William: One Month!

It's hard to believe it's already been (just over) a month since William was born--but the calendar doesn't lie!

William and Wagner the Bear: One Month

Overall, it's been a pretty good month. Darrell was home for the first two weeks, which was wonderful. And even after he went back to work, things weren't too bad. William is a pretty good baby most of the time; in fact, Great-Grandpa Will insists that we need to start carrying around a set of pinchers so we can periodically give him a poke just to make sure his lungs still work. Rest assured, though, his lungs work just fine; he gets plenty of practice in with those during diaper changes and if I don't feed him quickly enough (and some times, it seems he just wants to cry all day for no reason in particular). He also gets gas occasionally, which makes him uncomfortable and fussy as well. Most of the time, though, the gas is his own fault. He's what one of my books calls a "barracuda" nurser, and sometimes he gets so excited and sucks so vigorously that he swallows quite a bit of air. I've tried telling him he needs to calm down and slow down when he eats, but it's like he doesn't even listen when I'm talking.

William lasted about a week in newborn clothes and diapers, and is already starting to fill out some of his 0-3 month outfits. At his two-week appointment, he weighed in at 9 lbs 9 oz (up from his birth weight of 8 lbs 7 oz), and although we haven't been back to the doctor since then, Darrell and I wouldn't be surprised if he's close to eleven pounds by now (we use the not-so-accurate method of standing on the scale and then picking him up to get an estimate of his weight). We also don't have a current measure on his length, although from birth to his two-week appointment he grew from 20 inches to 21 inches, so I'd imagine he's probably 22 inches by now.

So far, William hasn't figured out the concept of a routine. He's pretty unpredictable about when he wants to eat (sometimes he'll go three hours between feedings, other times just an hour) and when he wants to sleep (some days he'll spend most of the day napping, other days he'll be awake for three hours straight), but I think Darrell and I are to blame for that a little bit. We haven't exactly given William an opportunity to get into a routine; since the day we left the hospital we've had him out of the house nearly once a day (and never at the same time: some mornings he'll run errands with Mommy, some afternoons/evenings we'll head out to baseball games, Sundays we head to church and sometimes lunch afterwards, even a two-hour trip to Kimball for his newborn photos, just to name a few). For the most part, though, he does well when we have him out and about. I'm not shy about nursing in public if I need to (but not so brazen that I'm willing to expose anything; Darrell is great in assisting me to make sure I maintain my decency), and once he settles down to sleep he can sleep through almost anything.

One thing that he's had figured out from the start, though, is his days and nights (woot!). Even though there are nights where he wants to get up and feed three or four different times, he does a really good job of going back to sleep after nursing and never fully wakes up (unless we change his diaper. But even then he settles back down pretty quickly). And since he nurses like a barracuda, he's usually done eating in ten minutes, so Mom and Dad can get a decent amount of sleep, even on the nights he's nursing every two hours (we're pretty sure he was going through a growth spurt a week or so ago; I swear he wanted to do nothing but eat around the clock. Thankfully, we seem to be past that now).

Personally, the hardest thing I've had to adjust to is accepting that I'm not (and don't have to be) Super-Mom--at least not yet. The first few days after Darrell went back to work I was trying to do it all: the laundry, the dishes, the cooking, the cleaning... The list goes on. And of course, I was trying to do all that, on minimal sleep, while keeping William alive and happy. Needless to say, I burnt out really quickly. Darrell finally told me that I need to treat motherhood as a full-time job right now and pretend that I'm not "working" at the house. He assured me that he has no issue helping with the household chores in the evening and weekends, because that's when we did those things when we were both out of the house all day at our jobs. I'm sure his expectation on that will change as William gets older (and hopefully more predictable/self-sufficient), but for now it's been much better being able to lay around and cuddle and nap and not feel guilty about it.

And, just for fun, I have to share one of the out-takes from his one-month photos.

William was a little nervous about sharing the chair with a massive bear  :)