Aaaaallgoooood!!

Ruth, the wonderful assistant for Milo’s Pediatrician, said that if we were able to make it through the first four weeks, then we were aaaaalllllgood! She didn’t promise that everything would be smooth sailing the rest of the way, but she did say we’d start feeling better about our abilities in our new roles in life. Well, as of about 8 hours ago, we officially made it.

Woohoo!

(I’m not so sure Jill and I feel any more confident in our abilities as parents, though. But, I’m not telling Ruth that).

On with the post…

So, this has been a pretty busy week here in the Gavin/Bogart household. Most notably, I finally shaved for the first time since the morning of Milo’s birth. Jill, I must say, was incredibly happy. That is, until I walked out of the bathroom. I think she was hoping for a bit more thorough shaving:




What else? Oh yeah, I think Zelda and Milo have officially bonded. Check out how good of friends they have become:







Zelda totally snuck that lick in. I swear. I didn’t even know about it until I uploaded the pics onto the laptop. Oh well, I guess we kiss Milo, so why shouldn’t Zelda be allowed to give him a little lick or two. I’m sure though that I’ll be getting a little flack over that from one of our parents, so I’ll just move on...and by the end of the post, maybe they will have forgotten.

What else? Oh, yeah…Milo helped me prepare for an interview that I had last week and thanks to his cooperation, I was well prepared and I think it went admirably (won’t know if I got the internship until the end of June, though).



Okay, so what more could Milo have fit into one week’s time? Well, when he wasn’t in one of his milk comas:



or practicing his karate (okay so maybe he wasn’t doing karate, but I had to get a pic on here of the organic cotton monkey onesie that Des and Andrew gave us…and he has cool karate pants on…and he could be preparing some sort of I’llripyourheartoutwithmybarelefthand death grasp):



so I was saying…when he wasn’t doing one of those things, he either a) chilled in his mini co-sleeper (yeah right. He maybe spent all of two minutes in that thing…oh, love the hat, Sandra/Miriam. It’s the only one that stays on him):



b) hung out with new friends (Julia and Annie – respectively – stopped by with their significant others for drinks and dinner):





or, c) engaged in good-ole….TUMMYTIME!!!(one exclamation mark too far?)







This week should be just as exciting as last week. I get to meet with my advisor, then Milo has his one month checkup, then Grandma (Bogart) comes for a visit as I will be off to Cocoa Beach, Florida, and Jill…well, Jill gets to sit in her comfy new Poäng while studying for her French final and breastfeeding…all day…all week…

(Sorry, Jill…really, I am. Just think…soon you’ll be at the cottage, drinkin’ daiquiris and…well, you’ll still be doing school work and breastfeeding, but at least you’ll be doing both of them at the cottage).

Longest post ever!

So I'm a little late...calm down, Des!

So, yeah…I meant to post yesterday in honor of the three week anniversary of Milo’s birth. But, I’m pathetic. Actually, I went for a run (I really needed to), and then I was trying to do some work for my upcoming meeting with my advisor, and then 24 came on, and then…well, I lost my motivation. I hope this isn’t some omen, a sign of my future parental performance. I mean, it’s not like posting to the blog is one of my parental responsibilities. Really, it isn’t!

Anyway…let’s move on. Milo is doing well. He loved (as much as any three week old could love) his most recent visitors. Grandma Kate, Grandalf the Grey, and Auntie Irishprincesslyss were here over the weekend. With latching difficulties still keeping us close to home, I was worried that everyone would be bored. Oh, how I underestimated Milo’s ability to entertain. Asleep or wide awake, he captivates all.

Milo and Grandma Kate:



Milo and Grandalf:



And...Milo and Auntie Lys:



Okay...now some cute pics of Milo that my dad took:







And finally, when Grandalf took the following picture:



he swears Milo said, "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."

Off With His Stump!

I have to admit that throughout Jill's pregnancy, I was dreading dealing with Milo's umbilical cord stump. I looked at pictures of other babies' stumps to try and desensitize myself, to no avail. As Jill’s pregnancy progressed, just the thought of touching and cleaning that withered, blackened thing grossed me out.

Then, Milo was born, the nurse swabbed his stump with whatever ointment turned it black, and…well, strangely, it didn’t bother me. Day after day, changing after changing, sponge bath after sponge bath, I kept waiting for it to become foul. For a long time, though, it didn’t. Yet, finally, it did, about two days ago, when I first noticed that it was only hanging on by a single, sinewy thread. Worse yet, what I could see underneath was even more disgusting. It stank and looked like a bunch of mucousy…gunky…goo (yes that is its scientific name).

This morning, as Milo cried on the changing table, I contemplated severing the thing and giving the whole area a good cleaning. I mean, there aren’t any nerves in there; it wouldn’t hurt him. But, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Instead I dressed him and Jill and I took him to his and Jill’s appointment with some study they’re in. Once there, the doctor asked me to undress him and lo and behold…it had fallen off!!! The doctor then handed me the stump (I quickly forced it on Jill), cleaned the area up, and now, fifteen days after his birth, the whole traumatic experience is behind all of us (Jill wouldn’t even really look at it).


Feast your eyes on Milo the Stumpless:





Unrelated, but just because he's cute:

10 lbs!!!

That means he's gained 7 ounces since last Tuesday and is now 5 ounces above his birth weight. I feel compelled, though, to mention that the results of this weigh-in are to be classified as unofficial. While I contemplated making an appointment with his pediatrician just to see if Milo was still gaining weight, I decided to resist my urge to take advantage of this month's free health care. I did, however, buy a scale so that we could periodically check his weight gain (while it looks as though we are torturing Milo above, I assure you we are simply weighing him). This is all spurred by the fact that Milo is finally breastfeeding exclusively. We no longer need to feed him bottles of Jill's pumped breast milk (slow learner he may be, but he is finally figuring out the whole nursing thing).

Okay...what else? Oh, Milo is now 2 weeks old. Here's his official 2-week-old photo entitled Mr. Cheeks (truthfully, this pic might be from the other day; so, let's just make this unofficial as well):



Well, I was going to complain about Milo's umbilical cord stump, but I'm tired. So, I think I'll leave that for tomorrow. Instead, I'll just post some more pics:





(I'm not hiding; I'm actually adjusting my glasses).




Pensive Milo:



Proof Jill and I are tired:





What to look forward to:
Post about the uber grossness of umbilical cord stumps, the coming visit of Grandma Kate, Grandalf the Grey, and Auntie Irishprincesslyss, pics of the Zeldhead, and ummm...more pics of Milo.

One Week Old!

So Milo's made it one whole week...



Truthfully, though, I think the past week has been harder on us than it has on him. While he passed the time tanning at the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh:



Jill and I were more concerned with finding ways to sustain him (he hasn't really shown much interest in working for his own food). While Jill was busy pumping:



I passed my time feeding Milo:



and burping him:



It's really been an exciting/stressful/tiring week. With Jill having to pump every hour and a half and Milo needing some of that milk every couple of hours, our sleep patterns have changed a bit (we catch hour-long naps when we can). But Milo has made it all worthwhile. Here are some pics of just a few of the many pleasurable moments he's provided us with thus far: