Organic cuteness

Q: How do new parents spend Halloween?

A:
(Thanks to Jody for sending us the pea pod costume!)

Trick or treat!

Who do I look like?

Daddy on the left, Mommy on the right. Who do I look most like? (Larger version here.)

Buttery eyes

There's a new saying in our house: "buttery eyes."

Here's an example of its usage. If one of us is rocking Theo to sleep but cannot see his face, we'll ask the other quietly: "Hey, does Theo have buttery eyes yet?"

Where'd we come up with such a strange expression? It's my mom's fault! :) A few weeks ago, I overheard her telling a very sleepy Theo that he had buttery eyes.

I was bemused. "Buttery eyes? What's that?"

It turns out that there's a French-Canadian idiom that describes sleepy eyes: "les yeux aux beurre," which translates as "buttery eyes." Tyler and I find this saying amusing, and so it has entered our everyday vocabulary.

Theo with his Memere, who whispers such cute things to him:


Theo modeling buttery eyes for the camera:


...OK, those aren't REAL buttery eyes; he was blinking as I took a photo. But they illustrate my point. Buttery eyes for the win! :)

Happiness is...

One month

Yesterday, Theo turned one month old. He had his one-month check-up at the doctor's office today, and his growth is right on target: He now weighs 8 pounds, 10 ounces and measures 22 inches long. Yay!

Theo is doing well with the pacifier. He had a little bit of confusion earlier in the week, but that seems sorted out now.

We took a bunch of photos yesterday. See if you can stand the cuteness:






(When I compare those photos to these, taken the day he was born, I'm amazed at how much he's grown in such a short amount of time. Sigh!)

The cutest news of the week is that yesterday, Theo gave me his first real smile. You should see the dimples! His eyes were all smiley, too. What a treat. With any luck, I'll get a photo of him smiling sometime soon.

Absentee Father[-blogger]

Rebecca just said, "gee, I've posted a lot more than you. You should post something."

I looked over her shoulder at her screen and realized I hadn't even READ anything since the last post I made. Oops. According to Erin, this is one of my duties as a father, and I am obviously neglecting that duty.

But I have been changing a lot of diapers.

Anyway... I made a couple of videos I would like to share on the same day of the previous post's photos. Unfortunately, I wasn't thinking clearly (though I don't think I can really cite sleep depravation), and I recorded them sideways. If we can figure out how to turn them, we'll post them here.

By special request...

My mom really wants me to post some of the photos we took on Friday. Something about how good she thinks I look less than a month after Theo was born... ::blush:: So, here you go, mom:





We took these photos just after I got home from singing in a Gilbert and Sullivan concert. This was my first occasion to get dressed up in weeks! Wow.

Note that Theo is not just wrapped in a parrot blanket: It's a parrot blanket with Gilbert & Sullivan-themed embroideries on the reverse side. (How apropos.) So clearly, those are the Parrots of Penzance. :)

BTW, I've been wearing my hair back so much lately that I was surprised to see how long my hair has gotten. I wonder if it's time to get it cut? The comments want your opinion.

A nice visit

Last week, Tyler's mom and stepdad came to visit from Utah. Here are some cute pictures from their trip.

Theo with Grandma Liz:

Theo with Tyler, Liz, and Dwane:

and, with both grandmothers:

Three weeks

Yesterday, Theodore turned three weeks old. Sweet baby!

When he was born, the lactation consultant at the hospital advised waiting three weeks before letting him use a pacifier. So last night, we let him try one for the first time.

The experiment went pretty well. First, a little background:

For the past couple of weeks, Theo has been wanting to nurse for about 40 minutes at a time, especially at night. My estimate was that at least 10 to 20 minutes of that was for comfort, rather than food. That's been fine with me, but it's been tricky at night, because sometimes he'd wake up when we were done with nursing and fuss--when I'd really prefer to be sleeping. :P

For example, a couple of nights ago, he was awake from midnight until 4:15 a.m. Not so fun! (Of course, the night before that, he slept in two nice, long stretches--four hours, then three hours--which was great.)

So, last night, pacifier trial: Twenty minutes into each feeding, once he was looking really groggy and wasn't really eating anymore, I did a switcheroo. After I slipped him the pacifier, he fell asleep. I was able to put him to bed right away. In each instance, he spit the pacifier out after another 20 minutes had passed. Then he stayed asleep for two to three hours, until it was time to eat again.

Overall, then, it was a nice pattern. I've been very ambivalent about pacifiers; I don't want us to give him pacifiers too frequently and have him overuse them. I'm comfortable with the way last night went, though. Let's hope it works out again tonight!

Growth spurt!

At the doctor's office yesterday, we learned that Theo had gained 4 ounces and grown an inch and a quarter since his last appointment. He now weighs 7 pounds, 10.5 ounces and measures 21.25 inches long.

He's also getting a big head, no doubt because we all keep telling him how cute he was: At birth, his head measured 14 inches around, but now it's 15 inches.

Good job, baby!

Nosewarmer

This morning, while waking up, I had a groggy thought. "Hm, my nose... it's so warm."

I opened my eyes a few moments later to see my baby sleeping near my face, his arm stretched towards me, his soft little hand propped up against my nose.

Um... thanks, Theo!

Shh, the baby is sleeping

Theo has been sleeping very well. Almost too well. It can be hard to wake him up to eat at times. However, I think we're pretty lucky to be getting 4 hour stretches at night to sleep with a two-week-old.

My mom says, "you know, you only get one of those. So, enjoy it!" We definitely value our sleep and are definitely appreciative of Theo's sleeping abilities. ;-)

Go, Theo, go!

We took Theodore for a check-up yesterday, and he is doing pretty well. As of last Tuesday, his weight had dropped 8 ounces from his birth weight, down to 7 pounds, 3 ounces. Yesterday, he was back up to 7 pounds, 6.5 ounces.

We're hoping he'll be at his birth weight again (7 pounds, 11 ounces) by his next appointment on Thursday. Fingers crossed!