I am sure that the feeling is not uncommon to parents all over the world, but let me just start off by saying; our son is quite possibly the cutest baby I've ever seen!
He is now almost 8 weeks old. He first started smiling about a week or two ago, but has in the last couple of days been smiling much more. He smiles when you touch his upper lip and today he was the smiliest I've ever seen him even cooing loudly in what seemed to be the first signs of laughter. It was quite a moment for a parent to share that interaction with your baby.
For the past couple of weeks he has seemed to get more into a schedule for going to bed at night. This has been a great relief to his mother and I. He still seems to get a bit fussy in the evenings, but we (to the credit of my wife) have had success with instituting a bedtime routine that includes bathing, massaging (although I'm still not convinced of the necessity of that one and it seems my wife is beginning to question whether he likes it or not either) and singing before putting him down for the night.
It is amazing to me how my priorities have slowly begun to shift. This was not something that changed instantly for me (I am guessing that I am either more stubborn or more honest than those who say that the change in them was instantaneous). But the truth is where I first wondered when I would have time to do all of the things that I used to do before being a father, I recently have more of a desire to spend time with my wife and child than to constantly do the activities that I used to. This is not to say that I don't still enjoy time at the beach or having beers with my buddies (because I do still feel that my wife has been great at allowing me to still do these things) but in truth I now find myself enjoying just interacting with my smiling son as much as these other things.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Relativity
One month in and all's well! Actually I'm kind of confused as to how to tell people the babies age at this point. Born July 7, his 4 week birthday was Tuesday 8/4 but I would assume we have to wait until Friday the 7th to say he's one month. Who knows for sure?
This past weekend was a regular whirlwind of family visitors all coming to get their looks at the baby. It started Thursday when Sydney's cousin and his family stopped by on their layover from the East Coast on their way to New Zealand. They are really great people and we enjoy when they stop in. They have two children (2, 4) who were kind enough to give us a couple of sneak peaks in what we may have in store for us in the years to come. Then on Friday morning, early, my Mom arrived from her home in Hawaii (she would like the baby to call her Tutu, the Hawaiian for Grandma) for her first chance to meet her first Grandchild. She was beside herself with joy and other new feelings for the entire weekend and actually seemed to fall more in love with the baby the longer she was here.
Then Friday around lunch time my Dad arrived with my Grandparents and my aunt. My dad brought us a bottle of Jameson's whiskey as a gift. We didn't get a chance to ask him if we should drink it now or save it for Jameson to come of age... This was the first chance for my aunt to meet the baby. This was also one of the rare times that my Mom and Dad have been together since the divorce. It was really great to see them be able to drop their personal differences and both enjoy their grandchild. Grandma and Grandpa were both very pleased by the fact that we had given the boy the middle name Henry. It is my grandfather's name, his father's name and his grandfather's name (in hind sight it is kind of surprising that it is not my father's name as well, but I guess he thought better of it back in the 50's).
We all went to dinner that night down at the Redondo beach pier and got crabs and oysters from the fish market there. Even my mom got a crab! This was stepping pretty far away from some of her former eating habbits. Dad and his side of the family all left after dinner and went the next day to a memorial service for my Grandpa's sister Dorothy.
In the car on the way back from the pier was the loudest and most intense that we have ever heard the baby cry. He was very upset, but it only lasted a minute or so and then he was fine. It was a difficult experience for my wife and I.
Saturday afternoon my aunt on my Mom's side arrived from Modesto. We all went down to the Manhattan Beach Pier to show them the 6-man volleyball tournament that was going on. We were all amazed at the number of people that were packed in down there this year (it seemed like far more than years past). It was quite a crazy scene, but we stayed up on the Pier and it wasn't too bad.
Sunday my mom and aunt babysat while we went to go see a movie. We saw "Funny People" and had some lunch at PF Changs.
The Baby doesn't know any tricks yet but everyone who is meeting him these days is commenting on the fact that he is "the best baby". He has been so calm and content and fusses very little. He is still extremely cute and I do miss him during the week when I don't get to be around him as much.
This past weekend was a regular whirlwind of family visitors all coming to get their looks at the baby. It started Thursday when Sydney's cousin and his family stopped by on their layover from the East Coast on their way to New Zealand. They are really great people and we enjoy when they stop in. They have two children (2, 4) who were kind enough to give us a couple of sneak peaks in what we may have in store for us in the years to come. Then on Friday morning, early, my Mom arrived from her home in Hawaii (she would like the baby to call her Tutu, the Hawaiian for Grandma) for her first chance to meet her first Grandchild. She was beside herself with joy and other new feelings for the entire weekend and actually seemed to fall more in love with the baby the longer she was here.
Then Friday around lunch time my Dad arrived with my Grandparents and my aunt. My dad brought us a bottle of Jameson's whiskey as a gift. We didn't get a chance to ask him if we should drink it now or save it for Jameson to come of age... This was the first chance for my aunt to meet the baby. This was also one of the rare times that my Mom and Dad have been together since the divorce. It was really great to see them be able to drop their personal differences and both enjoy their grandchild. Grandma and Grandpa were both very pleased by the fact that we had given the boy the middle name Henry. It is my grandfather's name, his father's name and his grandfather's name (in hind sight it is kind of surprising that it is not my father's name as well, but I guess he thought better of it back in the 50's).
We all went to dinner that night down at the Redondo beach pier and got crabs and oysters from the fish market there. Even my mom got a crab! This was stepping pretty far away from some of her former eating habbits. Dad and his side of the family all left after dinner and went the next day to a memorial service for my Grandpa's sister Dorothy.
In the car on the way back from the pier was the loudest and most intense that we have ever heard the baby cry. He was very upset, but it only lasted a minute or so and then he was fine. It was a difficult experience for my wife and I.
Saturday afternoon my aunt on my Mom's side arrived from Modesto. We all went down to the Manhattan Beach Pier to show them the 6-man volleyball tournament that was going on. We were all amazed at the number of people that were packed in down there this year (it seemed like far more than years past). It was quite a crazy scene, but we stayed up on the Pier and it wasn't too bad.
Sunday my mom and aunt babysat while we went to go see a movie. We saw "Funny People" and had some lunch at PF Changs.
The Baby doesn't know any tricks yet but everyone who is meeting him these days is commenting on the fact that he is "the best baby". He has been so calm and content and fusses very little. He is still extremely cute and I do miss him during the week when I don't get to be around him as much.
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