William at 1 Month

William is one month old and had his second doctor's appointment today. He has made so much progress since his last appointment! He now weighs 8lbs, 14oz, is 22 1/4" long, and his head is 14 1/2" around. He also got his first vaccination today: Hepatitis B. He cried for a little bit, but stopped as soon as I started feeding him. His circumcision has healed nicely and we can stop putting the ointment on at every diaper change (thank goodness, that was a bit of a hassle!). Speaking of diaper changes, one thing I have learned is that I need to change him AFTER he nurses. It seems he likes to poop while nursing. Its like clockwork. If I make the mistake of changing him before, he will ruin a perfectly clean and dry diaper. I also have to put a burp cloth along his back, between us, so that the resulting blow out doesn't ruin my clothes or the nursing pillow cover (learned that the hard way!). Oh the joys of parenting!

Things have been going pretty well so far. He has been sleeping long stretches, which is nice. He first wakes up after 4-5 (sometimes 6!) hours, and then sleeps for another 3-4 hours. I am more rested these days, than I thought I might be! One thing I was not prepared for was the massive amounts of laundry I have to do every week. William either spits up, pees or poos on several outfits, blankets and cloth diapers (our spit up rags) each day. After several days of this, a rather large (and stinky) pile of laundry accumulates and has to be dealt with.

William is also growing so fast. He is already outgrowing some of his newborn outfits! The outfit we put on him right after he was born is way too small already. I just can't believe how fast he is growing. I wish he would stay small a little longer. Its no wonder he is growing like a weed. The kid eats all the damn time! Every 45 minutes to an hour, he wants to eat. Before he was born, I had grand illusions of getting him on a schedule of every 4 hours. Yeah right! He is most unhappy if he goes more than 1 hours and no amount of distraction helps. Apparently Jonathon and Michael were the same way as babies. I guess I'm just lucky he doesn't eat that frequently at night!


He is starting to have more awake periods and his naps have gotten shorter and shorter unfortunately (in his vibrating chair). I used to be able to put him down fora couple of hours and get stuff done. Not anymore! Instead he 'faux naps,' where he catnaps for 15-20 minutes and then wants to be held. So I put him in the Moby wrap a lot. That way at least I can have me hands free. He is going to want his momma for such a short time, I am trying to enjoy feeling his little body cuddled close against me, hearing his rapid little breaths. Its such a precious time! One last funny thing: his hands are nearly permanently in fists, and are also moist. This combination apparently acts as a great lint catcher. At least once a day, I have to uncurl his tiny fists, and extract long strings and clumps of lint! How does it get in there anyway? Its kind of gross! Something tells me this isn't the last or even the most gross thing I will encounter as a mom.