There’s the smiley baby we know around here! Such a difference from last months picture. Also? Hobbes! Watterson never licensed the characters but we did find a stuffed tiger that bears a striking resemblance, so we had to pick it up for our little Calvin.
(I’ll be taking a photo of Calvin sitting in the Eames rocker and wearing his pin each month until he’s two years old. I also took monthly photos of his sister, Eleanor, and his brother, August.)
Previous Photos
• One Month Old • View All
Calvin is seven weeks old, and I think we can call it now: he has been the easiest of our three babies. He rarely cries, as I can anticipate his needs and read his cues pretty well. We have the occasional bad night, but most of the time he goes to sleep around seven, wakes up to nurse once, and then sleeps again until morning. Five o’clock in the morning, but I’ll take it! He has been in a mama-only phase for the past couple of weeks so I’m not getting as much done as I’d like to, but the upside is that my days are positively filled with baby snuggles and smiles. The house is a mess and I have to do most of my typing with one hand when I work, but he’s worth it.
The only downside is that breastfeeding continues to be difficult. I think the worst of it was around four weeks (when I wrote this post), but I’d hoped we would be past the pain by now and that the early damage could heal. I indulge Calvin’s preference for me and let him sleep in my arms in part because it keeps him happy and/or asleep for longer, therefore extending the time between nursing sessions (giving me a bit of a reprieve). I wish I didn’t dread nursing so much, but it’s hard to willingly do something ten times a day that hurts. I stubbornly press on because I’m assuming it will get better and I actually like nursing when it’s no longer painful, but I wish we could get to that point soon.
On a happier note, I just learned something new about baby clothes! I always assumed they had envelope necklines to fit over their big wobbly heads, but it’s so you can roll them down in case of a diaper blowout. (Did you know that?) Mind blown.
I made the pin for Calvin’s monthly photos over the weekend and while I worked on that, Eleanor made a bouquet of felt flowers. She said that they were for Calvin, so of course I had to include them in his photo!
I did get a half-dozen photos of him in the chair before he started crying, but I had set the camera’s focus incorrectly at first, so those were all blurry. (Way to go, me.) He’s a pretty happy baby — it’s too bad his first monthly photo doesn’t reflect that. But he is a newborn and like all newborns he tends to cry a fair amount, so I suppose it’s an accurate enough representation!
(I’ll be taking a photo of Calvin sitting in the Eames rocker and wearing his pin each month until he’s two years old. I also took monthly photos of his sister, Eleanor, and his brother, August.)
Calvin is nearly four weeks old already! I was always on my own with our babies before, but now with Brandon as a stay-at-home dad, we can team up on kid duties. I’m nursing and some days it feels nonstop, so I’m mostly taking care of Calvin while Brandon has Eleanor and August.
Nursing — I have such a hard time with it in the beginning. I’ve seen lactation consultants, I’ve read the entire La Leche League book, and my search engine history has been entirely taken over by various breastfeeding queries. Things got better with both Eleanor and August around six weeks, so I keep telling myself it will happen again, but right now it is incredibly difficult. It’s isolating and time-consuming, but the worst of it is that I dread sessions because of the anxiety around anticipating a painful latch. There are often tears, and I’m having a hard time right now.
We are all doing so well though, in every other regard! We’re settling in nicely as a family of five, and the kids are sweet with the baby. Our normal morning routine has continued smoothly, we’re all sleeping as well as can be expected, and I get out of the house and see friends often enough to keep from going stir-crazy. Plus I love love love having a baby at home again. Calvin sleeps on me and is in my arms all day, and I adore his little snuggles.
The good stuff is coming up: the smiles, the coos, the baby laughs. This is likely our last baby though, so while I’m eager to get past the nursing pain, I don’t want to wish this time away. There’s a lot of good stuff happening right now, too.
I joked on Wednesday evening that I had just bought some fancy flowers to photograph in my entryway for an upcoming post, thereby guaranteeing that I would go into labor before being able to take pictures the next day. Well?
Calvin Edward Balch was born at 8:18 a.m. on Thursday, October 2, 2014. He weighed 8 pounds, 9 ounces (the smallest of our three), and measured 21 inches long. He has fuzzy brown hair with a polka dot of a blonde spot, right in the center on top, and very dark blue eyes that make it impossible to predict what color they will stay.
I’d given birth before without an epidural, so that part of the experience wasn’t new, but this delivery was the first that was free of complications (thank goodness). Calvin and I are happy and healthy, and our family of five is doing well!