Where did the past 5 weeks go? And also, toothless smiles are so awesome!

I think I was much better about blogging Jocelyn's early days. What can I say? It's just harder with two. Deciding to send Jocelyn to daycare while I am out on leave has turned out to be the best decision I could have made.

So Donovan is over 5 weeks old now. He's 5 weeks and 2 days old. It's been crazy! He is a good boy, and I love him so very much. I couldn't imagine loving somebody as much as I love Jocelyn, but it turns out that it is possible to.

The two of them are about as different as night and day in some ways. He *hates* getting undressed. Diaper changes are torture for him. Whereas she never minded getting her diaper changed, or being naked. She still loves being naked! But all other times, he's really chill, whereas she was rarely chill. Jocelyn needed constant attention - needed to be held, walked, rocked, etc. She was NOT about to sleep without it. Jocelyn also hated the car seat and riding in the car. Donovan doesn't love the car seat, but once it's in the stroller or car and we're moving, he's good. He passes out. Actually Jocelyn also hated the stroller. Jocelyn loved the swing, though. She could swing all day. See, they were very different babies :-P.

But enough compare / contrast between my kids. This is about Donovan. He's playing with his daddy right now, and uttered his first "word." He said 'CA!' He said it three times. It was awesome :-). Donovan has amazing head control. He can keep his head level with his body when being pulled into a sit-up. He has strong legs as well, and likes to push them into the floor and pretend to stand up. And when you hold him up at his torso, he can hold his head up for quite a while. It's super cute.

I was sitting on the floor this evening holding him up by his torso, and as he held his head up he totally smiled at me. It was awesome. Now he's been 'smiling' practice smiles since the beginning. And he has sort of a giggle. And today I was pretty sure he smiled at me before latching on and then did his giggle. But the play time / alert time smile was definitely the real deal.

But this month+ has been a whirlwind. I barely remember any of it. Donovan is growing like a weed. He was nearly 13 lbs a week ago! Newborn clothing ranges from 5-8 lbs. We're WAY beyond that now! He's wearing 3 month clothing, and sometimes those are a bit tight on him.

Donovan's health has still kept us up. We are no longer worried about his murmur, of course, since the doctor told us not to. But he has already had (and still kind of has) his first cold. He occasionally breaths rapidly and hard still, which is of course disconcerting. His gas is also out of control. While it is probably just immature digestion and my diet isn't impacting it much, I have still cut down on the raw and cruciferous veggies, dairy and caffeine (much to my displeasure!). I haven't been able to cut out all of those ingredients at 100%, mostly because I still have a family to cook for (and they need veggies, even if I don't want them) and I can't 100% give up chocolate (which has dairy solids and caffeine) :-P. Also, he has been diagnosed with acid reflux, so we started him on a nightly dose of Prevacid. He wasn't spitting up (like Jocelyn did), but he got to where eating was getting really painful for him. He would fuss and have trouble staying latched on. I tried giving him some homemade gripe water, but he wasn't having it. I thnk it freaked him out a bit, he wouldn't even swallow it. We tried it from a dropper and a bottle, and neither were acceptable. So Prevacid it is. It's helping a lot - he no longer has pain during nursing.

Having a boy is very different than having a girl when it comes to diaper changes, though. It took me about a month to master the art of pee pee tucking, and even then I am not always very good at it. Just today we had an accident that resulted in my second pair of maternity pants in two days getting soaked through. I think he missed the diaper completely and got all of it out of the diaper! And that was *after* he peed in the bath (fountain style) and on the changing pad. And I'm not talking hours later, I'm talking an hour later.

Actually this evening was his first tub bath. Infant tub, of course. Until now we have been doing sponge baths. I honestly don't remember when we started bathing Jocelyn in this tub. I think we had her in the free tub from the hospital for a while, but Donovan is way too big for that thing! Even at the hospital the water was running out and he over-filled it :-P. I tell you what, Jocelyn did not like sharing her tub with him, even though she recognizes that it's a baby tub. I think it would have been fine, if we didn't put it into 'her' bathtub (the guest bathroom is 'their' bathroom). Also, I wasn't allowed to diaper him on her changing pad (he has his own in our room, which makes sense, since that's where he sleeps).

All in all, life is really, really hard. I didn't understand how hard my life would be with two children. But as hard as it is, I am also really, really happy. Tired, sure. But happy. I love my little doodle bugs!