It's Rawley's second life in the "real world" and with quite a few literal and figurative hiccups, we're all making it through and mostly enjoying the process. My mom left at the beginning of the week to go up to Idaho, so we were on our own as far as taking care of the baby and everything else. That admittedly had us pretty tired by the end of the week, but we've noticed a lot of growth and improvement on Rawley's part.
The, "I've been crying for two minutes and you finally fed me so now I'm super chill" face.
We went to Rawley's first pediatrician appointment this week at his two-week mark. We were woefully under-prepared for our first real outing with a newborn. We literally brought nothing - no diapers, no nursing cover, and I accidentally left a small bottle of milk in the car. Needless to say, he was screaming for the majority of the appointment.
We decided to take a few more pictures of me with Rawley this week to prove that I actually hold him since all the pictures last week were him with Paul.
The doctor evaluated his health, and at one point held him with one hand around his rib-cage. Rawley immediately arched his back and was straight up planking on the doctor's hand. "He's sure a strong little guy!" exclaimed the doctor. I think he was legitimately surprised - Rawley's definitely a surprisingly strong baby, although I'm not surprised based off of the kicks he was giving me during pregnancy. He has some flaky skin which is apparently normal, especially out here in Utah where it's so arid. It's already starting to go away at this point.
Rawley the little bean - sounds like a good storybook to me. Paul caught us taking a quick nap.
Asleep in his crib.
Rawley is in the 73rd percentile for weight at 9.33 pounds (a good increase from his 8 3/4 pounds when he was born), is in the 80.52 percentile for head circumference (which is very unusual for a Larsen baby - we generally have giant heads so he definitely is more normalized by Risk genes), and is very tall at 22 inches (same as when he was born) in the 97th percentile.
The face of much tiredness, but happiness. I'm *mostly* recovered at this point but still taking it relatively easy as far as physical stuff goes.
We had noted during the week that Rawley seemed to be having a much more difficult time eating than he had in the past - he had begun choking on the milk, unlatching a lot more often, and seemed generally a lot more distressed. We asked the pediatrician about it, and he said that this was completely normal and expected - apparently, at about the 2 week mark, babies suddenly lose their newborn ability to breathe and suck at the same time. It suddenly becomes exceedingly difficult for them, which takes a lot of adjustment and is a bit of a shock to their system. Rawley was not enjoying that change at the beginning of the week, but seems to at least be past the crying about it point now.
One of my favorite Rawley faces. He likes to do this while he's getting burped for some reason. He looks like he's seeing a ghost.
Speaking of crying, we're pleased to report that he's crying and screaming a lot less than he did initially. I hear this may be because he's learning to trust that when either one of us is near or touching him, his needs will shortly get taken care of. He's also been a lot more pleasant during the times that he's awake, looking around and really focusing on our faces now. We also think we saw his first legitimate smile - my mom claims it's too early for that, but it definitely seemed to be in response to me blubbering/kissing on his cheek a few times with Paul and I both looking down at him one night at 12 am. He seemed pretty thoroughly pleased.
We actually have a baby model on our hands.
He sleeps for 2.5 to 3 hour intervals still at this point. It definitely has us getting run kind of ragged with how little sleep we've been getting. During the week I take more "shifts" than Paul to go and take care of him (Paul feeds him with a bottle of breast milk maybe once or twice a night) since Paul has work (my internship thankfully is more or less finished at this point and I'm just wrapping up some loose ends.) It's so nice to have Paul's help and feel that I can really rely on him. We were pretty grateful for the weekend when it came, though, for the chance to catch up on some sleep.
Note the umbilical cord remnant still attached in this picture.
We got a bit of a surprise this week when Becca, Paul's sister, came over for a while and we were all sitting out on the couches in our living room while Paul and Becca played a computer game against each other. Paul was holding Rawley at one point when Becca asked, "Where's Rawley's umbilical cord?" Paul and I looked at each other and realized we hadn't even noticed it had fallen off (it's supposed to.) We eventually found it on the bed, but that was an unpleasant little surprise we almost didn't notice.
"So... I get to keep her forever now, right?"
On a slightly different but still adorable topic, we rented a kitten on Saturday. There's a business in Provo called "Puppies for Rent" that allows people to rent puppies for an hour and a half or up to several hours. This week, for the first time ever, they had kittens for rent. We definitely, definitely rented a kitten, and I'm glad Paul agreed that we could do it, haha. It was an adorable little Siamese kitten, and I wanted to keep it so badly.
She sure liked that white ribbon we used to play with her. She had a patch shaved on her belly and what looked like a little surgery - not sure if that was from getting "fixed" or something else.
Paul enjoyed it and kind of likes cats, even if he might not publicly admit it.
One thing I hadn't quite accounted for when we rented the kitten, however, was the fact that Paul and I are completely exhausted all the time. So for about a half hour we played with the kitten and had fun with it... but then we were both super duper tired. It ended up that all three of us fell asleep but I got to nap with a kitten cuddled next to me, which is one of the most inexplicably comforting and rewarding things there is (for me, at least.)
Cat nappin'.
I'm sure the kitten appreciated it, since the rental kittens and puppies probably get overstimulated quite often. That kitten was adorable... not quite as cute as Rawley, but pretty close.
I don't even like cheesecake, but this one tasted pretty good.
Spinach, onion, tomato, feta cheese, eggs. Oh, and I flip them without a spatula cuz I'm super skilled.
We also made some delicious food this week - Greek omelettes (which I learned to make at my job in the student food center here at BYU last year) and cheesecake made by Paul. We have honestly not been doing a great job of making dinners this week or doing other chores, but we're getting better. Here's to hopefully a slightly more well rested week and more fun baby news to come this next week.
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