My mom reminds me that I have not posted publicly to say that my son, Niko, was born on June 7th at 7:05 PM! And there was much rejoicing.
Time is flying! I can't believe Niko is one month and two days old already. (See, time is flying so much that I didn't even get around to writing this on the appropriate day.)
Some photos of his first month are
here.
Although rumors of his sleeping through the night are greatly exaggerated -- I have to wake him up every 4 hours to eat -- we are blessed with a very good, easy baby. Niko is healthy, which is the most important thing. He is growing well, and eats and sleeps well. I am so grateful that nursing came easily to both me and him.
At one month old, Niko has learned to tolerate baths, especially if they are a proper bath and not a sponge bath. Often baths include screaming, but not last night! Very exciting. He has also visited both of his parents' workplaces, and visited both Grandma Colette's house and Aunt Caly & Uncle Scott's house a couple of times. He likes walks, both in the pram - in which he has visited Target several times - and in the Snugli. The latter made it so much easier for us to all attend CONvergence. There, Niko cosplayed as a very young
Misfit and as
Toby from Labyrinth. He lifts his head up frequently and pushes up, both while being held and while lying on his tummy. He has learned to entertain himself by waving his arms and legs around while lying in the bassinet or on a blanket on the floor, and seems to like to play like that at least once a day. Still, most of his time at this point is still spent nursing, having his diaper changed, or sleeping. We enjoy the awake and alert times, but also cherish the snuggly sleepy baby times. We have found swaddling him to be immensely helpful - gently restraining his arms really helps him calm down when he gets fussy. He has grown out of his newborn clothes already - I found myself wistfully sorting through them and rotating slightly larger clothes into his wardrobe instead of the newborn sized items today. But because we're so smitten with our little guy, every time we look at him in a new outfit we find ourselves exclaiming how cute it is - yes, both of us do this, even though Joe couldn't have cared less about baby clothes before.
Surprising no one but himself, Joe is a very good dad. He continues to work at his main job at VSS, from 9 AM to 1:30 PM. He took off from his evening job for the summer, giving him more time with our little family in the afternoons and evenings. Joe is very good at rocking or soothing Niko, and really enjoys hanging out with his son. It's fun to see the baby turn his head to follow either Joe's voice or mine - he likes to hang out with us, too!
We have enjoyed Nana Nancy's extended visit with us, which ends on Thursday. She has been able to be with us for the entire first month of Niko's life! It has been so very helpful to have another adult around to help rock him, soothe him, change him, and also do laundry and other needful things. I've been able to squeeze in a little more sleep thanks to her, which is great because that sleep only comes in 2 or 3-hour chunks for me at this point. And it's been nice for me to have another adult around to have adult conversation with... something that I would otherwise be missing in the extreme.
I continue to recuperate from delivery. My recovery is generally going well. I was amazed that I lost almost all of the pregnancy weight immediately. However, I have a long way to go in rebuilding my abdominal muscles and knitting them back together where they separated during pregnancy; and work to do yet on the recovery of my pelvic floor muscles. Slowly, slowly.
I'm very grateful for friends and family who have been supportive thus far, coming by to visit or with meals - and I hope to see more of you all in the next six weeks or so. It will be hard to say goodbye to my mom. Although I love Niko dearly, I do need adult interaction too! So please be in touch.
The original post is on Dreamwidth.
http://figment.dreamwidth.org/56442.html?mode=reply