Comparing Lillian Apple to Reuven Orange…
On the left, Lillian Marie at approximately three months. On the right, Reuven James at exactly six weeks. The pillow is the same, no perspective games… he’s at least as big as she was.
Archive for Reuven
Bottle feeding to free mommy…
Reuven is now one month and two days old, so we decided it was a good time to introduce him to the idea of drinking from a bottle. I pumped three ounces of milk, and Lillian and Brett each got to feed him for a while.
Lillian seemed to enjoy it much more than Brett; not only is it not particularly new for him, but he was busy playing Final Fantasy XII. And he’ll be getting plenty of time with bottle feeding next week when I have to go back to work part-time…
Big Boy!
Reuven is 7 pounds 13 ounces already — a pound over his birth weight. Considering how frequently he guzzles milk, and how long he sleeps, it isn’t terribly surprising. He already looks much sturdier than he did at birth!
Unfortunately, he also has terrible heat rash, especially on his face (which looks uncannily like acne, and makes one wonder just how bad his complexion will be as a teenager). He also has terrible eye “goop” in his left eye, apparently a result of vernix in the tear ducts. He also has a raspberry birth mark on the back of his neck… which won’t be problematic if we remember to style his hair appropriately to hide it.
All told, he’s completely healthy, all his bits are intact, and he’s growing well. Next appointment won’t be for another six weeks, and then he gets to begin the fun of vaccinations!
Reuven’s First Tree Climb
Most children don’t climb trees when they’re less than a week old. In this day and age, it’s possible many children never climb trees at all. This does not, however, apply to Altschul children; we intend to have them in as many trees as possible over the course of their lifetimes, starting as early as possible.
“Climb” is a bit of a stretch in this case, since Reuven is still not capable of holding his head up without help (and wasn’t even capable of staying awake for this photo session). But you get the idea…
The beautiful smell of a milkfed infant…
Breastmilk-poo is sweet smelling, especially compared to formula-poo (or solid-food-poo!). I probably wouldn’t make perfume or potpourri from it, but it’s clean and baby-related. It brings home the emotional memory and feeling of cuddling, loving, sweet little infant who hasn’t yet learned that the word “no” could exist, and trusts and loves absolutely…(I do wish, though, it wasn’t quite so sticky! Every time he poos, it gets everywhere and clings to everything it touches. Meconium is worse, but there’s something about the consistency that is really icky. I thought a baby girl’s crevices would be tougher to keep clean, but with a baby boy it all gets under the scrotum and you have to move everything around to clean, all the time hoping he doesn’t decide he’d really like to pee before you’ve gotten a fresh diaper on.)
Right now, I feel completely awesome. The delivery went perfectly, he’s a good sleeper, I’ve gotten rest and am proud of myself and my family… I hope this feeling stays and doesn’t turn into depression. His smell is part of that good feeling. Unfortunately, there’s no way I can think of to have the smell of breastmilk-poo on hand regularly — can you imagine asking an aromatherapy professional to duplicate that scent?
