March 30, 2004
Best Things About Being a Baby
1. It's the only time of your life when people compliment you on being chubby.
2. Nobody expects you to do anything other than sleep, eat and poop.
3. The entire household revolves around you, and people are available around the clock to meet your every need.
4. People travel hundreds of miles just to meet you.
5. Whenever somebody visits you for the first time, they bring presents.
6. Everybody's impressed when you lift your head or smile a bit.
7. You get a totally new wardrobe every few months.
8. People take more pictures of you than a superstar.
9. People cheer when you poop, and praise you when you burp.
10. Nobody thinks it's weird when you fall asleep while eating.
March 24, 2004
1st Smile
Robbie was very alert this morning, so I talked, smiled and played with him. He was looking directly at me, and then it happened... he smiled widely. I tried to hold back the tears as I smiled back at him and encouraged him to do it again, and he rewarded me with a second smile. I felt like I was on cloud 9. It's amazing how much happiness you can get out of just a smile. Now, let's see if we manage to capture it on photo.
1 month update
Robert is actually a bit over 5 weeks now, but I didn't have time earlier. Robbie had his 1 month visit at the pediatrician last friday and measured in at 9lb, 9 oz. He was also 22 inches long (He was born at 7lb 8 oz, 20 inches long). That puts him in the 95 percentile. Meaning that 95% of American babies are smaller than him at this stage. I had a feeling he was going to be a big boy. We keep having to buy bigger socks for him because he has such big feet. His doctor (who's from Spain, btw) said he looks very healthy.
She said that if he starts "cluster feeding" (feeding very often) in the evenings, he'll probably be ready to skip a meal in the middle of the night so he can sleep longer. She recomended we encourage him to learn to fall asleep on his own instead of always falling asleep in our arms so that if he wakes up at night he can fall back asleep again. That's a bit difficult. He can fall asleep on his own in the crib or his stroller, but only if he's got his pacifier. Unfortunately his hands still have a mind of their own (especially the sinister left one) and keep knocking the pacifier away, so he wakes up and gets upset every few minutes. I have him in the stroller next to me as we speak and I keep having to reach over put the pacifier back in his mouth.
Visit from Grandma Marieke
Robert's dutch grandmother Marieke visited this past week. We spend a nice relaxing week at home and even managed an outing to a restaurant. She gave a new life to our front garden and Robert got a chance to meet another loving grandparent.
March 01, 2004
Visit from Grandpa Jan Sobota
Robert's Czech Grandfather Jan visited this weekend from Dallas. We celebrated his 65th birthday together with Robbie's 2 week birthday. It was great to see the youngest and oldest member of the family together.