This is the our first family photo together, which Antoinette wanted for Mother's Day. In the picture, he isn't quite three weeks old yet. As of yesterday, he just crossed the one month mark. Every week that passes, he seems to be just a little bit different than the week before. But before we get into all of that, the only bit of bad news for the week. We are officially NOT coming home in June. We simply cannot make the logistics work in terms of work schedules, immunizations, and non-stop flights. We should be attempting to call just about everyone to give them this update and as of this posting, we have already contacted about half of you. We are instead thinking about pushing the date back to mid to late August when we can drive up for a week. As that date gets a bit closer, I'll let you all know. At that point, he'll be about 4 months old.
Anyway, for the little guy, he has started to go through some changes to his skin that are quite common in babies. For instance, a condition common to babies born after their due date is a round of skin peeling that typically occurs at about this time. Billy is going through this now. His skin looks a bit like shoulders out in the sun where you can see some edges of skin that you want to peel off here and there. He also has some milia, which are small red bumps that occur across the nose, cheeks, and even forehead. They are quite common in newborns and at about one to two months, the little guy's pores should open up and this condition should clear up.
Another interesting change we've begun to see in him is his walking reflex. This reflex is characterized by a baby's attempt to move one foot in front of the other when the soles of their feet are placed on a surface. It is a sign of a normal developing nervous system and will typically disappear within a few weeks. It will then reoccur as a voluntary movement when he's about 8-10 months old. Another physical development point is that the little guy now weighs in at about 9.5 lbs.
We bought him an activity mat last Sunday. It is a Fisher Price Jungle Gym set and he seems to like it...for awhile. He really doesn't seem to want to spend more than about 5 minutes on it at a time and it makes me wonder if part of that is his inability to interact with the mat at this point. He also uses it for Tummy Time and last weekend, he clearly didn't want to have any Tummy Time, choosing to roll over five times in a row when we put him on his belly. Some times he stays and others he just rolls out of it. Last week, we wasn't rolling fast enough for Hunter's liking, so the dog nuzzled him half way through his roll and had him flipped in no time flat. As he gets older and gets better control of his extremities, he should be able to interact with the mat and will probably get more out of it. That's our hope anyway...
Speaking of Tummy Time, Billy has seen a substantial improvement in his overall neck control now. He's fully capable, as many of you have seen in the 2nd to last video, of holding his head up and turning it from side to side when he's in your arms on your chest. He can push himself up quite well in a pushup position when leaned against something. He's also improved in his ability to track objects and will follow you as you walk past or when his Mother gets up to go into another room...especially if she's talking when she does it.
The eye color mystery for Billy is solved. After reading about a technique for finding this out early, I got a mini flashlight and shined it quickly in each slate baby bluish (with brown edges) eye as if you were checking him for a concussion. Only this time, instead of checking for proper pupil dilation and contraction, I was told you would be able to clearly see his eye color. Sure enough, his eyes flashed a deep brown, so I'm pretty sure that as time passes and his iris gets deeper in its ultimate color, the little guy should have brown eyes. Mystery solved.
On the belly button front, just when his belly button appeared perfectly healed, a little protrusion popped out. I think its just what's left of his possible granuloma. Either way, it looks 100 times better and I think it should be good to go in a week or so. His belly button looks better every single week. Having thought that his belly button was 100% healed, we went ahead and gave him his first actual bath in water (as opposed to the sponge variety). He's actually had a couple baths at this point and handles them quite well. While he's not crying, he's clearly unsure of what to make of the water as he sort of stiffens up at the limbs and just freezes when he gets put into the tub that's only an inch or two deep. Its kind of funny, but the bright side is that at least he's not screaming his head off.
A huge part of the payoff of being a parent is the first couple times your baby actually smiles back at you when he hears your voice or sees your face. Billy's smiles have become much more controlled and don't appear to be as involuntary now. If he gets excited, he'll often smile, laugh, and then giggle or coo. The fact that it corresponds with improved vision is comforting and makes you feel, as a parent, like its you that he's responding to. Also, the mere fact that the baby has an additional method of communication other than just screaming bloody murder when he wants something is nice, too. While there are clearly various forms of crying which indicate different needs, they are not always easy to tell apart and even so, they are all still crying. A positive reflection of mood is nice, too.
Looking forward, I know I said it last week, but this is actually the week I'm going to start reading to the little guy. We are going to shoot for a half hour a day of reading time, but I think that's extremely optimistic. We'll see how it goes. Not sure I can even keep his attention for more than 5 minutes at this point, but my hope is that he will gradually do better and better as we go. We'll see. As the week goes on, we are hoping to see more vocalization from the little guy, little by little. He should also start smiling a little more each week. On the physical side, all we are hoping for is some increased neck stabilization. Hopefully he can hold his neck a bit steadier on a 45 degree angle for a bit longer than last week.
Everyone have a great Memorial Day weekend.
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