Update

This past week has been filled with tons of milestones and things I'd like to never remember.   I was sick in the middle of Paul's parents visit.  But thankful that at least I got sick while I had help.  I had a mild case of mastitus, you can click on the name to read more about it.  But to say the least it was not pleasant, my fever stayed sky high for almost 2 days.   Luckily it was not bad enough to need antibiotics and my doctor gave me some suggestions on how to cure it at home.  Right after I started to feel better Brandon decided it was time for a growth spurt.  He was eating every 1-2 hours non-stop until it was bedtime.  I was thankful he still slept 6 hours at night during the spurt, but after his 6 hours he was up every 2 hours until Daddy went to work and it was back to 1-2 hours between feedings.  Thank goodness that only lasted about 3 days.


Soo the 1st milestone we saw this week was Brandon's first smile.  Ohh it makes me want to cry with happiness, he's just so adorable and there is just nothing more satisfying than your baby smiling back at you, especially while you're singing to him.   He smiled at me first and then the same night he smiled at Paul.  The smile doesn't stay up for long, but it's noticeably different from his gassy face.  But it's a gummy smile.

The second milestone (I don't know if you can call this one) is that Brandon slept 8 hours 2 nights last week and last night he slept 10 hours.  Now this was a lot more painful for me than Brandon.  He even woke up with his normal grunts.  I was ready for the hungry cry, but in the morning he's so calm and patient.  It's like he knows first daddy has to change me then I go to mommy for food.   But this all changes in the afternoon, he's impatient with everyone.

The 3rd milestone is that we're starting to give him 3 oz.( 90ml) of formula a day.   I've been worried that it might be hard to wean him from breastfeeding so I thought we would start slow and steady just like we did with introducing the bottle.  It took him 3 weeks to grasp the concept of the bottle (some days I think he still doesn't get it, but he's getting better with each day)   So as of right now he gets half a bottle of formula from me once a day.  And then 1 bottle of expressed milk from Paul, that way they get some father/son time in when he gets home from work.


And the last milestone was Brandon's first long car ride.  We took a road trip to Dinslaken, Germany on Saturday.  It went more fantastic than I could have wished for.  We left the house at 7AM and Brandon slept and stared into space until we were 2 minutes away.  I knew he would do that since he ate at 6AM and he arrived at 9AM.  So we hung out with Rose and Ryan for a couple hours.  Rose's mom also got to meet the little man.  He sure got a lot of attention.  Then it was time for the choir Rose and Ryan were in to drive to their next destination.  We fed Brandon and headed home.  We only had to stop once to feed him and by 3:30PM we were home.  The day was warm (80F) so Brandon was stripped down to his onesie with the window down (our tiny car lacks A/C)

I've learned that in hot/humid weather feeding Brandon is miserable for both of us.  He feels like 10000 degrees and I'm all sweaty.   He was fed expressed milk until it cooled down.

Here are some pictures from Dinslaken