Smiling Boy

Within the past few weeks or so, Dawson has begun interacting with us a lot more. It happens during the 3 or 4 times per day in which he's wide awake. Last week, I was sitting next to him on the coach reading to him from a book about preaching and he just started busting up laughing. I don't know what was so funny about the book but he loved it. Then I started making a funny noise and hitting my forehead with the book and he was cracking up like crazy. It was one of the best moments as a dad so far.

A couple posts down are some pictures of Dawson smiling. Here are some videos of him laughing. It's hard to get him to coo in cue. I had another video with some good and loud coos but for some reason, I'm having trouble uploading it to Youtube.






He's also doing this thing when he gets so overwhelmed by everything going on around him that he can't decide which way to look, so he turns his head back and forth, trying to get it all in.

Dawson's tryout video

Check out this video and post, link.

You know what's cool? Dawson is actually on the bottom of the official callback list as a "Special Baby Callback." For awhile, you can check it out here.

Sleeping Patterns

We just put Dawson down for the night and he is out like a light. His sleeping habits have started to become more consistent. Following the advice from Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, I've been keeping a sleep journal, tracking his sleeping patterns. The author, who is a doctor specializing in children's sleep habits, wrote that kids under four months should stay awake no more than than 2 hours straight and should be allowed to sleep whenever they're tired. At four months, parents start working to establish a napping schedule.
This seems to be a much more balanced approach than what was suggested (no, commanded) in Baby Wise. But while we've discarded the advice on the nap schedule, what we took away from Baby Wise was the need for a feeding schedule.
Dawson has been sleeping for about 10 hours at night, waking up twice to eat but immediately going back to sleep after being changed and fed. That's been very nice but it's lead to the amazing miracles we've experienced the past two nights.
On Thursday night, Dawson slept 8 straight hours! We put him down at 9:30 and he didn't wake up until 5:30. Often, though after setting a new record for sleep, he'd shorten it by an hour or two the next night. I guess, technically he did shorten it the next night, but only by an hour, meaning he slept 7 straight hours on Friday night! Simply amazing.
Maybe this is a move toward a full night's sleep for mommy and daddy?

Wait, I hear some whimpering. Maybe tonight won't be that easy. Dawson had a rough day today, very fussy.

2 months a little late!

Our little boy is now almost three months old, so here are some things I want to remember about him around 2 months old:

-can lift his head pretty well with tummy time

-likes to be on the changing table at eye level with Mommy and Daddy

-coos and giggles in response to facial expression and baby talk

-likes to look around when he is up on your shoulder

-tells us when he is sleepy by staring off into space or getting fussy

-is eating close 4 oz. per feeding

-spending lots of time with Daddy while Mommy goes back to work until summer

-bats at hanging toys and even grabs them to shake them

-loves the sound of the shower

-rolled over from tummy to back after his bath

-coos in the warm bath water

-loves music, goes to sleep to lullabies, especially loves mommy singing

Lifecare

Two weeks ago, we spoke at a benefit dinner for the crisis pregnancy center through which we adopted Dawson, Lifecare. It was a very emotionally intense night but one we'll always remember. To see some pictures and read about it, go to my other blog.

A lot of videos