Because we have to show off

Well, a lot has happened since we posted last. Or at least it seems that way, but this might be due the extra amounts of time we’ve been awake (especially Hilary) to observe happenings. It’s hard to believe that Jack is almost four weeks old, and he still won’t talk to me. I’m okay with that though, I can still beat him in chess three games out of five.

Some of the excitement of the last few weeks we’ve been able to record in pictures and on video. Our first use of our video camera we particularly exciting, since it allowed us to save for posterity Jack’s better spit up on Dad experiences.

Spitting up has not been all Jack’s been doing though, for instance he occasionally smiles The only downside to these occurrences is that they seem to have little to nothing to do with the external world. He’ll be sitting staring at nothing or the wall behind me and suddenly break out in a grin. That we even captured one on film (or whatever digital cameras have) was dumb luck, but we’ll take it.

He’s also been helping me out around the house. Here’s a picture of him giving valuable feed back on my thesis.

Here are two shots of us wrestling. The first is shortly after he tackled me (totally unfairly I might add, he gave no warning) and shortly thereafter he had me pinned. Seeing that physically he had me outmatched I challenged him to a sleeping contest which I won hands down. That boy has not mastered the art of sleeping.

We try to help him out in that regard by wrapping him up like a baby burrito, but he has grown tired (get it!) of this recently. At least, when I try to swaddle him he tends to fight me tooth (figuratively) and nail (literally). I have found that a sure fire way to get him sleepy is to keep him warm. If he’s lying in the sun or basking by the space heater he calms down and passes out immediately.

This may just be a ploy to get me to leave him alone. The other day I walked in unannounced and found evidence that he works as a superhero when I think he’s asleep. If you look closely you can see that his super name is NINJA, and his powers are to wear socks on both his feet and his hands. What villain can stand before this cuteness? Of course such a job requires him to stay in shape. Most of his work out routine consists of lifting his head.

After a strenuous work out like that he likes to relax with some feeding and nice bath.

To get the food he calmly cries with increasing intensity and facial folding until his Mom gives in. A typical beginning to such a cry is here recorded:

Another technique he uses to get what he wants in ridiculous amounts of cuteness. For instance, he might lounge around with his shirt off waiting for someone to lavish him with gifts of modeling contracts.

All in all he’s pretty great and we look forward to him supporting us in our golden years.

Hilary's note: I am a little more literal in my posts so just to clarify some things...first of all, I do interact with my child, I'm just the one behind the camera so there is no proof of it. Jack had a little bit of Jaundice when we brought him home so we would let him lay in the sun to help. At work we had a little baby party where my co-workers could decorate onsies and so we got a lot of cute ones and a lot of fun ones, so in the future Jack will be a Boston Red Socks fan and a Pittsburgh Penguins fan among other things. The head lifting is one of my favorite things Jack does. At the hospital when I would hold him on my chest he would lift his head up and look around and it would be oh so cute. His head just keeps getting stronger.

All in all, it is nice not to be pregnant now, pregnancy was not at all what I was expecting. Oddly enough, the best weeks of my pregnancy were the last two (the last time I threw up was at 36 weeks, but I was still nauseous) and I never felt like I was huge or got full use of my maternity clothes. I actually enjoyed labor and am considering going without an epidural next time (and yes there will be a next time despite how much I despised the first 36 weeks!).