M at 1 month

M started out life with a bang!  He wanted to make certain we didn't forget his newborn days. Thankfully, things calmed down for the rest of the month.  There were lots of snuggles and cuddles amidst the general craziness of life.

Five days post-DeVos, M had gained 7 ozs.  At our next weight check, a week later (3 wks old), he gained a full pound in that week. By his month check up, he weighed in at 12 lbs 4 ozs.  He was doing great!

Aunt Jenna visited us to meet our newest member to the family the night before our trip to GR. She went to GR too for the weekend to hang out with friends and brought us breakfast on Sunday.  Funny how things work out sometimes.

M was the typical newborn...he slept and slept and slept.  After the first week home from DeVos, he began waking up on his own to eat about every three hours.  I joked that he finally reached his due date of 40 weeks and so he was ready to begin life.  He started staying awake for longer stretches of time at this time too, but he still slept more than the 18 hours the pediatrician told us was typical of newborns.  Of course, he only slept soundly when he was being held.  He certainly liked his cuddles.

 The one disconcerting thing was that he always woke up unhappy.  He always screamed upon waking.  He did it from the get-go...and he continues it into month 2 also.  He is never happy to be awake.  He really likes his sleep.

M's siblings loved him.  They loved holding him.  Unfortunately, M didn't have much happy awake time and so they didn't get to hold him nearly as much as they wanted to. He was always either eating or sleeping and that didn't leave much time for sibling cuddles.  But, you can tell by X's face how much he loves being a big brother again!

Funny tidbit...when Jut called to check on the kids the morning after M was born, he told my mom M's name.  Mom told the kids, to which the boys were very unhappy with our name choice.  We already knew a M from church and so we couldn't choose that name.  C claimed he was going to call him 'Zeb'.  For the first 3 weeks of M's life, C only referred to him as 'baby'. Then, he told me, "Mom, I don't like that name (meaning M).  I am going to call him Zeb!" I just laughed and didn't argue with him...and about 3-4 days later, C finally started referring to him as M. Crazy three-year old!!

1 month old M