Growing

Liam is now 9 lbs, 4.5 oz and 21 inches. He's certainly growing fast and its no surprise given his copious sleeping and eating. He'll soon be out of his current diaper weight class and maybe we can shift into the reusables soon. The doctor is pleased with his progress but concerned with his proclivity for holding his breath while crying. He recommends flicking a little water in his face when he starts to get in that mode. Now all we need to do is have water handy where ever he might cry :)

Annika's family visited tonight for dinner, dessert and a game of What's Yours Like? which can be a frustrating game, but is interesting and most importantly, doesn't require sitting at a table and is thus conducive to having a Liam on your lap. This was the first time Annika's brother got to meet Liam and he brought a Stanford ones-y for Liam to wear.

Liam, as usual was crying as Annika's family rang the doorbell, but stopped the instant they walked in the door and went to sleep. He was quiet as a mouse throughout the visit, and promptly went ballistic as soon as they left. At least he knows to behave when we have company :)

Suspicious Sleeper

If you ever have occasion to try to get Liam to sleep - beware! He is a suspicious sleeper! After all kinds of soothing tricks and calming machinations, you might look down to see a seemingly sleeping Liam with eyes shut. Not so! Liam is too smart for that. He knows that your soporific session is simply a sly trick to get him to sleep and then put him away somewhere like a bassinet! So, just to make sure, he opens his eyes a little every once in a while to make sure you're still there and he's still where he was when he was really awake.

Today my mom stopped by bearing gifts (as usual) including many new cute outfits for Liam from her and some more adorable clothing from my sister, who couldn't make it due to a cold. My mom stayed for a few Trivial Pursuit questions and a nice visit while holding Liam for us (as pictured in this entry's photo). She also brought a photo album of pictures of me as a baby and we compared to see in which ways Liam takes after me. We also got out a photo of Annika as a baby and did the same for her and Liam. We'll scan them in and put them side-by-side for comparison at some point.

I walked around a bit with Liam in the Moby again today. It seems to help put him to sleep, so I'm adding it to my list of sleep-inducing tools. I've also read that babies who are held for 3 hours a day are less prone to colic, and those who are kept upright longer have less gas. The Moby helps accomplish both goals while keeping our hands free.

Berry Pi and Handmade Gifts

My aunt Penny and cousin Dan brought over a couple more dishes for us including a berry "pi" in honor of Liam's birth date. We were supposed to eat it when my sister visited tomorrow, but she had to cancel her trip because she came down with a cold, so we started digging into it tonight. Its as delicious as it is punny.

Its a bummer that my sister won't be able to make it out to see Liam tomorrow. I know she's disappointed too. But, she won't be missing too much action since Liam is usually sleeping or nursing. The odds are low that she would be here during the random 20 - 40 minutes of "active" time he has during the day. Get better soon Michelle!

We've started using Mylicon on the recommendation of Annika's friend Karen, and Annika is trying a diet without dairy to see if we can get Liam's gas under control. The pediatrician confirmed that he does have more gas than usual. If we can reduce that, I think we'll have a much happier baby :)

We received a number of hand-made gifts for Liam and thought it would be fun to get a picture of him with them. Here, we see that this hand-made cashmere hat from Aunt Laurie will probably fit him in a few months...

Annika's aunts and grandmom on her mother's side made us this cool blue and brown quilt with all kinds of neat patterns in it. They also made a matching scarf for Makoto and ribbon for Yuki. Kitty's mom knit us this soft white blanket to keep Liam warm.

Hiccups

Liam is a big fan of hiccups - and has been for a long time. Annika felt him hiccuping in the womb long ago. Here's a quick video of Liam and his favorite pastime:


My favorite times are when Liam is awake and content and we get to just interact with him. This picture shows my view of him as he sits against my chest or on my lap. He generally looks around with curiosity or occasionally scours at my pathetic attempts to amuse him. Someday he'll laugh and that'll be wonderful.

Over the past two days, Annika and I have been dining on some delicious food my aunt Penny prepared for us and has been kept frozen in our freezer till now. Sadly, we just finished the chicken dish with sweet potato and apple sides. Soon, we'll move on to the fish (we're getting the final ingredient tomorrow)! We really appreciate the help we've gotten from everyone throughout this. You've all played a part in making this a better experience :)

Finally, we took Liam to the doctor again today and he could find nothing wrong with him (despite our several worries to the contrary) so our minds are now at ease. Liam is now a whopping 8 lbs 14.4 ounces, so I guess he's not going hungry!

A "Typical" Day (up to this point)

Although many people told me stories of their experiences and usually warned that I would get very little sleep, I wasn't quite sure of what that would mean. Of course, each child is different, but I thought I'd share the schedule of a fairly typical day/night for Liam in his first 11 days. We'll start with midnight (0) and go through 11pm that day (23) where N is for nursing, D is for diaper change, S is for sleep and A is for activity:
00: S
01: N, D
02: S
03: S
04: N, D
05: S
06: S / N
07: N
08: S
09: N, D
10: D
11: N, D
12: D
13: N, D, A
14: S
15: N, D
16: S
17: S
18: N
19: N, D
20: N, D, A
21: S
22: N
23: S

In those 24 hours, there are 10 involving sleep. There is no stretch longer than 2 hours without a nursing or diaper change or both. And keep in mind that nursing and changing a diaper are not trivial operations. They both start with crying, involve movement / repositioning of Liam, usually both of us waking up if not already, and then getting him back to sleep. Diaper changes also often involve a clothing change since even the disposable diapers aren't completely water tight. So that 1 am N, D usually takes the entire hour. Our hats are off to all parents who've already been through this - especially parents of multiples and or colicky babies... how did you do it?

Now, I'm sure every baby deviates from this, and so does Liam, but this gives a little glimpse into what our days and nights have been like. So far, his longest continuous nap has been about 4 hours, which was really nice. Of course, the best times are those rare "A"s where Liam is awake and content and we tell him stories, read him a book, give him a tour of the room, or just make funny noises with him.

All in all, Liam has been great though. Despite frequently getting up at night to take care of him, we're still pretty awake during the day and are always happy to be able to ease his pain (of hunger, or gas, or whatever) even if it means less sleep for us.

When I first met Liam

I have finally broken myself away from Liam to catch up on a little blogging myself--If I am not nursing him, I find that I am holding him while he sleeps. I tried to have a bit of a break today and managed to put him in the pack and play for a total of 45 minutes before he asked to be picked up again. I will be more strict about it later on, but for now I like that he likes being held and I like holding him.

I wanted to share the video of the first time I met Liam. Babies know basically nothing when they are first born: they know how to suckle, pee, poop and as this video shows, they recognize the sound of their mother's voice.

Moby

Today, we put Liam in the Moby Wrap that Nate and Kris got us and went for a walk. It was like swaddling Liam with me inside. The wrap is basically a long sash made of jersey material that you wrap around your waist, up over your shoulders and then around the waist a couple more times. It ends up making a little pocket with two diagonal sides and a bottom into which you can slip your child in various ways depending on how old the baby is. For Liam, we used the Newborn Hug Hold which seemed to work quite well. Liam and I kept each other nice and toasty warm and he was shielded from the sun once we pulled the pocket sides together. At first, I was a bit worried about his ability to breathe in there, but there was enough of an opening above his mouth for him to get air.

Annika's sister and father came over and we had a traditional Easter dinner of take-out Indian food and played Trivial Pursuit and Nymble. It seems that Sri Lanka stopped a 17-year war to give first aid to an elephant - hope that helps next time you play Trivial Pursuit.