Matt and Rachel's Baby Blog: One Month Old

Today we get to celebrate Daniel's 1-month birthday. He is getting much bigger. I think he must weigh close to 12 pounds now! At least that is what the scale is telling us. He has grown out of a number of outfits already. And to think that the first week, we had to scramble to find a few that would not swallow him.

Things are going well, but everytime I think we have a routine going, our little boy decides that he is ready for a change. About a week or so ago, Daniel really discovered his lungs. We had a few evenings where all we did was nurse, burp, change, and repeat from 7 pm until 11 pm each night. All the while, Daniel was pretty fussy. That was somewhat of a parenting challenge for Matt and I. We mastered a few calming techniques, and things seem to be more manageable now. Luckily, Daniel still gives us a couple four hour sleeping stretches each night.

Then last night, he decided 'night' was from 5 pm until 5 am. Most mornings we don't get up until 8 am, so 5 am was a big change. Thankfully, I had gone to bed around 9 pm, so I was not too tired at 5. The good thing about getting up earlier is that we got to spend some extra time with Dad. The bad thing is that it's 8 am, and I've completed most of the activities that take up the better part of my morning. Seriously, I won't even make plans to do anything before 10 am these days. What a change for an early bird like myself! I might have tired out the little guy with all our activities yesterday. We went to church, weeded the garden, went for a walk, and ran a few errands. It was by far our most active day yet. I must say that weeding with a baby carrier is a good workout.

We suspect that Daniel enjoys church music. He has slept through mass three times so far, and the only time he makes a peep is when the music stops. So Matt and I decided to try to sing to him more. I am an enthusiastic congregation singer, but I have a slight problem. I don't really know the words to many songs by heart. This presents a real challenge when you try to sing a song unaccompanied by music or the rest of the congregation. My solution to this problem was to borrow a Gather book from our church. Well, Matt was a bit outraged when he saw the little green book in our sunroom. I really don't think that Msgr. Don would mind. I think Matt is going to look into purchasing a copy for us.

Now that Peggy and Dan are back from Florida, we have been able to take advantage of a couple babysitting opportunities. On Friday, I went into my office for my review and Peggy watched him for a couple hours, and on Saturday, we dropped him off at their house for a couple hours and went on a date! I enjoyed our date, but I think it was particularly beneficial for Matt. I did not realize it, but Matt does not really get a break. He works all day, and then when he gets home, he relieves me from baby duty. We love our son to death, but everyone needs a break now and then.

Ok, enough rambling for now. Can you tell that the boy is being a saint right now? Here is what Daniel is doing while I'm blogging. He is starting to lose his strawberry blonde hair. I wonder if it will grow back the same color?

Some pictures from last week.

This is the outfit Matt wore home from the hospital. Daniel wore it to his first farmer's market.

Weeding on a beautiful day. All the rain last week made our lawn super lush. I hope he is not confused since the Baby Bjorn is pink. I didn't get to pick the color, it came free with his matress.