First Baths, Losing Umbilical Cords, and Visits from Hiker Friends
It’s been a whirlwind start to Alexander’s 4th week in existence, starting early Saturday morning with the loss of Alexander’s umbilical cord! Half asleep, I was changing him when low and behold I thought “that’s the funniest looking poo this kid has ever produced!” I looked closer through my mostly-closed eyes and thought “Wow, that’s the hardest poo this kid has ever produced!” I opened my eyes a little further and reached a tentative finger out to touch it, all the while Alexander is screaming his head off, unhappy at being exposed to the whole night world at my parents house--which mostly includes the skunk on the porch and the mouse in the candy drawer (no, I’m not making this up!). The shriveled up little raisin looking thing was in fact, Alexander’s umbilical cord.
Let the fun ensue! We get to take this kid into the shower with us. Play with rubber duckies. Splash and throw bubbles. We are excited.
Apparently, though, we have to wait until he can actually sit up. For now, baths are taken in the sink or in the little baby bath, which is quite a bit less exciting, except when he poos in the tub right when we’re finished watching him! At least we’re done with the screaming as we wiped him off instead of bathing him until the cord fell off. He’s still a little skeptical of the whole thing, as you’ll see in the following photo. Notice his right hand--
Or, he could be scared of Grammy--which, in this photo, can you really blame him?
Grammy sure did enjoy the weekend, having her two grandsons there to play with. JJ did get a bit jealous since Grammy wanted to hold Alexander the whole time. We thought we were going to have a meltdown when Grammy held Alexander in the Baby Bjorn on the way down to the lake. Thankfully, Grampy Dub was there to hold JJ while walking him the whole way to the lake.
*********
Today we had our first non-family visitors for the day. It was quite exciting, really, to be able to be calm enough to go out on the town. Wolf Cookie, who hiked with us in 2004, came over to say hi and bring her son Denton, before her unnamed baby girl makes an appearance in about 3 weeks or so. (Stu has already declared that Alexander and unnamed baby girl will be fixed up in marriage, thus leaving us out of the awkward meeting the girlfriend’s parents stage.) At this point, it looks like Denton and Alexander will be great hiking/mountain biking/kayaking/rock climbing buds in the very near future!
And, one more photo of Denton since he’s so blond and so cute. I think this is how blond Stu would like Alexander to be, however, I really don’t think that’s going to happen. Haven’t you noticed all the red in his hair so far?
Hope everyone is doing well. We’re slowly getting into the swing of things, thanks to the help of a book I’m reading that is giving me step by step instructions on how to make Alexander a happy-go-lucky sleep through the night baby. Hopefully by between weeks 8-12, Alexander will be sleeping for 8-10 hours at a time! Well, we can hope, can’t we??