New Pictures of Daniel

Here in the de Jong household, we've been busy trying to figure out this parenting thing. We gotta say, it's pretty exhausting! Daniel and I are grudgingly adjusting to Niels being at work all day. Our good friend Ashley has started spending Friday afternoons with us, which allows me time to sleep, shower or tackle an item on the to-do list (We love you, Ashley!). Here are a few of our latest favorite photos:

New Nuk--So Long Soothie

Daniel has decided that he doesn't like his soothie so much any more. For the first month, we couldn't get the thing out of his mouth, now he would pretty much rather have anything else in his mouth. Daddy's finger is a new favorite. Aren't my boys cute?

a picture says a thousand words

Bailey's expression says it all. The book is O For A Thousand Nights To Sleep by my GR friend, Lorilee Craker. O for time to read it...

Daniel is one month old today!

According to Niels, Daniel and I are about 20 minutes away from surviving our first workweek home alone without grandparents or daddy. And I thought bedrest went by slowly! Best of all, today is Daniel's one month birthday! I can't believe it was only one month ago that Daniel made his grand entrance to the world.  In some ways, it seems that he's been around forever and I can't remember life before him. On the other hand, he's so new and we are still trying to figure out even the basics of caring for our little guy.

Today has been a pretty good day. He's been showing off his lungs with vigor, which isn't doing great things for my headache. But he's also had some nice nap time and he's the cutest thing ever when he's sleeping and making his little baby noises.

The highlight of the week for me is that is weight is continuing to climb up. Yesterday, he hit 8 pounds again. Still down 4 ounces from his birth weight, but up a full pound from his low weight three weeks ago. That makes me feel a lot better about the sleepless nights (and days) and endless pumping and nursing. 

The biggest development we're noticing is that Daniel loves lights and is now starting to watch our faces when we hold him. We started tummy time today and he is definitely not a fan. See exhibit A:

Hopefully, month two will bring us more sleep than three hours at a time at night and twenty minutes in the day, surpassing his birth weight and a little more sanity to our schedule!

Finally...he IS my child!

After carrying Daniel for nine not-so-easy months, I was really looking forward to seeing which of my characteristics he has inherited. So far the consensus is overwhelming that he seems to have mostly inherited his physical features from his daddy, with the exception of my dark hair. Although, even that seems to be lightening up each day. But here, I offer indisputable evidence that Daniel is indeed my child. He has my unique hiccups. I'm so proud!

Happiness is...

...a sleeping baby! After a very rough Monday, each day is getting a little better and both Daniel and I are adjusting to all the grandparents back home and Daddy at work during the day. 

Of course, just as I got this far, our sleeping angel woke up and demonstrated his gift for peeing all over himself when his diaper is checked. Something about the fresh air I guess. 

No more 'Mellow Yellow'...

Well, you guessed it. The honeymoon is over. Oma and Opa have left and so did Daniels mellow character. He slept through the night from Saturday to Sunday (mainly b/c his parents were a little tired) and ever since (starting Sunday night) he's been extremely fussy. Mommy got about 4 hours of sleep and after the 5am bottle by Daddy got a wide-awake Daniel from 8am all the way through about 4pm without more than 20 minutes of sleep for the little man. He was also crying almost non-stop when he wasn't eating.

I'm writing this at a little before 6am on Tuesday-morning and I had about the same 4 hour sleep this night. Now, at around 5am he's finally sleeping, but it's about feeding time again and we're dreading the same routine (eating, burping, fussing and no sleep) will start all over again. The joys of parenthood. 

Fortunately, today Jen and Daniel can go to the 'boobie club' a.k.a. the Aultman Breastfeeding support class at noon, so she'll have some support today. I need to get ready to go to work, but that will be a bit of a challenge having been up since about 2am already. We'll see how long I last today...

All By Ourselves

At 1:30pm today, Niels, Daniel and I drove to Cleveland for the very sad task of dropping Opa and Oma off at the airport. Back home, we watched the Vikes lose to the Eagles to distract us from the reality that now, on Daniel's 26th day of life, the last of our help has gone and we are on our own. Tomorrow will be our first real test, as Niels will be at work and I will be alone with Daniel. He's such a good boy, we hope he'll be good for me, though as I'm typing this, our little guy is screaming his head off...I mean, exercising his lungs! Maybe he misses his grandparents as much as we do!

Many thanks to American Mom, American Dad, Dutch Dad and Dutch Mom for 26 days of loving on DJ and helping us adjust to our new roles as parents. We love you!

Now it can be shown

After a busy day at the outlet mall with Oma and Opa, we've spent the evening finally putting some photos in the frames hanging around our house. (Yes, we realize that we've had some blank frames hanging around for nearly two years!) Looking through our extensive online collection, we found this one from our Alaskan cruise, which we had to hide in a different folder to avoid accidently spilling the beans about our baby's name. Now the baby is known and the picture can be posted!