Attempting a Routine
We are trying to get Joshua on a routine in the evening for our sanity and his well-being: feeding, bath, reading and soft singing, and off to bed. We are trying to wean him off his binkie (that's a pacifier, in adult english) and it is working OK so far. It takes him a while to go down and sometimes involves quite a bit of screaming but once he goes down, he is really down - for anywhere between 6-9 hours. Gotta love that. If Sun puts him down, she'll read some Scripture to him and sing a song of her own invention ("Goodnight Mommy, Goodnight Daddy, Goodnight World"), Jesus loves the Little Children, and whatever else she can think of. If I put him down, I'll sing the goodnight mommy song with some of my own lyrics and then some hymns. I have "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" memorized as well as four of five verses of "All Creatures of our God and King." I only have the first two verses of "Be Thou my Vision" down but I hope to do the rest later. It can be really difficult to maintain a soothing, calm, soft tone when you can't hear your singing over the screaming. Oh well - try, try again.
Sleeping Through the Night
A common question that everyone seems to ask is, "Is he sleeping through the night yet?". Our thankful answer is, "Yes, for the most part." The baby gurus say that most babies start sleeping through at about 6-8 weeks or over 12 pounds. Joshua is 2.5 months now and was 12 lbs 8 ozs as of a couple weeks ago. Joshua tends to be a really good baby although he does have his screaming fits and bouts of "Bedtime? What's that? It's Playtime!!" On average though, he is sleeping at least six hours per night, on occasion eight hours. Gotta love those eight hour nights. It is almost like life is back to normal again.... almost. Sun really appreciates the long sleeps that baby has because she may have to only get up once to feed him. If he goes down at 11 pm, then we could be good to go until anywhere between five and seven in the morning. Not so shabby, eh?
Baby Ninja
Most children progress from holding their head up, to pushing themselves up, to crawling, to walking, to running, etc. However, our Joshua is quite amazing and has skipped all of these phases and decided to go directly to flying through the air. It could be attributed to his incredible intelligence or maybe just too many kung fu movies before bedtime, but we marveled at our little baby as he leapt across the bed like a mini ninja. You may not believe such tales, but the photographic evidence should sufficiently prove our claims.
Growing Baby
Joshua has officially graduated from a bassinet to a crib. We thought we'd be able to sneak by with the bassinet until we left for Thailand but our kid is big - 25 inches, and 12 lbs 8 ozs big at his 2 month check up. Praise God that a generous friend lent us a port-a-crib that is quite good (more like a real crib if you ask me). Joshua's arms don't quite touch the sides now whereas before he was stretching out in the bassinet, trying to bring the house down on him like an infant Samson.