Sleep is everything

I'm finding that in newborn land sleep is everything for all members of our household.  Where Joshua is officially 10 weeks old, but was born 4 weeks early, we're doing a dance between his actual age and his gestational age.  His sleep is starting to regulate- normally a 4 hour stretch followed by a three hour stretch.  If I can actually sleep during this time, then all is well.  If not.... well... I'm finally gaining empathy with tired newborn moms who sometimes I would (and, yes, I was very bitter) wanted to tell to just buck up.  Ah- payback did come back to get me.

We have had some wonderful developmental milestone moments with our little sweet Joshua over the past week or so:

• He smiled his first reactionary non-gas smile at Paul (lucky guy).
• A few days after, he smiled at me.  
• A couple days later, he grinned at Paul, so now the score is Paul 2, Ruth 1.
• A few days ago, he discovered his fist and stared in awe at it and watched it move.  He hasn't rediscovered it, but it's there waiting to be found again. :)

Saturday was a wonderful reunion with my first church congregation when Paul and I moved to Oregon.  I couldn't believe how many great friends were there to celebrate with me and to meet Joshua.  Then, on Monday, Paul and I celebrated our 19th anniversary and our friends Rochelle and Brenda watched our little guy so we could go out to Olive Garden.  It is so wonderful to be surrounded by loving friends who are eager to get to spend some time with Josh.  Wednesday our little guy got to come with me to meet my HSD music colleague family at our monthly meeting.  There are sweet friends in that group who were there for me as we prepared for and lost our Samuel.  It was nice to rejoice with them over our new arrival.

Today was Joshua's two month wellness appointment and he's now at 7lb. 7.9 oz, and is 1 ft 7.75 inches tall.  He's not growing as fast as he was in previous weeks, so the pediatrician would like us to shoot for 20-30 oz./ day.  Right now, he's at about 18ish ounces, so he's got some munching to do and we've got some more toe-tickling to do to keep him awake longer during feedings.

He also had his 2 month immunizations which made this mother's heart a little nervous.  He, of course, let us know he was not happy about it, but calmed quickly.  It was nice to talk to my mom and hear from her that sleepiness was a side effect most of my siblings and I had after the vaccinations.  He's been either pretty drowsy or pretty upset this afternoon- not a lot of middle ground.   Here's hoping for a calm night and that tomorrow he's back to his happy self.