Poe Byron Jones was born October 13, 2009 at 9:19 pm after 22 hours of active labor and one week of inactive labor. He was 6 lbs 8.7 oz and 20.75 inches long. He now weighs in at 7 lbs 7 oz as of one week ago today and is already 4 weeks old. We spent the first week of his life at the hospital with him on antibiotics since he was born with a fever and higher than normal white blood cell count. I think this was due mostly to the cold I had caught a week earlier but wasn't quite over yet. The docs even informed me while I was in labor that I had a fever although I didn't notice it or feel sick from it. All his blood work and cultures came back negative so the docs are feeling bewildered as to why this happened in the first place. We got to bring him though once he was 7 days old and had received what the docs felt was enough antibiotics to be safe to bring him home and not have him become sick. He has been growing like a weed and gaining weight fast, and eating us already out of house and home. So much so, we've had to resolve to supplementing with formula just to keep up with him. He eats twice as much as what the docs say a kid his age should be eating on average. So much for waiting for him to be a teenager first, huh?
We have found he sleeps through anything, and I mean ANYTHING, from TV and the vacuum cleaner, to a video game war zone. Not even the sirens of an ambulance have woken this kid up. But if I set him down for a second lately, instant crying. Hence, I have been up all night with my little one attempting fruitlessly to try and put him to bed. But to no avail. If I'm not holding him, he isn't sleeping tonight. And yes, the pic above is how my son sleeps on a regular basis: head back, mouth open, hands behind head even. He sleeps like his daddy, eats like his daddy, and sleeps through most anything like his daddy. However, he is acting like me so I'm told, by getting upset every time someone sets him down. This kid is good so long as he is being held. My DBF and I are finding ourselves having to take shifts so that each of us can acquire that mystical thing commonly referred to others as 'sleep'.
My nephew is finding himself facing competition for attention at my mom's house for the first time as well. Life is tough as a 6 year old. He got upset for being told not to do something that could result in broken elephants and became more upset that my son was not yelled at alongside him. Well, my son being only 4 weeks old, can't very well start getting into stuff yet so naturally he wasn't in trouble. But then we got the sob story of a lifetime on how we loved the new baby more than him as a result. So we spent the next hour trying to explain to a 6 year old boy about newborn babies and why he got yelled at. This worked out well... sort of. He continued to cry at the dinner table even after we figured this was over. Apparently, we forgot the melodramatic side of the family is also genetic. We had to send him to his room until he was ready to eat dinner with us. And then the wails started. We thought we had a banshee in the house. So we couldn't help but quietly laugh at the attempts for pity all the while trying to make sure he couldn't hear us. He would only have wailed louder I'm sure. After a while of seeing this wasn't working for him, he decided he was ready to eat dinner. Never a dull moment with kids around...
And as for the pets in our house, we have yet to have a single problem with any of them. My cat thinks she can curl up in my son's lap despite the fact that she is bigger than him, and the dog thinks she is still the baby too. Remy checks on our son regularly, gives him lots of kisses, comes to get us if he's crying, and has even cuddled at his feet on the couch to nap with him. So much for Pitbulls being vicious, huh? So far she is only more protective of the house now that we have a baby around. I think she is going to be just fine.
