Two Months Old

Update on Harrison:

• He's smiling a lot.
• He's chatting a lot, even at times just to get our attention when we are looking away. When we hold him he'll have a small conversation with us. We'll ask him questions and he'll coo back when we are quite.
• He has figured out his floor gym. He knows how to kick and swat at things to make them move and make sounds. His movements are still pretty erratic but more directional.
• His 0-3 clothes are all very snug on him right now. Next week we may need to move to 3-6 month clothes.
• He's started to watch Bentley. Not much, I just catch him every once and a while.
• He loves it when we sing to him and move his hands to dance a long.
• He smiles when we dance in front of him.
• We have upped the amount of bath times to every other day in order to start a night routine hoping he'll get the idea that he can start sleeping for 8 hours :)
• We are reading to him. He likes to look at the books but only for a short while.
• His first plane ride will be on Monday. I am not excited about this, I hate flying.
• And most importantly (dad says) he's moved up to number 2 diapers. The numbers start with NB (newborn) and go on up. It's amazing, he used to be too small for newborn, we had to fold them.
• He has rolls on his arms and legs and his belly is nice and round. He's a hungry boy.
• I'm starting to get better at figuring him out. Watch I say that now and it will all change tomorrow. He's a pretty easy going baby for the most part. When he doesn't like something, he tells us and typically it's not through a long cry. It's one small shriek or one small sound that I can't really explain. Kind of like a, err, I've had enough and I need a nap sound. If I watch his sleepy cues it's pretty easy to put him down for a nap. If he's had too much action over the time he's been awake it's a little rough.
• Currently he sleeps from about 7 pm to 2 am. We try to wake him up at 10 pm for a last feeding to get him to sleep through the whole night but it's very difficult.

He just had his 2 month doctor's appointment. He now weighs 11 lbs 10.5 oz and he's 24 inches long. Which means he's now in the 45th percentile for weight and the 83rd percentile for height. He's a growing little boy. He was prescribed at least an hour of tummy time each day so about 20 minutes every time he's awake. I'm going to have one cranky baby over the next few days since he still hates tummy time. We do have one prayer request that was sparked after his visit. It seems that Harrison's back soft spot is closing faster than the Doctor would like it to so he said he will be monitoring it very closely. I guess if it fuses together earlier than it's supposed to it's a pretty serious condition and he would have to see a nero surgeon. So please pray his plates slow down and don't fuse for a while. On the positive side the Dr. said that Harrison is such a "chill" baby. He only cried when he put him on his tummy and when he got his vaccinations (which is of course so normal). Quick story. The nurse who gave him his vaccinations is what I would like to call a vaccinator. I have NEVER seen someone give vaccinations so quickly, it made me think of James Bond or something, his technique was remarkable. He held Harrison's feet with one hand and with the other he grabbed a vaccination pulled the cap off with his mouth spit it out while putting the needle in Harrison's leg. This happened three times. It maybe took him 3 seconds total. You had to be there.

We have been watching seasons of friends while feeding Harrison at night. Their about 20 minutes long episodes which is just the right amount of time. It keeps me awake. Well, we're on season seven now. Hopefully he'll sleep by season eight.

Tonight Nathan and I are going out to dinner by ourselves so Harrison will have his first REAL (by real I mean paid) babysitter. One of the girls from our church college group is going to be watching him. I'm praying that he treats her well.

Here are some pictures of him over the last few weeks.

Nathan dressed Harrison for our road trip into the mountains.

This is Nathan reading to Harrison. As you can see, Harrison isn't that engaged in reading yet.

This is Harrison staring out the window at the snow.

I bought Harrison this onsie just a few days ago, it's 0-3 and it's tight on him! He may get one more wear out of it. He's growing so much!

He's still our pride and joy! We love him more and more each day. Now I get what parents talk about. I think you just can't understand the feeling of love that comes with being a parent until you are one. People can explain it all they want but it's hard to understand until you are one. It's really just indescribable.

Next post will be after we return from Oregon! It will contain a ton of pictures and several stories, I'm sure. Harrison is so excited to meet his great grandparents the Kochs, great aunt and uncle, aunt Nikole and to see his grandma Connie again!

Love you all!

Testing our imovie-this was fun!

Pumpkin Patch

I got a video to finally work!!

8 week old Harrison!

We can't even believe that Harrison is already 8 weeks old!

Here are a few updates on him.

• He loves to smile at us when we laugh and smile at him.
• He loves to kick, grab and smile when he is on his playmat and under his mobile.
• He's starting to make all sorts of noises but no official baby talk just a lot of random coos here and there.
• He knows kisses. When we start kissing him he opens his mouth wide to give us kisses back.
• He loves his changing table. If he's crying a ton, we put him on his changing table and change his diaper or his clothes and he's silent and happy as a clam.
• He hates being confined. When he's wide awake he must have the ability to squirm kick and grab as much as possible. He hasn't gotten a hold of my hair yet, thankfully.
• Before he naps he cries for about 5 minutes, after those 5 minutes we give him his pacifier and he's out. If you give it before then he'll just keep dropping it and crying. He has to be swaddled for his naps though because he still can't stop his arms and legs from moving when he's awake and he can't fall asleep until they stop.
• He LOVES looking at the pictures of family behind the rocker after his morning feeding. He just stares and smiles.
• He holds his head up for about 2 or 3 seconds when he's laying on his tummy. He keeps his head up when we put him on our shoulder to carry him around. After a few seconds though he becomes Mr. Bobble head.
• He's growing a lot! We think he's close to 23 inches and 10 pounds now. We'll find out at his doctor's appointment in less than two weeks.
• He loves it when you sing to him so when he's fussy in the evenings and can't fall asleep holding him and singing always works. Nathan leaves that to me. Don't worry though, I won't be singing around any of you any time soon. He doesn't exactly know what's good singing and what's not yet.
• We think he has a really independent personality so far.
• Harrison HATES tummy time. He wines the whole time. He gets really frustrated that he can't see everything like he typically gets to when on his back. I think his lack of patience comes from me. Darn!
  
• He has a fussy time it starts anywhere from 4 to 5 and ends anytime between 6 and 7. So not bad but very consistent. Nothing consoles him so we hold him, rock him, and then let him cry himself to sleep.
  
• He has turned over to his stomach once so far. He crunches up into a ball and throws himself to the side then wiggles until he's over... then hates that he's there because he hates being on his tummy.
• Not a fan of the Baby Bjorn yet. I think it's because right now since his neck muscles aren't strong enough he has to face me rather than out and he can't stand not seeing the world around him.
• He wakes up at 5:30 every morning. Nathan typically jumps out of bed to give him a pacifier and then he sleeps at least for another hour. We're up for the day at 6:30.
• He's still eating eight times a day almost every 2.5 hours. I think because he was born skinny he's now trying to catch up... he eats a lot! He wakes up once in the middle of the night to eat typically at 2am.

So updates on mom and dad.

• Nathan just did a promo on the radio for a Prison Fellowship event he's putting on and it went really well. He got a good response from people.
• We both got our swine flu vaccine on Friday. I know it's controversial but we aren't dead so that's good!
• I have been talking to a few people about a few childcare/job ideas... we'll see. Please pray though that things work out that would allow me to not be away from Harrison so much each week. If they don't work out the plan is still south fellowship learning center come January and staying in my job 9-5 mon-fri until May. But we are praying for some other ideal options to open up... I really love my job, I really love my son, both loves make future decisions very difficult! Actually in the next few months if other ideal things don't work I may have to make one of the hardest decisions I've ever made. CCU has been our community for the last 8 years, 10 for Nathan. It's not just my job it's home away from home.
• We are cooking a lot! So far in 8 weeks I think we've eaten out 8 times and most of those times are while Nathan's parents were here.
• I'm working on a scrap book for him. We've spent all the money on it but I haven't started yet... I'm not very crafty because I'm a bit of a perfectionist, if you can't do it perfect why do it at all, so we'll see.
• The weather in Colorado has been gorgeous (60-70's) so we get out of the house a lot.

A note from Nathan...

Having not had the opportunity to provide updates with the same frequency as Libby, I wanted to add a note to this posting. It has been incredible seeing little Harrison grow and develop. I am sure every new dad says this, but he truly is the cutest little guy in the world! What has also been amazing, is to watch Libby be a mom. She is incredible. She takes such good care of Harrison and planning all the details that are now necessary with a newborn. Thanks for all of your support and prayers for this wonderful venture in which we find ourselves.

Love you all!

Pictures:

This is our 1999 Jeep Cherokee Sport. It's very rough and tough. Nothing like our luxury Volvo but we like it.

Here is Harrison at 7 weeks in a cute little outfit, mommy loves the Gap.

If you ever come across any cute hates, send them our way :) His hair is growing but not fast.

I take that back, it just grew in this week:

A friend of ours brought this weird strip of animal fur to church so the boys thought it would be funny to put it on Harrison. Our friend Sara was wonderful enough to whip out her camera and get a pic.

2 Week Professional Pictures

Our friend Beth took these pictures of the three of us 2 weeks after Harrison was born. It's pretty hard to get good pictures of a 2 week old who just wants to sleep. Beth did a great job. I wanted to share them all with you.

The video of our pumpkin patch experience is posted but not on this blog. Blogger doesn't have the capabilities to hold such a lengthy video. So if you want to see it please go to this website: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2SQqxSA1O4

Love, Libby