One Month

It is a little unreal that it has already been a month. At times, it feels as if Henry is still brand new, but most of the time it feels like he has been here forever. Henry is still a shockingly good baby. In the first 30 days of his life I do not think he has cried for more than 1 minute at a time. Don't get me wrong, he has had a few fussy hours, but there is always a reason for his "mood." He either is hungry, wet or in one instance was fussy after 4 days of travel. (That was a lot for a 3 week old baby). We know how lucky, blessed, fortunate, etc... that we are by our superbaby.

Now, notice that I prefaced the "we have a perfect baby" sentence with "in the first 30 days..." This is because we had our first public meltdown yesterday. Yesterday we took Henry to have his first professional pictures done. He cried the entire time. By the end, we were stuffing a bottle into his mouth, pulling it out to snap a shot and quickly reinserting said bottle to avoid his screams. No fear though, we still managed to get some amazing pictures. I promise to post the amazing ones when we get them back. Our superbaby returned the minute we walked out of the studio and into the waiting room. He remained alert, smiley and content for the next 30 minutes while we waited and picked out the shots of choice. Go figure!

Back to the last month. One month of waking up in the middle of the night and frantically checking to see if he is breathing. One month of diapers, bottles, pumping, feeding, diapers, bottles and diapers. One month of hours spent watching him watch the toys on his play mat, waiting for him to do something. (a superbaby spends hours content on his or her play mat kicking and swinging and "talking" to the toys, especially the sun rattle). One month of showing him off to family and friends, proudly. One month of waiting for the other shoe to drop, for him to show his true colors, the colors he flaunted while growing in my belly. One month of pictures, 257 saved on our camera alone. (notice, "saved," not taken). One month of kisses, snuggles, naps and hugs. One month of being amazed that we "made" him.

I think this is the point that most moms of one month old babies rave about how all the sleepless nights and exhausting days are totally worth it because their baby is so amazing. Well, because Henry has been so good, I really cannot complain about sleepless nights and exhausting days. Don't get me wrong, I am tired. This mom gig is a 24 hour a day job. Did I mention the bottles and diapers and diapers and pumping??? But, I have been very lucky to have very willing helpers (thank you especially to daddy and nana), and we have only had 2 nights with more than one wake-up. Again, I know how lucky we are...

Henry had his one month check up with Dr. Durham today. My little chubrock currently weighs 10 lbs, 12 oz (2 lbs, 12 oz more than his 1 week check up and 1 lb, 10 oz more than his birth weight). He is 22 inches long (1.5 inches longer than birth). These numbers put him in the 75th percentile for both height and weight... this means he is perfectly in proportion. Don't get too excited... there is the matter of his head. While his head has grown according to schedule, his head size is hovering around the 25th percentile at 14.5 inches. Unfortunately for Hank, it seems that he has inherited his daddy's peanut head. Daddy turned out okay, small head and all, so we are not concerned.

The last month has definitely been emotional, but it has been pretty awesome. We love having him in our lives, and are pretty sure we will keep him. :)

Here are some of the latest pics of Hank the Tank!













Thank you to all of you who have been so supportive this last month. I am now going to press the slow motion button on life because it is going way too fast. Enough blogging, I am going to go snuggle with my little man before he starts to walk and talk!