5 weeks old!

We had Peanut's one month appointment today with his pediatrician!

Guess who now weighs 10 lbs. 3 oz.?

ZIKES!

I don't think Bean weighed 10 lbs. until she was 3 months old!

He's 22 inches long now, too. My baby boy is growing so fast. It's amazing.

He is very alert these days, looking around when he's awake and really focusing in on my face and trying SO HARD to smile and laugh at his Mama. Sometimes he just stares and stares at me and opens his mouth up and the corners just baaaaaaaaarely turn up and he makes this little "AHAAAAAAAA" sound. SO CUTE. He also occasionally tells me "Goooooooo." and "OOOOH." Mostly in the morning, right after he wakes up and eats and he's sitting up in the bed with Bean and me.

He's just so sweet.

He's outgrown, obviously, all of the preemie clothes I bought for him (not many, but enough to get him through those very tiny early days) AND most of his size Newborn things. I'll be buying him size 1 diapers next time because his Newborn sized diapers are starting to mash his little cheeks together in back and leave creases and lines.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The doctor noted that Peanut is still slightly jaundiced and although she's certain this is just normal breastmilk jaundice, she wants me to take him to the hospital for a little blood draw and some tests to rule out anything more sinister. He's fine though. He's growing really well and showing all the signs of perfectly normal development. The tests are basically to cover the doctor's you-know-what. I don't relish the idea of blood draws and a trip to the hospital, but I'll do it anyway.

The only real "cure" for breastmilk jaundice, apparently, besides just waiting it out, is to feed the baby formula for 24 hours (while the mother pumps). I am seriously not into that idea, but since it is likely breastmilk jaundice he's "suffering" (if you can call being slightly yellow suffering, that is), that's what's going to be offered to me as the solution. Either that or he just stays yellow for another month or two, which honestly wouldn't bother me, really.

Anyway speaking of pumping, I have a pretty nice supply of milk stored up now from pumping several times over the past week. I pumped last night after 4 hours (I was out at Bunco and came home after Peanut had gone to bed and likely wouldn't be up for another 3 hours or so) and got a total of 5 ounces of milk. Wow!

So that was about it for the doctor's appointment. Peanut didn't get any shots today and we discussed briefly that at his next visit (2 months) I only want him to have a couple of the vaccinations he'll be due for, and then I'll take him back at three months when he isn't DUE for a visit or anymore shots, to get the remainder of the ones due at 2 months. I don't like too many of them going into his tiny system at a time.

Anyway after that Bean, Peanut and I made a quick trip to our local Penney's to exchange some MORE outgrown shoes of hers (her feet are suddenly enormous to me, and to her shoes, apparently) and I picked up a few little 0-3 month outfits for Peanut. For some reason when I've shopped for him earlier I've bought Newborn things and then 3-6 month things and completely omitted the 0-3 month size. I guess those are harder to find on sale or something so I just didn't buy them? Or did I think he was going to be born small and then wake up one morning BIG? (Not so very far off what has really happened!) Anyway so now I have three more little cute outfits for him so he won't have to wear Newborn snap-crotch shirts and kinda hunch over because they're too short! (Hee hee, I really haven't made him do that!)

Let's see. Peanut has had many baths in his little bathtub on the bathroom counter and he hates them as passionately now as he did his first one. This is a boy who simply despises to be chilly! Bean never cared a bit about that, but Peanut really gets himself worked up EVERY TIME I take his clothes off or change his diaper and he really, really, REALLY can't stand bathtime, even if I try my best to keep as much of him covered as possible with warm washclothes while I'm washing. He also passionately dislikes WIPES on his bummy. Those are good for some real screaming, as well. I used to think wipe warmers were a silly waste of money, but come wintertime I may have to have one for my little NO COLD WIPES ON MY BUMMY boy or I think I'm going to be listening to a LOT of crying at diaper-change time. I tried using warm water and cloth wipes but it takes forever to get the water in the kids' bathroom to warm up AND that breastmilk poop's impossible to rinse out of those things! IMPOSSIBLE. Heck, it's impossible enough just tryin' to get it off of nice, smooth SKIN.

He's going about 3 hours between feeds in the daytime and his first sleep at night, which usually starts between 8 and 9, lasts 5 hours or more, then he sleeps another 3 hours and eats again, and then about another 90 minutes. So his nighttime "schedule," which he's setting himself and has kept very regular for weeks now, is bed by 9, up at 1:30, up at 4:30 and then up for the day at about 7 AM. The days are a little bit more chaotic and I haven't tried to force a schedule but I am learning his patterns and tricks (as is Al, who is the Baby Whisperer in some respects!) that make for less crying and more happy time and more sleep in the crib during the day vs. sleep in the Snugli, which has been lovely but the boy weighs 10 lbs. and having him strapped onto me all day is starting to really do my back in.

Knowing now that he needs to be headed back to sleep about 90 minutes after some wakings (some wakings he goes immediately back to sleep after he eats - the 90 minutes awake thing happens 2 to 3 times a day right now) has made for many fewer hours of trying to soothe an overtired little boy to sleep as he screams and cries and flails his little arms around. As long as he's tightly swaddled and has a nice full tummy 90 minutes after he last woke, he easily goes back to sleep and stays asleep for 2 hours or more in his bed.

When he wakes, I feed him, change him and then Bean and I play with him gently for 15 or 20 minutes. After that he's usually just pooped out so I'll either put him in the Snugli if I need to be up and about, and he'll fall asleep in there and I can pull him out and put him down, or I swaddle him and put him in his vibrating bouncy chair for a few minutes, until he shows signs it's time to go get rocked to sleep and put in bed. Of course it doesn't work every time and sometimes he DOES get overtired and then we are IN FOR IT, because once this child is overtired, he fights sleep with EVERY THING IN HIM. Just like his sister did.

Oh, there's more to say but I'm tired, (overtired) and snippy and in need of a hot bath and some mindless TV before bedtime. Tomorrow is Friday. After tomorrow, I'll be able to say I managed a WHOLE work week with my two children, alone.

And in a few more weeks, it'll hopefully all seem a lot easier. If it weren't for the aching back and the crying, I'd say it's almost fun to experiment and tweak to find the right routines for these kids of mine. ALMOST.

What IS fun is how cute they are, and how much more I love them both every single day. Yay!