some thoughts, some progress

My baby is beautiful. He is bright and attentive and very social. He has no kind of stranger anxiety, as long as the person holding him is paying attention to him and smiling at him.

Because he is such a wonderful baby, it is much easier to deal with all the exhaustion that comes with being a new parent. And man, is there exhaustion! I have a hard time thinking of how that will multiply with more children. Kudos to all those who have more children!

For about a month, Felix was sleeping about 6 hours at a time during the night. Brent and I were very happy about this because we weren't getting enough sleep.

You would think that with all this cuteness and holding his own bottle (which he has done for about 2 months now) and playing by himself with anything that makes noise (plastic bags beware!) that it would mean we are more able to get things done. But Brent and I find ourselves exhausted every single day. Even when he falls asleep he doesn't stay that way for long.

It doesn't help that there are two large projects at work that have me working late nights - for the past couple of nights it's been overnight, meaning I work till 5 or 6 in the morning and then crash. This is hard on Brent because I then need to sleep till at least noon to be able to function and I still don't have much energy.

Anyway, Felix doesn't sleep more than maybe 4 hours at a time anymore. We have decided that we're going to try to keep him up in the evening so he doesn't "nap" from 7 pm to 11 pm and then want to be awake for the next 2 hours. Hopefully that will help some.

The other day I went to my sister's house to babysit while she had a class about being a cardiac nurse (apparently it's boring to be a regular RN for very long). Since I was going on exactly 1 hour of sleep from the night before, I bribed Luke and Hannah (ages 2 and 5) with promised treats to keep Felix occupied so I could sleep. And they did it. I was so impressed. By the time Hannah needed to get ready for kindergarten I had acquired an additional 2 hours of sleep.

Felix did something amazing there that he hasn't done at home. Maybe it has something to do with the wide open space, but he went from being on his belly to sitting up. Twice. He was pretty unhappy when he face-planted after the second time, but I was so proud!

He still won't quite crawl. He scoots backwards like a champ, and he has started to wiggle forward on his belly if he really wants what's in front of him. I'm thinking it's a matter of days before he actually crawls.

Rachel wanted to play with Felix when she got home from school. I didn't notice that he was smiling till I was sending the picture from my phone. Most of the time when he sees something shiny pointing in his direction he just stares at it intently with his mouth open. But he really does smile a lot. It makes me happy to have a little creature smile at me so easily.

He still likes everything we give him. He loves ice water and prefers sweet foods, but he loves spicy too. If it's really bland (mushed peas) or unusual he will make a really disappointed face, but he'll still eat it. I think he's most interested with the novelty of it all. What a cute little learner!