One month old today

Cedar's one-month birthday is today. That first month sure has gone by really fast!

Misc. Development Notes:

He's had surprisingly good head/neck control since he was born, IMO. When he's awake/active, he likes to bob his head around whenever he gets a chance. When he's tired, of course he goes all limp and flops over like a sack.

We didn't see much of his eyes the first week or two, and half the time, he had this cross-eyed thing going on, but now he has them open a lot more and he likes to look at us, and he even turns his head towards you if you're talking. He looks at other things too, and honestly, I have no idea what he's looking at sometimes.

I don't know if it's my imagination or what, but I swear his fine "piano" fingers are filling out a bit. I still can't get over how tiny his fingernails are. He has a supergrip and likes to grab onto my shirt, the SNS tube, or my hair on a regular basis.

He startles when you sneeze (I think the suddenness of it scares him), when he hears gunshots on TV, or when a bag of chips crinkles loudly.

He's had a pretty good latch since the minute he came out. He was a big time sucker in utero, and sucking also comforts him in a big way now that he's out in the world. I didn't want to give him a pacifier so early on, but he seemed to need it. Fortunately it hasn't created any confusion for him. He also can go back and forth from bottle to breast without batting an eyelash. No nipple confusion with this guy.

He is quite the kicker and has very strong legs, probably from all the practice he had kicking me before he was born. Now I can clearly see what he was doing all that time.

Most of the time he is pretty quiet, and he actually sleeps a lot. That was a huge problem for the first couple of weeks (when he was jaundiced) because it totally interfered with feeding (he'd rather sleep than eat, and wouldn't wake up--I felt so bad for him, but I had to wake him up and torture him). Now he wakes on his own when he's hungry, but he's considerate enough to go 4-5 hours at night and let me get some sleep at night. Usually, I only have to get up once between midnight and 6am for a night feeding. During the day, however, he wants to eat pretty frequently (around every 2-3 hours), and rarely goes longer than a couple of hours during the daytime.

He gets really agitated when you take off his clothes or change his diaper. Ironically he cries because he wants to be changed, but at the same time, seems to hate being exposed. Probably doesn't help that it's winter...He also has terrible problems with gas, although he's not truly colicky because he doesn't cry for hours. Nothing seems to totally help with that. Given his genetic makeup, I'm not too surprised that he's having digestive issues.

He's completely satisfied if you hold him--he'll lay next to you, sit in your lap, lay in your arms, curl up on my chest like a little snuggle monkey, and is totally content to be carried around. Basically if we do any of the above, he'll totally pass out or just look around quietly. Besides breastfeeding, he's totally blissed out being held.

He has lots of funny facial expressions. Besides the "gas smile" and "poop face", he also has all kinds of funny expressions. One, daddy likes to call the "grumpy old man face". Sometimes he looks like he's in deep though (gas?), or has the "don't even go there with me" face.

He failed one of his hearing tests in the hospital, which created some drama, but I knew there wasn't really anything wrong with his hearing because of the way he tracks voices/people. Also, the way he responds to music gives me no reason to doubt his hearing. He knows our voices pretty well. He likes it when you sing or hum, and as previously mentioned, he likes to listen to music.

He likes to take baths, which is a good thing because the poor lil' guy gets pretty dirty. He also likes riding in the car, and going for walks around the neighborhood. Usually he just passes out, but sometimes he'll look around at the scenery. At any rate, he doesn't mind these things a bit, and is pretty content.