Levi had his 2-month checkup yesterday (it was actually a couple of weeks late).  Can you believe he’s already over two months old?  This is the appointment we were dreading.  They give babies 4 shots in their thighs plus an oral vaccination, and they make the parents hold the baby down as further torture.  But our little trooper did great!  He cried for a minute or two but was done by the time the nurses finished the pricking.

Our little man is now weighing in at 12 pounds 15 ounces (more than double his birth weight) and 23" long (almost three inches longer than a month ago).  That puts him in the 50th percentile for height (he was in the 9th percentile at birth) and the 75th for weight (up from the 13th at birth).  Wow.  Not that we’re trying to win a prize for biggest baby, but I’m very glad to see him growing so well.  Still, though, it hit me the other day that we have a complete and functional human being in our house that is roughly the same size as our cat.

I’m definitely not one of those competitive moms (me? mom? weird.) who wants my child to be the fastest and the smartest… I just want him to be fast and smart in whatever ways he was intended to be.  But I must say that I was thrilled that he measured a month or two ahead on his 2-month milestones.  For us, that just means that the preemie thing and stroke are further behind us.  We’re not talking college-level Trivial Pursuit or anything, but things like tracking our faces, holding his head up, smiling and cooing, supporting weight with his legs, etc.  What a relief.  Of course we knew that he is doing just fabulous.  He seems like the healthiest little baby ever.  We go back to the pediatric neurologist here in about a month or so, and at some point in here we’re supposed to see a developmental pediatrician.  Those doctor visits should be more telling.

The areas we are behind on are feeding & sleeping (you know, those practical things).  He’s supposed to be sleeping through the night and eating 6 ounces per sitting every 3-4 hours during the day.  Um, no way.  We’re not even close.  He’s still grazing all afternoon and evening, and going for a max of 3-4 hour stretches at night, except for the occasional 5-hour he throws in just to tease Brad and me.  As the doctor said yesterday, "Yeah, he’s just screwing with you."  So we’re going to try to lay down the law and get that little boy on a better schedule.  Of course I’ll still be pumping every hour or two during the day, but I think by week 16 I should be able to cut back on that too without hurting my supply.  What luxury!

While we aren’t sure which one of us Levi resembles, there are definite attributes that he picked up from Brad and me. Here they are:

From his daddy-

• toe curling

• overly dramatic coughs
• definitely not a morning person (Brad tells me he got this from his Nonna as well)
• widow’s peak hairline

From his momma-

• sticking his arms and feet out from under the covers when he sleeps

• the dimpled Burton chin
• a large forehead
• lots of sneezing
• lack of patience
• chronic hiccups

From us both-

• blue eyes
• pale skin
• long eyelashes

From neither one of us-

• light hair

First of all, let me say that I probably brought this upon myself. All along I’ve thought and prayed that it would be best to have our most difficult child first. That way, we could devote more attention to him or her, and our other kids would be downhill. Boy, did the Lord ever answer my prayer (at least I think, and hope)! But He answered in a merciful way. Here I thought we could possibly have to deal with a child with an ongoing handicap or a difficult personality. Instead, we had challenges around the pregnancy and birth that should hopefully be a thing of the past here soon.

Although it might sound like it, this is not intended to be a complaint. In fact, I think if anything, it makes me all the more grateful that we have such a sweet and resilient baby, and that I have such an awesome and flexible job, and that the timing worked out with Brad’s school like it did. However, I was thinking the other day about all the challenges we’re going through. Each step along the way has been odds-defying. After all, how many babies have you ever heard of who had intrauterine strokes? Or how many mothers (without ANY risk factors, mind you) do you know who developed complete placenta previa? So, I thought it would be interesting to spell out a few of the weird occurrences, and figure out how likely it is that someone else would be in our same situation.

• Placenta Previa (complete): 5% with risk factors; ???% random chance
• Intrauterine stroke: 0.02%
• Umbilical Hernia: 12.5%
• Raynaud’s Syndrome: 5.8%
• All of the above combined: 0.00000725%, or about one in fourteen million. To quote from Dumb and Dumber, “So you are saying that there IS a chance.”

  (Lani and her awesome Cat in the Hat diaper cake.)

Yes, folks, sad but true… it’s time to say goodbye to the diaper cake as we once knew it. We have finally depleted our stash of size 1-2 disposable diapers, and we’re down to those precious layers of the Cat’s Hat. I hate so much to tear it apart! Our generous friends gave us enough disposable diapers to last through his first three months of life! Not bad at all! But after those run out, we’re going to attempt to start using cloth diapers on him. Hopefully it will put less of a dent into the environment, and we’re hoping the comparative lack of comfort will motivate him to use the big boy potty a little sooner. Time will tell! 

Before and after:
 

 
 

Here’s what Levi’s life is about at the ripe old age of seven weeks:

• He’s starting to smile at us responsively (he’s been smiling reflexively and in his sleep since birth).

• He grabs a very strong hold of your shirt or hair or whatever gets in the path of his hands.
• He sucks on his fingers and fists when he’s hungry.
• Instead of small grunting sounds or cries when he’s hungry, he now lets out a loud singular scream. He knows that will do the trick!
• He can now track us pretty accurately when we move. He stares intently at our faces, and he’s still mesmerized by his daddy’s hair for some reason.
• He loves to observe lines and contrasts. In his nursery, he especially loves the wainscoting, bookshelf, and the mushroom on his mural.

• When he gets mad, he sticks that lower lip out into the saddest little pout, and his fists fly about aimlessly like he’s throwing spaztic air punches.
• He can hold up his head really well! He can push himself up to about 45 degrees when he’s lying on his tummy, and hold it for probably 30 seconds or more. But he has what we call “sudden failures,” when his head goes crashing down without warning, bashing into your jaw or whatever happens to be in the way.
• He knows to stop crying as soon as you pick him up. But if you wait too long to feed him when he’s hungry, he’ll make these angry little quacking sounds while chewing on his pacifier.
• When he’s “occupied” (i.e. thinking about pooping), he opens his eyes up wide, gets really still, and makes this “ooh” expression with his mouth like he’s sucking on a straw. While he’s actually doing the deed, he grunts really loud, arches his back, makes fists, and kicks his little feet.
• He’s okay with baths, but man does he hate it when they’re over! We warm the bathroom up to 85 degrees, but he still wails like we’re abusing him in the most horrible way. It is so sad!
• When you pull a bottle out of his mouth, his tongue is cupped into a perfect little circle. We’re trying to teach him to open his mouth up wide for breastfeeding, and he has learned amazingly fast! Now when he’s hungry and knows he’s about to be fed, he pops that mouth open like a little baby bird. It is really cute.
• He likes to go on walks with the whole pack (sans Sushi). We stick him in his Ergo carrier, and he sleeps and sighs the whole way.

• He goes through lively spells every day where he just sits there bright-eyed for hours on end, absorbing all the goings-on. We like to read him his Rainbow Zebra book from Nonna when he gets like that.
• He was eating well over 30 ounces a day (!), but he’s now off of his growth spurt and eating more like 26-28 or so. But he is definitely a snacker. He’ll eat an ounce here and there all afternoon.
• When he was a month old, he developed what we thought was the worst case of baby acne ever. However, it was apparently a rash in reaction to zinc. I guess we were caking the Desitin on a little too thick. Once we backed off on that, his skin cleared right back up.
• His eyelashes have gotten very long! I know it’s a little thing, but I’m relieved b/c he had none to speak of when he was born, only lanugo.
• His thighs have gotten huge! He’s definitely plump. It looks like he’s got all these rubberbands clamped around his limbs. Even his little toes and feet are fat!
• He has an umbilical hernia, and it’s growing larger. That’s why his belly button looks slightly dark and balloonish. Unfortunately doctors won’t intervene medically until the poor kid is several years old, no matter how swollen it gets. I just hate it!

• He still has his “cradle cap” (sloughing skin on his scalp), but it’s getting a lot better.
• He started crying real tears a few weeks ago, but now they stream down his face when he stays upset long enough. It’s absolutely heartbreaking!
• If you read The Baby Whisperer, then you’ll understand what we mean when we call him a “textbook baby.” Unfortunately, he seems to have inherited his mom’s lack of patience. Otherwise, we can’t tell too much about his personality yet.
• Just like in the womb, he gets the hiccups often. When they’re bad enough, he’ll act annoyed.

Those are the main things that come to mind – I’ll post more as I think of them.