(Maureen's Post)
Happy Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday), everyone! I didn't get to post earlier since I ended up going to bed early; sheer exhaustion took over me and I fell asleep while we were watching "House" so I'm typing up this post on early Wednesday morning our time (Tuesday evening your time) and hopefully some of you will read it while it's still Tuesday. Speaking of DVD's, we've almost completed the first season of "Lost" that we borrowed from the Kurtz's and are almost finished with all the "Seinfeld" DVD's that we brought. We've still got a couple more seasons of "Raymond" to go through and the rest of the second season of "House" to finish (reminds me of work sometimes), as well as some movies. So, I think we have just enough DVD's to watch before we leave for home.

Our nights really haven't been too sleepless as far as James is concerned. He does mostly sleep through the night, only waking up now for only a few minutes before going back to sleep once we rock him and put him down. That's starting to get easier, too. I think what has helped is that we changed his sleeping accommodations. He is no longer sleeping in the metal crib that creaks with every move he makes; you know - the one with the huge slats. It really didn't have a mattress, so we had piled a bunch of blankets in there, trying to get it fairly soft enough for James to sleep in. We were given a crib mattress, but it's a regular crib size, whereas the metal crib we were given is much smaller, more like a large cradle, so the mattress didn't fit in there. So, we decided to just put the mattress in the living room so that he could sleep on that when he naps during the day. Finally, we realized that James appeared to be sleeping more soundly during naptime vs. at night when he moves around more and seemed to be awakening more. So, Monday night we pulled the metal crib out of our bedroom and put the mattress on the floor in there, instead. We surrounded it with a bunch of pillows so he wouldn't roll out. One side is actually one of our suitcases wrapped up in a blanket. Then we took all the receiving blankets that we had brought that were in the crib and put them on the mattress and voila! A new baby bed. It's not the most glamorous-looking thing, but it's more comfortable for him and it works. And dare I say it, but last night (Tuesday night) is the first time James has slept completely through the night without waking up once. He stirred around, but did not completely wake up crying. He's been asleep since about 9PM; as I type this it's now almost 7AM and he's still snoozing away - yes!

However, just because James is sleeping fairly well through the night now doesn't mean that we are, yet. For some reason, we both feel like we're on alert, listening for every little move he makes. It's not intentional, as we try really hard to just go to sleep, but sometimes it happens. And there are times when I'm laying there, just listening to him breathe or watching him sleep after my eyes have adjusted to the dark. I'm already mostly a light sleeper as it is, but now I feel like I'm even more so. Yes - silly, right? Hopefully, we will be the ones who can get past this stage so we can get some rest.

James continues to eat well. We still have a little bit of a spit-up issue at times, but not as bad as when he was drinking that kefir stuff at the hospital. We do get some pretty awesome-sounding burps from him after feeding (Rennie, you would be proud of your godson). What's hasn't been helping the spit-up issue is that as soon as we're done feeding him and lay him on his back to play, he immediately starts rolling over onto his stomach. I've rolled him back and tried to distract him for a few minutes so at least he could start digesting the formula, but he gets annoyed because he apparently has other plans, and they include rolling onto his stomach. He's started to do more of the non-stop rolling thing, too. We keep a large blanket and bedspread on the living room floor for James to play on. One minute we'll lay him on his back at one side of the blanket, next thing we know, he's managed to roll his way off of the blanket and onto the floor on the other side. Gotta keep an eye on him! Oh, and we've started giving him a little evening snack of carrots mixed with rice cereal about an hour before his evening bottle. At first he didn't know what to think about the whole thing, but he seems to like it okay now. We've been using a toddler spoon to feed him, and he's gotten the hang of eating from it, too. We're trying to be very conservative in introducing new foods to him, especially with vegetables. We've been lucky in the sense that he hasn't had any stomach problems and is pooping just fine (I know folks - TMI - but just bear with us because we're new parents.)

Interestingly enough, we've been getting phone calls from someone speaking Russian. Of course, it doesn't help when Sean answers the phone, "Timmy Chan's Chicken and Rice," or "Domino's Pizza - can I help you?" But we've had so many phone calls from unknown callers the last few nights that we had to just keep the phone unplugged.

Well, I should go now. It's now about 7:15AM and the little prince is awake. Gotta change a diaper and make a bottle. I think I can do those things in my sleep now!

Paka and love to all!