Parker's One Month Update

Parker celebrated his one month birthday last Friday (sorry for the delay in posting)! We thought you all might want to know some of his accomplishments so far...

• He has been holding his head up since he was a week and a half old! I know is sounds ridiculous; most people don't believe it until the see it! He is pretty good and steady if you are holding him upright but he is still working on picking it up off of the ground when having "tummy time." He can do it, but it is still pretty wobbly!
• He HATES "tummy time" by the way.
• He smiles all of the time now! All you have to do is plop him down on his changing pad (one of his very favorite spots... .weird, I know!) and you get a big toothless grin! It melts our hearts.
• Everything he does melts our hearts!
• He INSISTS on bouncing when he is fussy. This is quite the arm workout for mom and dad, which I reckon is a good thing for me since I still have quite a few pounds to loose!Which reminds me: Why did everyone make it sound like the baby weight would just fall off within a few months? All of you people are evil! Just kidding, but I did have my hopes up! It looks like it is going to be a much longer road for me :P.
• He LOVES his baby swing! Thanks First Choice ladies! It is just about the only thing that saves our arms from having to bounce him all day!
• He has started pulling my hair... and I am pretty sure he thinks it is funny.
• He LOVES laying under his play mat/gym. Thanks Mrs. B! We put him under it for the first time when he was just shy of two weeks old and he immediately figured out how to spin the toys. It occupies him for 45 minutes at a time (which is amazing considering sleep doesn't even seem to occupy him for that long)!
• He is getting chunky by the day... he is starting to get that "rubber band" look that I love so much! :)
• He is still in newborn clothes, but 0-3 months are getting closer to fitting! I play dress up with him at least every other day to see if anything new fits him yet. He is a pretty good sport about it. :)
• We finally gave him a pacifier, but I don't think he has quite figured it out. He constantly spits it out (and then screams), but he has managed to figure out how to hold it in! He now sleeps with his hand over it to make sure it stays in place. I was holding off on giving him this one for the longest time... but all of the books say I should give it to him (at bedtime/naptime) to help with SIDS prevention! Who knew?
• Thanks to our motion detection baby monitor (which sounds an alarm if breathing is not detected), I can now sleep more than 30 minutes without checking on him to make sure he is still breathing (which I literally did in the hospital and our first little while home)! A BIG thanks to all of Jerod's coworkers for this one!
• He makes funny grunting and squealing noises when he sleeps...
• Thanks to the "Wee Block" from Nana, we hardly ever get peed on anymore! This is a big milestone considering it used to happen several times a day! Not sure what a wee block is? www.onestepahead.com/product/osa/427777.html. They are too funny! Ours says "Lil' Monkey" on it (with a picture of a monkey of course)! I think the "Wee wee man" one from this website is pretty cute too!
• He HATES to be swaddled. He has to have his arms free or he freaks out!
• I can't look at him without seeing Jerod. He looks identical to Jerod's baby picture! Although from what I hear, Great Grandma Edgar thinks he looks like my Dad and Aunt Ashley thinks he looks like her. I am going to get pictures of them both when I go home this weekend... so I will post them all and let you decide!
• He has recently (within the past week or so) started turning his lip under when he is really upset! It breaks my heart! I dread the day he cries tears... I am sure I will shed some too :(
• He LOVES the hairdryer! I think he sometimes cries just so I will turn it on for him. I am now working on breaking this habit before it becomes bad! It is still one of the only things that take him from screaming to sleeping in 2 minutes.
• His hair is getting longer and lighter...
• He now reaches for our faces!
• He was in the 50th percentile in weight, length and head circumference at his 3 week checkup. I think he will be much bigger than average at the next visit though! I swear he has doubled in size over the past 2 weeks alone!

Sorry this ended up being so lengthy! What can I say, I am a proud Mama!