Mark celebrates his 9-week birthday today--yay! Sorry we haven't written much at all. I've barely found time to upload photos to FlickR these past few weeks. I guess I owe a brief overview of the past 9 weeks.
We had some nursing struggles the first few weeks but with the help of excellent lactation consultants and the support of good friends from church, at around 4 weeks Mark started nursing correctly with some assistance. Now at 9 weeks we're doing much better. He is on a 3-3.5 hour schedule more or less--eat, wake time, diaper change, and naptime. Mommy often naps with him. He is sleeping 7-8 hours straight at night which is a MARVELOUS blessing. He has his 2-month checkup tomorrow and will start getting his vaccines (ouch).
Mark is now starting to smile back at you when you smile at him (and are about 6-8 inches from his face!). This is HUGE to us first-time parents. He also coos and makes "talking" sounds. I swear he even laughs/gurgles a bit when he's excited that you're excited that he's smiling. His most fun time is right after feeding--he moves into a "quiet alert" state where he smiles, coos, and is in a great mood. He also fills his diaper during that time!
Daddy went back to work after 4 weeks of paid paternity leave (yay for Microsoft!). Although that is an amazingly long leave in the corporate world, the time went too fast. And unfortunately some fires sprang up at work that caused a lack of progress on the next deadline, so when he came back no one had been able to do his work for him. Needless to say work has been a little hectic with trying to cram too much work into too little time. But Mark is always glad to see Daddy come home so he has someone new to smile at!
Well Mark just woke up from his nap and he sounds unhappy. I will try to write more again sometime soon!
