Rob and I have discovered that it's hard taking care of a baby without grandparents! Both sets of our parents came and helped us for some time after Levi was born, and it was wonderful. There was always a grandparent available to hold Levi so that I could catch a nap, and our moms made sure that all the cleaning, grocery shopping, cooking, and laundry were done so that I could recover and spend time with Levi. They even made sure that Levi was sufficiently photographed. Thank you, Yia Yia and Pop Howell, and Grandma and Pop Luttrull! We all sat for a family picture while they were here:
My parents were able to stay two weeks after Levi was born. The day they left, Levi cried on and off for several hours, refusing to be put down. I cried on and off, as all of my napping attempts were foiled. That night, he took two hours to soothe to sleep and then spent more time awake than he did asleep. I was reaching a breaking point. I began speed-reading the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, sure that the solution to our lack of sleep would be found in its pages. I learned that there is a biological reason that babies become fussier at the two-week mark. I can't remember that reason (I'm not sleeping enough to retain facts!), but knowing that Levi was behaving like every other baby made me feel better.
We're settling into a new kind of routine now...Levi tends to go from an hour and a half to three hours between night feedings, but sometimes wakes up after 30 minutes because he wants one of us to hold him. I have my hopes set on his sixth week, when the book says that babies' night sleep tends to become organized and lengthier. Three weeks to go!
Levi is a great eater and weighs a little over eight pounds now. His spider-monkey legs and arms are beginning to fatten up, and his face is filling out. I think that we'll have a regular butterball by Christmas. It's usually pretty obvious when Levi needs to eat; he tells us he's hungry by sucking noisily on his hand:
Grandma and Pop Luttrull returned this week to spend Thanksgiving with us. It's been so nice to have them close, and all five of us had a lovely post-lunch nap yesterday. I know that babies aren't supposed to smile socially until six weeks of age, but Levi made eye contact and smiled at Rob twice on Thanksgiving Day. There are no smiles for Mama yet, but I know they're coming. We had a great day with yummy food and a couple of games to watch on TV. Levi and I dressed in our maroon and white and rooted for the Aggies, but evidently, it wasn't enough.
I haven't been terribly consistent with sharing pictures, as our internet access is still down at the house, and it's hard to get away to the office. Here are a few taken over the last few weeks...
This is Levi and his sock monkey, Tex. My mom made a sock monkey for me when I was little, so I wanted Levi to have one, too.
This is one of the best picture we have of Levi with his eyes open. His eyes are slate blue right now, but we'll see what color they settle on in a few months.
This picture is for Dena, our wonderful friend that took great care of Aggie while we were getting settled in Colorado this summer. I am happy to say that Aggie is continuing to warm to Levi.
No comments:
Post a Comment