California here we come . . .

We're down in California at my (Alayna's) parents' house and we're all having a great time. Mateo was quite the trooper on the plane and didn't even get upset on the take-off or the landing. We took a trip to Girls Inc., where I used to work, on the way in from the airport, and then went to our favorite burrito place in Oakland with my mom on the way home. It's really fun to be back in the Bay Area and to be spending time with our whole family! Mateo has been enjoying hanging out with everyone and I thought I would post some photos.

Here's a photo of Mateo and his Bubby (Sacha's mom, Catherine) and his mommy:


and his Grammy (Alayna's mom, Cheri)...


and his Grandpa (Alayna's dad, Glenn)...

and his Auntie Edlyn...



and his mama.

He's a very loved little boy. We'll put up some photos of him with his Poppa (Sacha's dad, Eric) and his Uncle Galen as soon as we get some. Happy holidays!

7 weeks and a visit to the doc

Our brave boy got his first set of immunizations today at the pediatrician's. I think it was more traumatic for Sacha and I than it was for him! He cried a little, but took it really well overall. He also got some cute bandaids for his poor little thighs, which is where the shots went. He then had a little snack of breastmilk and promptly fell asleep for the rest of the day. Seriously - he fell asleep around 10 am and has slept until now (8:30 pm) with just a few awakenings to eat. He seems to be running a low-grade fever, but baby tylenol is taking care of it and he seems to want to just sleep it off. We're hoping he actually sleeps tonight!

Also, at 7 weeks old, Mateo weighed in at 12 pounds even. In one week, he jumped from the 50th to the 75th percentile in weight, and is also in the 75th percentile for length. We love all his chubby cuteness!

We're heading down to California tomorrow for the holidays and will be back in a week. Hope you all have a wonderful end of the year!

WAHOO!

Our little guy slept for six hours straight last night! We think this counts as sleeping through the night. He went down at 10 pm and woke up at 4 am. When he started stirring around, Sacha looked at the clock and said "Oh my God!" We had both assumed it was 1 am, which is his normal wake-up time for his first night feeding. This was his first time sleeping more than 4 hours and let me tell you, Sacha and I feel like new people. We got over 8 hours total, because Mateo also slept from about 5 am to 7 am.

Last night, we had a friend from our birth class, Emily, and her son, Nils, over for dinner. Nils is about three weeks older than Mateo and we think he may have given our little guy some tips on night sleeping. We had a great time with them and it was so cute to watch them check each other out.



Also, here are some photos of Mateo in his stroller for the first time and one from today. We bundled him up and took him for a hike last weekend and he seemed to like it, although he was asleep for most of the time! The second photo is of him this morning. He's starting to fit into his bigger outfits and we think this one is adorable.

Ah-goo, Ah-goo

Mateo has started "cooing" in earnest recently. That's what they call it when they start to make noises other than crying! He has clearly mastered the crying part and believes that practicing it regularly will help him keep up his skills. His favorite coo to make these days is "ah-goo, ah-goo". It is so cute.



Also, he's started to smile a lot more at us, and has rolled over like 6 times! He can only roll from his tummy to his back and only when he manages to plant his left foot in just the right place. It's clearly by accident at this point, but it's so cute to see the surprised look on his little face as he goes over.



In other matters, we narrowly escaped a house break-in this week. Someone managed to jimmy open one of our kitchen windows while Sacha was out and Alayna was home with the baby. We think the would-be robber saw Sacha come in the front door and ran for it, leaving a shovel and a cigarette butt in our yard, as well as lots of large, muddy footprints. The thought of what could have happened was pretty sobering. We're looking into making our house more secure and have had several people suggest getting a dog....which we are thinking about. If anyone has any suggestions, we'd love to hear them.



We're heading down to California for the holidays and are looking forward to spending some time with both of our families down there.

Date Afternoon on 23rd Avenue

Alayna and I had our very first date afternoon, sort of like a date night, but it was for two hours in the afternoon! Our friend Jane watched Mateo, and we drove over to 23rd Ave in NW Portland and had a fabulous time. It was actually really nice to be away from the baby for a little bit, and it is amazing how easily we fell into talking with each other, although we talked a lot about Mateo, of course.

We went to Papa Hayden's, a place that has has a smattering of Northwest Best Places stickers, and other award winning stickers on its door. We split a fabulous cheeseburger. I know, not that thrilling sounding, but it was really good, with homemade fries! And, then the best part, is that we split a dessert sampler dish. It had two different chocolate desserts, a chocolate brownie and a chocolate box filled with mouse, egg nog cheese cake, a lemon cream puff and something with hazelnut.

After dinner at 4pm, we walked around and decided to get an ornament to celebrate our first date out after Mateo! We ended up buying a butterfly ornament - to represent the transformation of this last year.

Also, I'm so proud of us for actually decorating a Christmas tree this year. Someone at physical therapy pointed out that when Mateo is one he will pull off the ornaments, and we better decorate one this year . . . so here is our tree!

Guess who . . .

...smiled for the first time this morning? He's smiled a bunch of times before, but they've all been those accidental, probably-gas smiles. This morning, Mateo was getting ready to eat and was looking wide-eyed at me and Sacha. Then, he smiled! And then smiled several more times. It was the cutest thing. Hopefully he'll do it again when we have a camera handy.

He's doing really well overall. We're all battling thrush and that has been quite the experience...but we're hoping that it's starting to get better for both me and him. He is growing like crazy and just weighed in at 11.5 pounds at the doctor's two days ago, at one day shy of five weeks old. He's starting to grow out of his tiny clothes! We go in for his official two-month appointment in a couple of weeks, so it will be interesting to see where he is then. Those cheeks are getting chubbier and chubbier!



He's becoming more alert and stays awake for longer periods of time, which is great during the day and not quite as fun during the night! He is regularly sleeping for 3 hours at a stretch during the nights, though, and sometimes makes it up to four. We like it when that happens!



He's also getting noticeably stronger. He had a good amount of head control when he was born and it's only gotten better. He can lift up his head when being held against someone's chest and actually keep it up there for awhile, instead of crashing back down again like he had been doing. He can also press himself up with his arms when lying on his tummy and has actually rolled himself over by accident a few times. We think he's going to be ALL over the place once he starts crawling and walking!

Here he is, listening to the Very Hungry Caterpillar (or Oruga Muy Hambrienta) in espanol from his mommy:

Lunar Birthday

Little Mateo had his first lunar birthday this week, which we celebrated by going out and eating a cupcake. I suppose Mateo also 'ate' the cupcake, because it probably in some form went through the milk, but who knows. We went to Saint Cupcake, a wonderful little place near us, and had a mini-spice pumpkin, in honor of his birthday being on Halloween, and then we each had a regular double chocolate cupcake (pastelito), because that is our favorite type.

Eating a cupcake was actually quite the change from our eating habits, because we have basically gone sugar free. And yeast free, or significantly reduced. Because Mateo has a Thrush infection, and Alayna has been infected from his Thrush, which makes feeding quite painful, we are doing everything we can to decrease sugar and other things that lead to candida. This does mean we are eating a very healthy diet, which has to be good for Mateo, but has been really challenging.

Alayna has been seriously resting for the last three days. She doesn't like to call it bed rest . . . but the lactation consultant and La Leche League said that she needs to do nothing but feed the baby, and if she wants, some of the baby care. No doing dishes, no laundry, no taking walks, nothing. After two days of this she is totally stir crazy!

As I write this Mateo is enjoying his first "toy." He is on his vibrating chair, which he loves, looking at a mobile that hands from the chair. Every time he moves, he makes the mobile move. He's started moving his feet a lot in the past few minutes! He also did something new yesterday, which is track on object with his eyes 180 degrees. He was looking at his little pumpkin hat, and I notice that so I moved it from one side to the other of his face, and he slowly moved his whole head following the hat, and then did it three more times! Wow.