Visit to the doctor

Going to the pediatrician (even though we love ours) makes me nervous, like a mix of job interview and midterm. But at today's four-month visit, we graded well. 

The boy's looking good, and for those who want the stats, he's now 24" (two feet tall!) and 13 lbs 13 oz.

We need to crack down on a static, early bedtime, as well as encouraging him to soothe himself to sleep rather than us doing all the work for him. Of course, when I tried that with his next nap, he went ballistic and now he's napping on my chest. One step forward and two back today, it seems. Better luck to me next time.

Oh and here he is at four months in his birth shirt -- first outfit he wore after his birthday suit.

Just happy to be here, hope I can help the ballclub

Four months today

I would give anything to know what he dreams about.

Moving up in the world (of baby seats)

We borrowed this from a friend -- he's a little small for it yet, as Bittman and Rowling down there will attest, but he's interested in the stuff he can grab, so so far so good.

Sneeze

I was waiting to shoot a smile, but this'll do.

Baby in a Bumbo

My favorite part of this chair is that he burps more in it.

Sleep

Last night, Colin and I had a "misunderstanding". He yelled at me a lot as I tried different things to make him stop yelling. He finally stopped mid-yell when he passed out on my chest. I basically won by forfeit, but it still counts in the standings, right?

I knew he was tired, like extra tired, and I tried every solution and combination of solutions that had worked before. Sometimes you just hit all the wrong notes. Luckily for me, and him, and his mom, it was a rare meltdown. Colin is usually cooperative about falling asleep when he's tired.

Once he fell asleep, he stayed asleep for an unusually long 11.5 hours, not counting two breaks at 3:30 a/m/ and 7:30 a.m. when he woke up ravenous and then passed out again after eating. Now he's napping again, a late-morning nap while Holly naps too after her overnight shift.

When everyone who's supposed to be asleep is asleep, it feels like all is right with the world and always must be. And when that is not the case, it can feel like the universe is being unaccountably cruel.

... And now he's up. That was a good stretch, though. Time to put him in his Bumbo chair and give him practice holding his head up. More pictures and less blathering prose to follow, I promise!

My new job

Here's Colin today, thinking about something in between cooing, yelling, eating, spitting, sleeping, kicking and gnawing on his teething giraffe. I think he's trying to get some teeth soon.

I'm happy to say my new full-time job is taking care of this little man, who made me a dad and Holly a mom on July 20. (Anniversary of the first moon landing! No one else got excited about that but me.) Today marks a month since I began doing that, having just left my job in online local journalism. Holly started her new OBGYN gig at Penn the same day.

I'll talk about more in later posts, but just wanted to let Colin's fan club know I'll be posting pictures and videos here occasionally.