For Paul's seven week anniversary, we went on a bit of a field trip. I had planned on seeing a friend, but since we're still battling our colds, we decided not to infect other people with a little one. My coworkers, on the other hand, are exposed to germs all the time so I figured we wouldn't be introducing them to any germs they hadn't already seen. Everyone was REALLY excited to meet Paul. It's a children's museum, so of course everyone loves kids. Plus Paul's a bit of a charmer.
My coworkers were a bit surprised by how big Paul was. I think there was at least one person who couldn't quite figure out how my teeny belly had turned into this enormous kid. Paul started at 7.5 lbs at birth. Most kids lose a bit of weight in the first week or so as they figure out the whole feeding thing. Not so for our little boy! He weighed in at 10lb 6oz at three weeks old. This is "little" Paul on Christmas Day.
I have been really wanting another shot at breastfeeding since Penny. Some of you might recall that my breastfeeding with Penny was thrown off by some dumb doctor moves when I lost the use of my right arm. The combo of no notice for an MRI with contrast, no breast pump with me and probably the stress of impressively painful and endless tests led my supply to all but dry up. By two months there were only one or two feedings from Mommy per day. It made me pretty sad. So this time around I was determined to do better.
First off, can I say how excited I am that the arm thing didn't recur yet! Keep me in your prayers on that one. Though the first few weeks of breastfeeding were remarkably painful (I had to take a break for a few feedings to recover from some abrasion from his over-eager little tongue, hence the bottle here), things have gotten a lot better. Paul was putting on weight so readily, his pediatrician joked I should bottle and sell my milk to folks. Dan noted that my milk already had a trademark built into it - the secret to getting my milkfat to form a duck...I'll never tell!
Paul's heft is generating some unexpected challenges that I didn't face with Penny. For example, he has too many chins! I can't manage to clean them and milk/dead skin appears to accumulate in the folds - his neck smells like sour milk. Yuck! Dan stocked up on three cases of newborn size diapers, which he grew out of before we finished the first box. Those pesky crotch folds always seem a little red, so I can't quite figure out if the boy has diaper rash. I've gone back to cloth diapers, but those can't be used with diaper cream, so I still end up using a fair number of disposables just to be on the safe side.
