Sorry I’m so behind with photos and news and all that. I thought I would let you know what’s in the works, both to keep you coming back and to make me actually get this stuff done. First of all, I’m going to make a page with monthly photos of Mr. Falco in his glider in the nursery so that we can watch him grow. I’m also planning a weekly (or thereabouts) journal page with a new photo and milestones or news for each week. I’ll try to get my act together and get that stuff up by the end of the weekend. While Falco is still sleeping great at night, naps are really hit and miss. He sleeps great when we go on outings, but when just hanging out at home it’s harder to get him to nap. Today he slept for maybe an hour all day until he went to sleep at six this evening, and a good bit of that was spent in the Baby Bjorn on a walk. My point is, it’s hard to get much done on days when he doesn’t sleep.

Oh, and yesterday I went to my postpartum appointment. It was a little weird and strangely sad to go to the OB office and not be pregnant anymore. In some ways I really miss pregnancy. It’s not really logical because of course I’m loving being a mom and am thrilled that Falco is here, but pregnancy and childbirth was such a special time that I’m sad that it’s over. I hope I will have the chance to experience it again. Where was I going with this? Oh, right. My appointment. So, everything looked good and fine and normal. I saw the midwife who I had seen all along, and she was really sweet and seemed to enjoy seeing Falco and I. He was such a good boy and slept the whole time we were there, which was over an hour because they were running late. So, I guess we’ve officially graduated from the postpartum period. We’re on our own now!

I have to share the news that Falco had his longest stretch of sleep ever last night — six hours between feedings! I fed him around 9:00, and he didn’t wake up until 3:00. Then, he went back to sleep until 6:15. I was very happy and proud of him, not to mention well rested. He had been consistently going from 9 until 1:30 or 2:00 and then waking up between 5 and 6. I’m sure last night won’t become a habit just yet, but he’s definitely on the right track!

Oh, and a coinciding milestone is that he has graduated from being swaddled at night. The last two nights I have had him a Sleep Sack, this wearable blanket thing, so that he has his arms free. Up until then, he had been swaddled everytime he slept since he was born. It seemed like he got mad about his arms being restrained when he woke up and then had trouble getting back to sleep. So far, he seems to wake up less unswaddled.

This morning Falco had his 8-week doctor visit. It was all fun in the beginning when we got to see that he now weighs 11 pounds and 3 ounces and is 23 inches long. His very nice doctor came in to examine him, and he was a perfectly charming baby while we talked the doctor and she did his exam. Unfortunately, that wasn’t all there was to this visit. He also had to get his first round of vaccines, which meant four shots today.

The doctor left, and we waited for a while for a nurse to come in to give his vaccines. The man who came in wasn’t very nice and talked about how this would be a traumatic event for Falco and how much the tetanus vaccine would hurt and leave a big red knot. Thanks for the reassurance, Buddy. So, I held Falco while Mr. Not-So-Nice-Guy gave him two shots in each leg. As soon as Falco felt the alcohol swab on his thigh, before any shot was given, he started to cry and got beet red. Going into this visit, I told Matt that I didn’t think I would cry like I hear other mothers do when their babies get their shots because I knew it was for his own good. However, when I saw my baby look scared and in pain, my tears started flowing too. Matt managed to maintain his composure somehow.

At least the vaccination process went quickly. Falco cried the whole time the shots were happening, but he quieted down really fast afterwards. I was proud of him for handling it as well as he did. Now he has two months until he has to go through it all again…

Here is my first Falco movie. I’ll be frank and say that it’s not very good because it’s too dark and a little lacking in content. I’ll work on improving my film making skills, but for now here’s a pretty cute little movie of our baby.

I used to think women sounded so mean and callous when they would talk about wanting to get rid of their pets when they were pregnant or after they had a baby. I heard lots of people say they started making their pets live outside or got rid of them completely. Now that Falco is here, I completely understand why those women felt the way they did because I feel the same. I wouldn’t really get rid of any of them, but Rosco, Miu, and Adelaide do nothing but get on my nerves at this point. I particularly hate all three of them today. This morning I came home from the grocery store and found Rosco chewing puzzle pieces that Miu had knocked off the coffee table and Adelaide had one of Falco’s pacifiers under the dining table. The pacifier hadn’t been chewed so I could just sterilize it, and I managed to halfway salvage the two puzzle pieces. This afternoon I found another of Falco’s pacifiers in Adelaide’s bed, chewed and ruined.

Less destructive but equally aggravating things they do are things like Miu yowling outside Falco’s door in the middle of the night while he is sleeping or Adelaide getting in Falco’s face right when he is having a crying fit or either dog asking to go outside when I have my hands full with the baby. I think Falco just takes so much care and attention that having three other beings also dependent on me is overwhelming and annoying. Luckily Matt has been mainly taking care of all of them, but now that he is back at work I am stuck with them all day.

I have to hope that this will get better as Falco gets older and I get more settled into motherhood. Maybe it won’t though. Maybe I’m just a coldhearted pet hater now. I guess I’ll have to wait and see.

We took Falco on his first trip to Golden Gate Park this week. We ate a picnic lunch and walked around Stow Lake. It was very fun except that Falco slept through the entire thing. We haven’t managed to have him actually be awake on an outing yet.

I can’t remember if I ever mentioned here during my pregnancy that we were planning to use cloth diapers. We started out with a diaper service, which meant that they brought us clean diapers and we put out the dirty diapers for them to pick up every week. I thought that I might want to start washing my own diapers instead of using the service, but Matt was sure that once Falco got here I would have enough to do and wouldn’t want the hassle of washing diapers. Well, in our second week of service, they didn’t bring us enough clean diapers so I had to wash diapers a couple of times to make it through the week. As it turns out, washing them is extremely simple, so I ordered our own diapers and cancelled the service. A couple of weeks later and I’m very happy with that decision. It’s nice to save the $75 a month that the service cost and I like to be able to choose whatever kind of diapers I want to use.

There are about a billion options when it comes to cloth diapers. We have gone with the classic and inexpensive option of plain cotton diapers with waterproof covers over them. The thing is, there are tons of extremely cute choices when it comes to covers and I’m having to fight back the urge to collect them all. We only need a few covers in each size, but there are so many adorable patterns that I want to keep buying more and more. I’m trying to restrain myself on the diaper shopping front.

Overall, I’m pretty proud of our success with cloth diapering. Matt is great at it and hasn’t complained one bit. I feel like it’s better for Falco and better for the environment, so I’m really pleased with our choice. Oh, and speaking of diapering, Matt still makes fun of the wipes warmer, but I’m convinced that Falco likes it. Matt doesn’t know this yet (he will now), but I might actually have to buy a second wipes warmer. The one we have works great and is easy to refill and use, but it only works with disposable wipes. Now that I’m washing Falco’s diapers myself, I could switch over to cloth wipes and just wash them with the diapers. In order to have warm cloth wipes though, I would need the “Ultimate Wipes Warmer,” which is the only one that works with cloth. I’m sure I could sell our first warmer on Ebay to make me feel better. At this point I can’t stand the thought of a cold wipe on my little one’s tush…

Click the photo above to go to the gallery of new photos of Matt’s family’s visit and Falco’s first Christmas.

Believe it or not, Falco is already one month old! We have seen a lot of changes in him over the last couple of days. He overall seems more emotionally stable. He doesn’t cry for most of his diaper changes anymore and is easier to calm down overall when he does cry. Thursday morning I gave him a bath, and he didn’t shed a tear through the entire process. It used to be that just undressing him was enough to make him start screaming, and taking a bath was his worst nightmare.

The best new development is that right at four weeks old he started smiling. He doesn’t do it all day long, but he is definitely smiling pretty often and not just in his sleep like he used to do. He loves to look at the elephant and giraffe above his changing table and smile at those. He also smiles at me sometimes if I talk in a high voice and stroke his cheek. He really has an adorable smile, and I can’t wait until he starts grinning at us even more.

As for his size, his weight is certainly not a concern anymore. Thursday we took him to the doctor, and he weighed 9-1/2 pounds! That means he gained 1-1/2 pounds in just over two weeks! He is right on track now, with his weight being at the 50th percentile for his age. His length is now 22-1/4 inches. He is getting so big! This was also the first doctor’s visit that he didn’t cry through. He cried a little when he had to get naked to get weighed but calmed right down and slept through everything else. He is such a good boy.