I Have Hands!

Hi everyone! I have been busy since I last posted. I've been working hard trying to get my hands to do what I want them to. I like to suck on my knuckle to soothe myself and sometimes I can even get my thumb in my mouth. My parents hear me sometimes in the night sucking on my fist trying to get back to sleep. It usually works and I sleep the rest of the night until 7:30 or 8. I haven't gotten them up in the night for about 2 weeks now and I think they appreciate that.

I can almost hold toys now. My mommy will hold one in front of me and I stare at it intently as I try to get my hands to move toward the toy. Sometimes I can get the hand I want up to the toy and then I open the fingers on the other hand to grab it. It's hard figuring out how to make them work independently. Sometimes I work and work to get my hands to the toy and miss the toy and put my hand in my mouth. I like that too.

I'm also starting to laugh and that seems to make everyone around me laugh too. My daddy talks to me in a silly voice and I crack up. My mommy has found some of my tickle spots too and she has fun with that whenever she's changing my clothes. I'm very ticklish under my arms and on my chest. If you want to see a video of me laughing a little and talking to my dad, just email my mom. It's a 3 MB file so if you have dial-up it might take you a long time to get it, but it's cute!

Yeah Me!

Hi everyone! I am really growing up. Guess what I've done every night this week? Yep, slept through the night! See how excited I am about it? I eat about 10 each night and sleep till about 7 every morning. One morning I slept till 6 and the other morning 8, but my usual wake-up time is 7. I'm proud of myself for figuring this out.

I went to the doctor for my 2 month check-up last week and she said I'm growing great. I'm REALLY growing because I'm bigger than my brother was at this age and he was a big baby. Actually our heads are the same size (17 inches), but I weigh 15 pounds 4 ounces (half a pound more than him) and am 25 1/4 inches long (2 inches longer than him). All three of those measurements are in the 100th percentile which if I understand my mommy correctly means that if you line up 100 two month olds, I'll be the biggest one.

Smiling, Crying, and Sleep

Guess you can tell by the title what fills my days. Those things and poop. :-) Since I know how to smile now, I like to do it all the time. This morning, I was so happy when my mommy was trying to nurse me that I had a hard time eating because I kept smiling at her. My daddy is really funny too. Every night when he comes home from work, he'll come up to me and ask, "What's for dinner Jonathinner?" I can't explain why, but I think that's the funniest thing I've ever heard and I smile and make laughy noises every time I hear that.

One day this week, I was really fussy. My mommy tried everything she could think of to help me feel better, but nothing worked. I didn't want her to hold me and rock. I didn't want her to walk around singing to me. I didn't want to be in my bouncy seat. I didn't want the swing. I didn't want to be in my crib. I didn't want to be on the floor with my activity gym. I didn't want to have tummy time. I just kept screaming. Finally mommy said, "Let's try this." and sat down at the piano with me in her lap and started playing. I really liked that. I sat quietly the entire time she was playing. She thought I was feeling better and stopped playing but I started crying again so she played a few more songs for me. I like music and now my parents know it too.

Since I hear my parents talking about it all the time, and everyone who talks to my parents about me asks them about it, I thought I'd update you on my night sleeping this week. In my last post, I told you how I'd slept till 5 am with an hour of crying to start the night. The next night, I nursed to sleep at 10:30 and slept till 5 am again. Then since you know I like to mix things up, I woke up every three hours the next two nights to eat. But I did try to apologize by giving my parents sweet 2 am smiles. It seemed to help. Several nights this week, I started crying when my mommy put me in the crib at 11 but she gave me my pacifier and let me hold her finger and I went right to sleep. The last two nights I only got up once at 3 am. I'll eventually figure this sleeping through the night thing out, but it's pretty hard.

Seven Weeks Old

Hi everyone! I've been busy these last three weeks learning about my world and haven't taken the time to write. It's a hard job trying to figure out how this body works. Actually, I just realized that I have arms and legs and spend a lot of time moving them to see what they can do. I already like to hold onto fistfuls of Mommy's hair whenever she's carrying me just like Thomas did. When I get mad, which I do sometimes because I've got a pretty bad temper, I like to swing my arm in a circle really fast. I hear my Mommy and Daddy giggling when that happens. Don't know what's so funny about it though. I have also learned how to smile and everyone seems to think it's really cute. I think so too which is why I'm attaching a couple pictures of my first smiles caught on camera. My mommy tried to get a picture of me smiling for two weeks but I was pretty stubborn and would only smile when the camera was nowhere near. But I finally decided to appease her and she took these pictures over the weekend.

I've had lots of people come visit me over the last few weeks and they all tried their best to spoil me. My Granny, Grandpa and Aunt Sandra came back to visit and Granny said she could really tell I'd grown a lot. My Gma and Two Pa, Mommy's grandparents, finally got to come see me and I had fun with them. I also got to meet my Uncle Jerry, Uncle Bobby, and "Uncle" Patty. And last weekend, my mommy's friend Jennifer flew all the way from Washington, D.C. to see me. I rewarded her with lots of smiles for that.

I've also been sleeping longer at night but I like to vary it just to keep my parents on their toes. Last night, I ate at 10, cried till 11, Daddy rocked me till 11:30 but I stayed awake the whole time, and then went to sleep at 11:35. I slept till 5 which is the longest I've slept so far. I'm still deciding if I want to wake up every 3 hours tonight just for fun. It's sure great being a newborn!

I'm Four Weeks Old Already!

Wow! Can you believe I'm already a month old? My parents sure can't. Sometimes they tell me it seems like I was just born yesterday and other days they say it seems like the last four weeks have gone by very slowly. That's probably because they are so sleep deprived. :-) Most nights I go three hours between feedings. That means from the time I wake up hungry to the next time I wake up hungry is about three hours. For my parents that means they get a maximum of 2 hours of sleep at a stretch. Sometimes I tease them and go four hours. That's one of the fun things we newborns do to mess with our parents' heads, make them think we're about to start sleeping longer at night. Then we might want to eat every two hours the next night.

I think this is a pretty good picture of me and my big brother, Thomas. I usually don't think I look as cute in pictures as I do in person. Mommy says wait till I start smiling and then I'll knock your socks off. But this photo is actually pretty good and I like it. We're both wearing our "handsome" shirts. Thomas woke up that morning and wanted to wear his handsome shirt, which is a shirt like Daddy wears to work. So I decided to be handsome too.

Cool Dude

My brother decided I needed some decorations. Although I played it cool, as you can see, I did really enjoy the attention. I think I look pretty good wearing Spiderman Bandaids. :-)

P.S. Don't forget you can view all pictures on my blog in a larger size just by clicking on them.

Welcome to My Blog!

Hi everyone! My name is Jonathan David and if you've been reading my brother's blog for the last year or so, you know that my family was anxiously awaiting my arrival. Well, I decided that December 28th was a good day to be born. My mommy was already scheduled to have a c-section that morning at 8:30. Her water broke at 4 am which was a sign to my parents that the 28th was definitely the day I wanted to be born. My mommy thought it was funny that her water broke on the same day of her surgery until labor pains started 2 hours later. She got to have 2 1/2 hours of unmedicated back labor before going into surgery which she didn't find very funny. She already knew what labor felt like with my brother and was supposed to avoid it this time, but I had other plans. :-)

I weighed 8 pounds 10 ounces and was 20 1/2 inches long. At my two week checkup last week, I weighed 10 pounds and was 22 inches long. I've got to grow big like my brother so we can play rough like he's been planning.

Everyone says I look just like my big brother but there are a few differences. My hair gets curly when you wash it and my mommy thinks my curls are so cute. My fingers and toes are also really long. I have plenty of time to decide if I'm going to use those long fingers to play the piano or palm a basketball. Maybe both.

The other day, my daddy was holding me and I was staring up at the ceiling. My mommy came up and kissed me and said, "I love you." Daddy then kissed me and said he loved me. Then Mommy again, Daddy again, and Mommy again. After Mommy's turn, Daddy didn't say it and so I slowly turned my head and stared at him to let him know it was his turn.

The biggest news I want to share is that I lost my umbilical cord during the night. My parents were so excited because it took my brother a trip to the doctor and 7 weeks to lose his. Apparently they cleaned Thomas' too much but this time they did better and mine came off right before my three week birthday, which is tomorrow by the way.

Thanks for coming by to read my new blog. I'll try to post more as I learn and do more things.