Midnight Musings

Yes, I do realize that we don't update the site enough. After all, we haven't gotten up the photos of Evan's first road trip and he's already completed his second. If you're interested in getting an e-mail update whevever we make an important update to the site, e-mail aracauna@hotmail.com and I'll add you to the list for outgoing update announcements.

When we found out that we were pregnant we both had doubts about parenting. We both were sure that the other would be great parents but we lacked the self confidence. Although we are both far from experts and still have some doubts we both seem to have fallen into the parental role pretty easily.

Evan has Jacob wrapped around his little finger. Jacob will sit with Evan and talk and play with him. He really is fun to play with since he has started to smile. I think Jacob enjoys Evan more than he thought he would (even if it takes time away from his other hobbies.) Evan loves to hang out with his dad. If he is getting cranky, Jacob has a way of calming him down and keep him contented. He is also great at getting Evan to go to sleep. I think that it is because Jacob is warm natured.

Jacob surprised me when we had Evan about how much information that he knew. Apparently he was doing research on different aspects about the pregnancy. Often times he knew the answer to my questions before I did. I guess it was just a way for him to be excited about the baby even if he didn't always show it on the outside.

Dad's however have it easy when it comes to taking care of the little one. Even when they do everything right they still have it easy. They don't have the every 2 hour feedings (at least in our case since I am breastfeeding.) which leads to lack of sleep most nights. Since Evan eats every 2 hours I can't even build up a reserve of breastmilk so Jacob can feed him a bottle of breastmilk at night.

Yes, Motherhood is not easy but it has it's perks. There is nothing like seeing Evan look at you and smile. It amazes me everyday that Evan was inside of my belly! It is amazing how much you can love the little man! It makes you realize all the unplesant events really were worth it.
They say that once the baby is born you forget the pain from the pregnancy. I still remember the pain but if I had to do it again for Evan I sadly would do it again in a heartbeat.

I really makes you feel well when you know that your child responds to you. Evan knows who his parents are even if he really can't see clearly yet. He knows who we are by our touch and how we hold him. It is really neat to be able to take him and calm him down just beacause we are his parents.

Although Evan has been our personal model for the pictures we have taken on a rather regular basis, tomorrow he will make his debut as a model for professional pictures. He will either react in two ways. He may be the good natured and the happy little man he usually is or he may show his grumpy side and decide to be cranky. Hopefuly he decides to be happy and flash his cute little smile for the pictures. We will be taking them tomorrow at 1:00. If he is as happy as he is today at that time then we will have great results.

Well, he's really not fat. He still looks really lanky for a baby and even his newborn-sized pants are kind of too big, but little dude's put on two pounds since being yanked from the gaping maw of his mom's surgical incision. We found out his official weight when we took him in for a herniated belly button. It looks a little disturbing and the explanation really isn't any more reassuring, but it's common and nothing to be concerned about according to our doctor (and he's a very busy doctor, implying he's not killing many off through malpractice). Basically, when Evan is upset (pretty much any time we change his diaper and actually see the bellybutton since he hates having any article of clothing removed) some of his bowels poke through the tiny muscular imperfection under the naval making the belly button blow up like a balloon. Other than that, Evan's a perfectly healthy little boy.

He also started smiling on a regular basis last week. He's not consistent in response to social stimuli yet (he's too young for that really), but he does occassionally respond with a smile to being tickled or when I talk to him in a really high voice or make weird noises. He's starting to experiment with other facial expressions as well except for the agry face, which babies are pretty much born with.

The first few posts didn't have a lot to do with Evan, but this one is all baby.

Evan slept a lot during his first month. In fact, he often went 4-5 hours between feedings, especially at night. He was obviously growing and not having any problems, so we didn't really worry about it, or, rather, I didn't really worry about. Kim was terrified until the last time the doctor weighed him that he was eating enough. But when the fifth week passed, Evan hit a growth spurt and started eating every two hours, even at night. Plus, he's a slow eater, so he'd spent 30-45 minutes, meaning Kim only got an hour and a half or so of sleep between feedings. It was the first time that either of us got really frustrated with the freqency of feedings. Before we didn't seem to have much problem getting enough sleep, but recently we've been struggling a tad.

It looks like the growth spurt may be easing up a bit, though. The past two days Evan's gone longer between feedings, more like three hours instead of two and sometimes longer, and not eating as long during feedings. Another bonus of age, even when he was feeding more often was that he's finally learned how to latch on, and spends less time screaming for the milk to come in the middle of night.

We had him weighed last week, and he was up to 8 lbs. 8 oz. He was born 7 lbs. 3 oz., and was 6 lbs. 11 oz. when he left the hospital four days later, so he's put on almost 2 lbs from his lightest point after being born.