Weirdling Files: I'm 4 Weeks Old (and I Leved Up)

By Dad
Today Roland is four weeks old. Not a month old, not for three more days because time is wibbly-wobbly, but close enough.
Four weeks.
...four weeks...
He's been an outside real life baby for four freaking weeks!!!
I...I don't understand. We have had another person living in our house for 28 days today. And for nearly the last week I've woken up to big baby eyes looking at me, coo-ing and chirping. For most of that time I've been home, since Christmas (holiday?) break happened right after he was born. Which also means I'm kind of starting to go stir crazy because Dad does not sit on his ass too well. Does it make me a bad parent to say I'm ready for school to start again? Baby is a full-time job and I take nothing away from that, but baby is a lot of sitting around right now too. Waiting for him to finish eating. Being quiet so he doesn't wake up. Trying to get him to stop screaming and go to sleep. It's worth it, but it's hard for me. I'm lucky Angela feels the opposite about it. I'm all kinds of lucky though about all kinds of things. It's intimidating.
This was a busy week what with Giftmas kicking it off and all. He made some visits to people and got visited. A teacher friend of mine with teenagers came to see him and try to remember her boys being this small. We took him to see his tutu Michele and *Hawaiian word for grandpa here* Gary and Aunt Alecia and Uncle Andrew. He got lots of snuggles. Except Andrew, who is still scared of tiny humans.
Our biggest struggle with him recently, and I think I've touched on this before, is the strong Anti-Sleep stance he's taken. If falling asleep were helping poor people he would be Paul Ryan. If falling asleep were the Persians in 300 he would be King Leonidas (thanks, Kev). If falling asleep were taking responsibility for something he would be the NRA. I have one more. If falling asleep were that new show King of the Nerds he would be almost as pissed about it as his dad is. It hasn't been quite as bad the last two nights, but there is quite a bit of fighting off the Sandman and crying when he thinks he's losing ground. He'll drop off completely for a few minutes and I'll (or she'll) stop moving in the exact same rhythm or stop tapping his back regularly and he's suddenly awake and damn pissed he let Sleep take that hill. Frustrating, but normal from what we've read and heard. Tricks are being learned.
He's done a little more traveling too. We took him grocery shopping (finally) so that we wouldn't starve to death and he slept through the whole thing in his Moby Wrap. Yesterday was Baby's First Costco Trip. It was also Baby's First Screaming Jag in Costco. Which meant it was also Mom's First Breast Feeding in Costco. She ended up taking him to the car so he'd settle down some. At least he's getting better about the car seat (most of the time fingers crossed no jinx no jinx).
But the big firsts happened today and yesterday. He has hated hated hated his car seat and up until today he hated anything that resembled his car seat. That means his swing and his vibrating chair. We hadn't even tried the stroller yet. The swing has been tried a few times, and the longest he's been happy is maybe three minutes. But he was calm and being good so we figured we'd give each a shot.
The stroller didn't go over great. Quiet for a minute then I DON'T LIKE THIS ANYMORE! Ok then. But the swing and the chair! Wow. He hung out in his swing for probably near ten minutes before deciding he'd had enough. Same for the vibrating chair. It has rockers so I was rocking it too, but he was hanging out, looking around, chilling. Pretty cool stuff. (Short video of this excitement at the bottom.)
Yesterday was the first time I wore him as well. He was being fussy and we've found that wrapping him up in the Moby seems to help him settle down faster. Yesterday was my turn. I'd only ever worn the Moby with a teddy bear in it. We were trying to figure out the tying system and needed a human baby analog (thank you, Mythbusters). It was pretty cool to walk around holding him hands free. I'm sure I'll be doing more of that too.
The biggest accomplishment of the day though was the introduction of The Bottle. We had been avoiding bottle feeding because Angela wants to primarily nurse him and all the literature says you wait four to six weeks before introducing a bottle so baby doesn't get confused. She's been pumping and freezing so we were ready to try. She defrosted a 2oz bag, put it in a bottle, and handed it and him to me. Here we go. I, of course, got milk all over myself. He wasn't sure what was going on at first but after he realized the thing in his mouth had milk in it he was all good. Got more air than from the boob so we had to do more burping, but that should get better as he gets better at the bottle. What was really cool was he can look at me while he bottle feeds. He can't do that while she feeds him, he's pretty much face-down in boob like a junior on prom night. It was a very cool connecting experience. He really only does three things right now- eat, sleep, and poop, and I've been able to help with two of them since Day One. But feeding him is a biggie. It's a real participation in his growth right now. I mean, I do most of the reading to him but everything else except feeding has been shared. Now we can share that too (great, but someone remind me of that when I get woken up at 3am because it's my turn to feed him). He's still going to be primarily breastfed, but him taking the bottle means that other people can help feed him. It means Mom can go grocery shopping and leave the boys at home (YAY! YAYAYAYAYAY!). It means we might be able to leave him with a babysitter soon. That last is probably more about when Angela is ready than when he is.
Ok, you've all been patient and read through all my baby updates so I guess you get to be rewarded with pictures of the Most Adorable Baby Ever now. Every week I think, "I don't have too many pictures." Then I check the folder. Oh. Ok then.