of English so either Yana or Rita had to translate what they were saying to us...but they came bearing food and gifts and had such a good time holding Micah. He was talked to in Russian or Armenian and he was talking back to them in Baby, it was the cutest thing to see. One of the grandmothers bought him a bathrobe and a few summer outfits, the other pulled out a $20 bill and gave it to him! We all had tea and some of the desserts they brought over: a pound cake and baklava...yum! I wasn't sure how Micah would behave, considering I had to wake him up, but again he was an angel! After being passed to Yana, the grandmas, Rita, Ryan, and back again, he decided that he wanted to eat, thus ending our visit.

I found the following clip in my inbox yesterday. I guess Dad had found a site where this is possible and of course he used our Micah-man as the star of his film. The site is actually pretty cool and I can see myself using it in the future, but for now this is what Dad came up with...

Well the near future was nearer than expected. I just put together this "Sleepy Micah" video using just a few of the many pictures we have of this man sleeping. Which is kind of ironic because he hadn't been taking good naps when most of these were taken...but he is now :)

What were we doing a month ago today?

I can't believe how big he has gotten in just a month. Not that he was ever really small to begin with, but he's even bigger now :(. Probably has a lot to do with him being such a good eater. This kid can put it away! And yet nothing is chubby on him. I always tell him, for being nine pounds (probably closer to 11 by now), you think I could get some cheeks or thighs or something!

To sum up the month: a whirlwind. My biggest adjustment has been the sleeping thing, or the reduced amount thereof. And it's not even as bad as it could be since both Mom and David are helping me, but I'm used to getting a solid 8+ hours of sleep. Not with a baby. However, it's not all that bad since he's been sleeping four or five hours at a pop. Also, I kind of miss going out and about on a whim. I have to consider Micah's eating and sleeping "schedule" before going anywhere or doing anything. Again, this hasn't been as big of a deal as it could have been without Mom and company here to help. I've gone out on little errands here and there since my first week home, which has been great. I couldn't drive for two weeks so Mom and D were carting me around everywhere I wanted/needed to go. The first thing I did was put together a big basket of tea/coffee mugs with tea bags, hot chocolate powder, coffee, and iced tea packets for the nurses at the hospital. D finally delivered it last night and they loved it. I tied a little picture of Micah to each wrapped mug with something like, "Thank you for taking such good care of us" with our name typed up on the back. I loved those nurses! OK, onto the good stuff.

Micah has adjusted to being outside my belly quite well. Not that he's supposed to yet, but he can: hold his head up and look around, make direct, sustained eye contact, smile in response to talking with him, and find and suck his (right) thumb. He has a lot of awake periods throughout the day, which means he doesn't nap as much as I thought he would. He took great naps for the first few weeks, but he has decided that now he has more important things to do. He falls asleep great for D, though, which is cute. I know "they" say not to, but since he can hold his head up already, we started (just today, actually) letting him nap on his belly. He seems to like it so much better and stays asleep for longer. I'm not comfortable letting him sleep at night like that just yet, but when we're all up and around during the day, I don't mind. He likes the pacifier at certain points of sleepiness. He'll take it when he first wants to fall asleep and then when he wakes up but doesn't want to eat yet, he'll take it to fall back asleep. The funny thing is, though, he'll spit it out all by himself after around five minutes...for which I am very grateful because he will not see his first birthday with that in his mouth. Oh, and we found out the trick of a successful bath time: two washcloths. One to cover up his chest and belly with and one to do the actual washing. The other day he cried when Mom took him out of the tub, instead of in. He looks so cute and tiny all naked. His bottom is actually three times smaller than what it looks like all day in a diaper!

I'm starting to venture out with him more. I took him with me to Babies R Us yesterday for all of forty-five minutes and he started getting fussy at the end of our shopping trip. D says that was just because we were shopping...you know, the whole guys don't like to shop thing. He fell asleep in the car seat on the way home, which he usually does in the car. We've taken him to church a number of times and a few times we've had to step out with him, but he's made it through a few services, too. Today I took him over Ryan and Yana's because everyone was going over for lunch and, while I need to feed him over there, he was passed around quite a bit and everyone was able to get their Micah fix. The running joke is that every picture you take of Micah is of Micah and my breast because the kid is an eating machine. And while I don't allow such pictures to be taken, I would agree that about 80% would be such a picture. Which is precisely why I don't venture out a lot right now! This baby eats so much that I already have at least five bags stock-piled in the freezer; and that's on top of pumping 4oz every day so Mom can do his first night feeding. He knows how to do his job, that's for sure!

Well, that about sums up our first month as a family of three and an extended family of what seems like a million :). We go for his one-month appointment early next week, so I'll give you the official stats then.

This is Micah (at 3 weeks) deciding to tell everyone about the big, bad bath that his Mommy and Grammy just gave him. He makes direct eye contact and will respond with his cooing when talked to...I can't keep up with this kid!