Did I say Growing Like a Weed?

Try, growing like a corn-fed linebacker - Caden weighed 12.16 pounds today! He weighs the same as his girl-baby-friend, Tucker, who was born in early November! Woo hoo!

I just had to post this picture of Caden sucking his thumb for the first time while waiting for his first bottle yesterday. The bottle-feeding went pretty well - Caden had 4 ounces and wanted more, so he ended up getting about 5 total. Not bad for a beginner! I guess this explains why he's such a hoss - I sure hope I can keep up!

Seems like forever!

Caden is officially one month old today! I apologize for not writing sooner; time just flies when you don't eat or sleep for days at a time! No, really, things are going pretty well. We really enjoyed having all last week to ourselves - Tripp had to work Caden's second week, but he was off all last week, so we had tons of quality "us time." We took down the Christmas tree and did some things around the house. And we rested. It was such a nice break from being home alone.

Caden is growing like a weed! I keep meaning to weigh him to get an idea just how much baby I'm hauling up and down the stairs 20+ times a day, but I haven't gotten a chance. All I can say for sure is he's big.

I started pumping yesterday so Tripp can help with a feeding or two a day. I think that will take a lot of pressure off of me, and also allow him some special Caden-Daddy time. I look forward to the time when I don't have to be present for every meal - maybe I will get to go to the movies again someday!

So far, nights and mornings have been going really well, but Caden seems to dislike the evenings. Right around 8pm, every night, for the past 2 weeks, he'll start fussing and there's not much we can do to comfort him until he falls asleep, exhausted, around 11. Even feeding him doesn't do the trick. We're getting better at dealing with it though - some jiggling, some walking, some back-patting. Whatever it takes to keep him calm. He especially loves to suck on one of our fingers, but even that doesn't calm him completely - as soon as you try to remove the finger it's open-mouthed, red-faced screaming. Bizarre. Needless to say, we're definitely looking forward to him growing out of this stage!

Passed out after an evening of screaming (Jan 3)

I'm trying to get out of the house a little more, but still don't like going too far or too long. One errand every other day or so seems to be all I can handle with the boy. I've made a few trips without him which have been much easier to do. There's something about the infant car seat and the diaper bag, and the baby that really make even the simplest trip infinitely harder.

I'm slowly updating the online photo album, so keep checking for new pics of our growing man. Click here to see the latest.