THE GREEN(wald) HOUSE … (growing rosemary & raising a little wolf)

My son (it still feels weird to say that) is one month old.

His hair is light brown, but looks like it might come in even lighter - maybe a dark blonde - and his eyes are a gorgeous blue color - not that dark grayish-blue like most babies - but a true blue color. I hope he keeps those great blue eyes. I can’t believe how fast he is growing! At our 3 week appointment with our midwife - he already weighed 11 lbs - gaining almost a pound a week. And last night - I weighed him on our home scale (with a diaper and clothes on) and the scale said he weighed a whopping 13 lbs! I know the home scale is not perfectly accurate - and since he was clothed he really weighs less - but he most likely is around 12 1/2 lbs or so. He has already outgrown all the newborn 0-3 month size clothes - and is almost too big for some 3-6 month outfits! When Rosie holds him now, I noticed that when his feet are down by hers, his head comes up to her chest! He is going to be bigger than his big sister by the time he is 2! Looks like Joe got the football player he was wanting!

Adjusting to life with 2 kids has been pretty smooth. There have been some moments where I thought “I can’t do this!” - but then things calmed down and we got back into a routine of some sort and things were OK again. Though I doubt the house will ever stay clean for longer than 5 seconds. It is hardest when Sam is just waking up and wanting to nurse - and at the same time Rosie starts acting up and being whiny and clingy and wanting all my attention (and just generally being a 2 year old). Poor Sam usually is the one who ends up having to wait to get his needs met - as Rosie has yet to learn the fine art of patience, and Sam is pretty accommodating anyway. I feel a little guilty that I can’t give him the undivided attention that Rosie got at this age - but I guess that is life with 2 kids.

Sam is definitely a more mellow baby than Rosie was, though he is also way more gassy - and he is a spitter-upper. Rosie only spit up about 3 times in her life, so I am not used to the constant sour milk smell, and having to remember to always have a burp cloth handy. I tried to cut out dairy - thinking maybe it was something in my diet that was making him gassy and spit up - but after almost 2 weeks of constantly forgetting and not seeing much of a difference - I gave that up. Let’s face it - I have never been one to have strong willpower - I missed my cereal in the morning and soy milk just doean’t cut it for me. Sam doesn’t seem to be in any pain - and he doesn’t spit up as much when I remember to burp him immediately after nursing - so I think we will just have to deal with the spit up and hopefully he will grow out of it soon…

We are getting a pretty decent amount of sleep for a household with a newborn. Thanks to nursing and co-sleeping, I don’t have to get out of bed at night - I just have to roll over on my side and cuddle up next to Sam when he gets hungry - then we both fall asleep again while nursing. The only bad thing about that is I don’t burp him right after nursing, so he has been waking up grunting and fussy and gassy around 5-6am every morning - and I have to spend about an hour patting and burping and wiping up spit up before nursing him back to sleep again, and by that time, it is hard for me to go back to sleep…

Sam is so cute when he sleeps though - he kind of snores, or coos, or more accurately - he squeaks. He sounds like an old squeaky door opening and closing - he makes noise on the inhale and exhale. That’s when I know he is truly in a deep sleep - when the squeaking starts. I wonder if he will continue to make that noise, or become a true snorer - like his dad.

All photos here were once again taken by my friend S - aka “gearhead mama” - she took a BUNCH more though - you can see more great photos of Sam by going here - to her flickr page - enjoy!