Week 3: Feeding Frenzy

Three weeks already!  Owen's main focus this week has been on EATING. Constantly, voraciously eating.  Because he was born on Shark Week, we like to make shark-themed jokes about him.  For example, we often say that he is going to get a tasty bucket of chum instead of saying that it's time to nurse.  This week there was a feeding frenzy.

After a few days of feeding him almost hourly, we put him on the scale to discover that he was already 8lbs and 4oz!  That's more than two pounds above his birthweight.  And I don't want to spoil any Week 4 surprises, but I can't help but brag that today he is up to 9 lbs.

You can really tell what a difference this growth spurt has made when you hold him.  He is noticeably heavier.  He has two chins and fat cheeks and he is working on plumping up those long limbs.  We joked today that for Halloween we will dress him as a rugby ball.  I think he will follow in the proud tradition of No-Neck Neff (which is what we called my brother as a baby).  He is also very tall--we even had to move the straps in the car seat up to the 2nd notch because he was too tall for the smallest ones. 

Owen also started to pick his head up this week.  It is hard to do, because even while he's developing the muscles to lift his head, his head is growing larger and larger.  The first few attempts were pretty sloppy, but by the end of Week 3 he was starting to do a lot of work to help hold up his head when you hold him or transfer him to a new spot. 

Besides eating, Owen's favorite activity this week was looking.  He loves to look at anything with bold contrasts, such as framed pictures on the wall, or his new nursery decals.  He is also starting to look with interest at people's faces.  When he's alert he is amazingly alert, quiet and attentive.

Noah and I are also developing and growing.  We learned that we have to put him to bed before he gets too tired to sleep, or we all pay the price with hours and hours of crying.  By the end of this past week, not having slept for more than 2 consecutive hours in over three weeks was really starting to take its toll.  We decided to introduce a bottle so Noah can take over burning some midnight oil.  Even though little Owen is super cute and I wish he would stay tiny for a long time, I am really looking forward to the promised land of 4 or 5 hour stretches of sleep at night.

Week 2: reality

As Owen's post-birth sleepiness started to abate, the reality of or situation has begun to set in.  Specifically, we have a baby on our hands, 24 hours a day.  He has started crying more, and feeding him every 2-3 hours around the clock means that two hours of sleep in a row is as good as it gets.  The cats are starting to understand that this baby is a permanent condition.  We had a lot of visitors because everyone is so excited to meet him, including Uncle Nathan and Aunt Jenna from Wisconsin.  We went out with Owen to restaurants for the first time.  We went to the beach.  We are feeling pretty wrecked.

One memorable night, we had some friends over and kept him up with us in the living room until it was pretty late at night.  It didn't even occur to us that we should put him to bed.  It didn't seem like he had any schedule at all yet.  Rookie mistake.  But by the time they went home around 11 pm, he was so tired that sleep was hopeless.  We tried and tried, rocking and swaddling and pacifying and feeding...  finally around 2 am he fell into an exhausted sleep.  I realized how much we have to learn.   

Meanwhile Owen is doing great.  His newborn jaundice went away early in the week, and he went back to being very pink.  His umbilical cord stump came off midweek.  He started trying to lift his head and showed us what his gummy, beautiful little smile is going to look like in a few flashes as he drifted into sleep.  My milk really came in and he has begun to grow very quickly.  He's started to develop a double chin and rolls around his wrists.  He seemed to get longer and stretch out more.  His second checkup at the pediatrician indicated that he was doing great, and has regained all his birthweight plus some (6 lbs, 8 oz at 10 days old). 

The most remarkable thing about Owen in his second week (aside from his cuteness, which was extreme), is his alertness.  He seems to be grappling with reality as well.  He can sit quietly and observe the contrast at my hairline or a picture frame for 30 minutes at a time.  He loves to gaze at the images in his black and white picture books.  He scans the book pages back and forth--you can practically see the synapses forming.  It is really amazing how alert and focused he can be already!

A little perspective

Dear Owen,

Your mom and I have owned the domain names to the websites Showmenear and showmefar for several years. We ordered them up one night, no doubt well into a second bottle of wine. The names of these blogs may seem strange. So I thought I should explain them to you.

There's a TV show called Sesame Street. It was created by a guy named Jim Henson. He liked to make puppets. He created a group of puppets called The Muppets. Henson thought that he could make a fun educational program with Muppets that taught kids all manner of things, from the basics, like the alphabet and numbers, to more complex ideas, like friendship, sharing and disco. Sesame Street was his answer to the weird and nonsensical children's shows that were available at the time. He wanted to create a contemporary, urban setting filled with characters who didn't treat kids like morons. It's a pretty fun show.

One of the skits on Sesame Street teaches children about distance.

Grover was always my favorite Sesame Street character.

Several years later, a late night comedy show called The State did a skit where a family served a meal to guests. The meal was a delicious blue meat. It borrowed a little from Grover's lesson.

Watch more MySpace videos on AOL Video

I can't explain how we decided to look and see if the domain names were available - but I know that we've tried several times to come up with a fun way to use them.

Now that you are here, I think we have finally found the inspiration we needed. We'll try to use these pages to give you some perspective on what it's like being new parents, and how your arrival has changed our lives.

I can tell you this already though: We love you more than we thought possible, and that won't change, whether you are near or far.

Love,

Dad