Tummy Time Training

Within a week of his escape from solitary confinement, Simon B was back in the gym working to build up his strength.  See a video montage of this intense first workout after the jump!

Cradle Stretch

A couple of videos of Simon really exploring the studio space in his cradle.  Nothing too exciting here, but give him a break - the kid's barely a week old!

Hunger Games

Simon has some definite cues that he uses to tell us when he's starting to get hungry.  Lots of sticking out his tongue, chewing on his fingers or wiping his hands on his face.  And usually that enough for us to respond promptly and get him some food.  But sometimes we don't do that in time and his patience starts wearing thin...

Morla the Ancient One

One thing that Simon does that never fails to make Emily and I laugh is his impression of Morla the Ancient One, the giant tortoise from The Neverending Story.  After he's done nursing he does this big stretch and throws his head back and makes this ridiculous wrinkly face.  I can't wait to show him this video when he's old enough to be embarrassed by it. :)

After the jump see two videos: one with Simon and one from the movie.  Can you tell which is which?

Sleeping through dinner

Following up on my previous post, here's a quick video to show how good Simon is when we go out to eat... here he's sleeping happily despite the noise and music in the crowded Cafe El Tapatio earlier tonight.

Going Mobile

Emily and Simon are finally able to start getting out of the house and into the sunshine.  The more we take him out and about, the more lucky we feel to have such a mellow little guy.

On Thursday June 23rd (when Simon was just one week old) we took our first family trip to someplace other than the doctor.  We drove up to Family Grounds Cafe and relaxed there for a few hours.  Simon was so patient and well-behaved the whole time, which made us feel more comfortable to take him out to more places.

Well Baby Visit #2

As I mentioned in a previous post, it is really common for babies to loose a bit of weight after birth while they are figuring out the world. When we left the hospital on Sunday he'd lost 10% of his body weight in the three days at the hospital (!) so we went to the doctor on Monday to make sure he was moving up. He was doing great then and had gaining half an ounce. We had our second checkup on Friday late afternoon. In the four days since his last weigh in our little power eater had packed on SEVEN OUNCES. I am so proud. 

The doctor also made it a point to say he looked great. He has a great attitude, is moving great, especially he is moving his head great, and you can't tell he was early at all. In other words, Alan and I are right - he is perfect. 

We started tummy time earlier today since she said he was ready. He really likes wiggling like a little worm and trying to do one handed pushups. When we get to some wifi I'll post a little video. 

In case you want to keep track:
Thursday June 16: 6lbs 12oz (Birth weight)
Sunday June 19: 6lbs .5oz (checkout of hospital)
Monday June 20: 6lbs 1oz
Friday June 24: 6lbs 8oz

Well Baby Visit # 2

As I mentioned in a previous post, it is really common for babies to loose a bit of weight after birth while they are figuring out the world. When we left the hospital on Sunday he'd lost 10% of his body weight in the three days at the hospital (!) so we went to the doctor on Monday to make sure he was moving up. He was doing great then and had gaining half an ounce. We had our second checkup on Friday late afternoon. In the four days since his last weigh in our little power eater had packed on SEVEN OUNCES. I am so proud.

The doctor also made it a point to say he looked great. He has a great attitude, is moving great, especially he is moving his head great, and you can't tell he was early at all. In other words, Alan and I are right - he is perfect.

We started tummy time earlier today since she said he was ready. He really likes wiggling like a little worm. When we get to some wifi I'll post a little video.

In case you want to keep track:
Thursday June 16: 6lbs 12oz
Sunday June 19: 6lbs .5oz
Monday June 20: 6lbs 1oz
Friday June 24: 6lbs 8oz

Misc videos: cradle and bouncer

A couple of quick videos after the jump.  One is a few seconds of Simon his very first time in the cradle, and the other shows him using his hiccups to rock himself in his bouncer seat.

Leaving the hospital on Father's Day - 6/19/11

It's only been a few days since we brought Simon home but it seems like so much longer.  It's fun to look back and remember how we were when we first started getting used to having a baby.  After the jump find a few more pictures of Simon and Emily in the hospital room where we spent the first few days of his life.

Emily and Simon sitting in the sun, getting ready to head home for the first time later in the day

Whirlwind - First Dr Appointment

We left the hospital with Simon on Sunday evening and life has been a whirlwind since. Part of me can't belive it is only Tuesday. How can we have had this little guy only for four days? And how could we only have had a day and a half just the three of us! It feels like he is just so much a part of our family, he has to have been here longer.  And at the same time, he is so new and tiny and we still are figuring out how to make him happy. 

Yesterday we had our first outing. We had been home for about 16 hours when we needed to take Simon to the doctor to check his weight. He lost some weight right after birth (which is normal) and was 6 pounds when we brought him home - so tiny!  Even though weight loss is normal, the doctors like making sure he starts moving in the right direction pretty quickly and that he keeps growing for the first few weeks. The appointments are called 'well baby' visits.  Of course my son knows how to eat and had gained half an ounce in the less than 24 hours since he was weighed in.  So we are completely good in that realm and the doctor doesn't want to see him again until Friday!

The only issue with the outing was that we were not 100% prepared for the visit. The doctor's office is a 3 minute drive; so we fed him, changed him and took him with an extra blanket. What import item did we forget on our first trip out? Diapers. As soon as I sat down with Simon in the waiting room to quiz him on family history and Alan went to park the car, Simon reminded me of our missing supply. When Alan came back we decided to wait a bit and check out the diaper when we were alone in the room. If it was bad, he'd run back home (closer than the store!) and get a couple diapers. We needn't have worried since the nurse told us they have wipes and diapers. Whew. 

Nothing else eventful happened while we were out. And since then it has been lots of sleeping and a whole lot of eating. Well, lots of both for Simon. Alan and I are still trying to figure things out, but are getting better every day. We don't have Internet access in our new apartment yet, so no pictures. But that will happen soon and I've been taking lots of them!

Crisis averted

Simon was in the midst of throwing a little tantrum (yes, our mellow baby has started to cry occasionally) but changed his mind mid-yell so he could act cute for the camera instead.

Family Time

All three of us are tired but happy to be spending the day together yesterday

Emily got me the best Father's Day present

Active Alert time

Youtube sensation Simon Basque returns with another hit video!  This time he's in his active alert phase, looking around and putting his brain to work.

Bella Baby

We got a free photo session from Bella Baby in the hospital. Cindy and Ken bought the CD so we can reproduce... I've included most of the pictures after the jump. Here's one with Simon holding onto Alan's finger. Crazy how tiny he was!

Falling asleep

Simon's first video! He's making cute little faces and noises as he's settling in for an afternoon nap.

Sleepy Burping

After an epic 2 hour feeding this afternoon Simon was wiped out but still needed to be burped... usually he puts up a bit of a fight when I'm trying to burp him but this time he was just too tired to care.  The resigned look on his face while we were doing this cracked Emily and I up.

Welcome to Chicago, Simon Emory Basque

Less than 5 minutes old... he's just been wiped off and been checked out.  9 out of 10 on his Apgar test, even after all he went through this week!

Raise the Roof (May 3 - May 23)

I knew I was behind on posting pictures, but I just realized that even though I've posted some disaster shots from inside the house I haven't posted anything about the progress on the outside of the house since mid-April. 

By the end of the last post, we had the basement and kitchen framed out but nothing much done on the second floor yet.  The focus for the next couple of weeks was on the inside of the house so by May 3 they had only really finished up the sub-floor for the master bedroom but still no walls or roof.

More after the jump...

Dad and Kiki with Pictures!

Dad and Kiki came into town last weekend. We looked at lots and lots of tiles and we took some pictures. Here's one of the group (sadly minus the photographer) and more of my big belly after the jump.

Hiccups and Heat and So Much More

The past couple weeks have FLOWN by. We've had so much going on... from visitors to extreme weather, to more house demo (Alan will cover the pictures on that). I've got lots in this one post, so jump to read the details.

One and a half weeks

Every day I say how far along I am at least twice a day. That means that being 35 weeks did not sneak up on me at all. And I always tell people that 37 weeks is considered full term and I don't really think I'll go all the way to 40 weeks, which is considered 'normal'. It's not like I didn't know that soon there would be a baby soon... But I guess it didn't hit me how close it all really was until Erika as she was leaving this weekend said something along the lines of 'just 2 weeks now!' and I was floored. We could have a baby, not early or something to worry about, but a perfectly healthy, happy baby in just two weeks. One and a half weeks now. Wow.

Baby Boy Basque only needs a very few things for his first few days, so we are making sure the list is completed this weekend:

1. Cradle - Cindy and Ken still have the cradle that Ken made for Alan. It's beautiful and they're sending that this week. So Baby Boy will have a place to sleep.
2. Car Seat - Alan is ordering it today and we'll go to the fire station this weekend to get it installed. They won't let Baby Boy leave the hospital if you don't have a car seat.
3. Diapers - We will go this weekend to get newborn diapers and the accouterments. We are going with cloth diapers.
4. Pack Hospital Bag - We've got to have a bag packed of snacks and other essentials like a tooth brush and socks! Who knows how long we'll stay, at least 2 days probably more.

One more really important thing we need before Baby Boy Basque makes his appearance:

A NAME! Unfortunately not too much progress on that front. Luckily we can decide when we see his cute little face in person! Though we might be so distracted counting fingers and toes that we won't get around to a name for a while.

Anything else we need for the first couple days that we're forgetting?