Category: James

As bad as I feel that James will never have the luxury of my undivided attention as Maddi did, it’s comforting to know that in other ways, he’s better off than she. With Maddi, I was so shellshocked by her colic that it never even occurred to me to play with her until about a month and a half in. But with James, even if the thought wouldn’t have crossed my mind on its own, he would have been played with earlier if only because it’s impossible to spend all my time consumed by caring for a screaming baby when there is a toddler to entertain.

Luckily, James’ fussy periods are a walk in the park and can often be alleviated by some vigorous bouncing and singing. But not the soothing lullabye kind of tunes one might use for a new baby — like his big sister, he prefers to gallop on a spirited knee-horsey to the refrain “This is the Way the Farmer Rides.” Which is lucky, because there’s only one mommy and two little ones.

Thus, on days when both kids are shrieking at full-tilt — Maddi for attention and James for entertainment — if I am lucky I can manage to calm them both down with a simple knee-bouncing song. Two kids plus two knees equals instant (relative) quiet! Of course this is taxing on the legs, not to mention that one leg gets more than twice the workout of the other, but what’s a little lactic acid buildup when you’re soothing life’s little heartaches? My arms got quite chiseled when Maddi was this age, so it’s about time my legs caught up.

And here, in James’ twelfth week, are my two nonscreaming kids enjoying a bounce on my knees (I promise they are happier than they look!):

He’s the forefather of fetidness, the sultan of stink, and the master of methane. I introduce to you that scourge of the sinuses, that nexus of nostril-burning noxiousness (insert drumroll here) Stenchmaster Jay. And in honor of our little green cloud, may I present to you, dear readers, a poem:

James, James, the musical neonate
The more he eats, the more he flatulates
The more he flatulates, the louder he screams
So Mommy can’t eat any broccoli or beans.

You may think you’ve smelled stinky babies before, but let me assure you that your nostrils have not sniffed until they’ve caught a whiff of our singular stinking sensation, James William Phillips. Night and day, our little guy grunts and squirms and emits a highly compressed gas that smells like rotten eggs, only more so. It’s enough to drive his own father from the room.

Maddi’s gas was “bad” in that it was painful and caused her to spend her first two and a half months screaming at the top of her little lungs. James’ gas is just BAD. It sounds bad, and it smells worse! And here, for your viewing pleasure (’cause goodness knows smelling him isn’t pleasurable), is our 11-week-old stinkbug:

They say it’s not possible to spoil a baby, but we’re beginning to wonder. Although James is, for the most part, an easy baby, he does have a few little quirks. First off, sometimes no one but Mommy will do — even if he’s not hungry. With Maddi, it didn’t matter who was holding her as long as they had food. But even if he’s just been fed, if James is tired or gassy, nine times out of 10, he will fuss and fret until the instant he is in my arms. We joke that he has “Mommy-dar” because he has the uncanny ability to figure out when I have left the room. He can be chilling on Daddy’s lap, but try as I might to sneak off and give Maddi a bath, quite often he begins squeaking his disapproval within seconds of my slinking out. In fact, James will even awaken from a dead sleep the instant I have left any room.

Another of James’ idiosyncrasies is his “food-dar,” which alerts him to the fact that I am eating. Anytime I’m trying to get a bit of nourishment into my body, James’ food-dar goes off and he emits a series of grunts, which, if left unanswered, will escalate to short, insistent cries that sound an awful lot like he’s yelling at me. He will lie contentedly in his bouncy seat sucking on a pacifier for hours, but the instant he hears the sound of butter being spread on a sandwich or a pizza slice being microwaved, James will settle for nothing less than being held by Mommy herself.

The pediatrician asked this week if James is able to track with his eyes yet. I had to laugh because for weeks, James has been tracking me from across the room. His eyes never leave me no matter where I go. Maddi can be making silly faces, Daddy can be trying to talk to the little guy, but James only has eyes for Mommy. I finally know what celebrities feel like. (Daddy already has had his turn with Maddi, who has long greeted him with the breathless enthusiasm of a teenage girl in the Beatles’ heyday.)

I must say that while I’d really like to be able to shower and eat in the same day, I’m quite flattered by our little son’s apparent adoration of me. In fact, while I am fortunately capable of holding it together when he’s absent from a room, I think he’s pretty wonderful himself!

And here, for your viewing pleasure, is a picture of our 10-week-old cutie patootie (who, by the way, measures in at a healthy 11 pounds, 15 ounces and 22.5 inches as of Friday and has been released by his pediatrician to the care of our family doctor!):

This past week may well have been the worst in James’ life. It started off with a touch of RSV, then a circumcision, and was capped off by his two-month vaccinations.

About a week and a half ago, James came down with a wheezy-sounding cough. A few days later, he began sounding congested, so I took him in to see his pediatrician on Wednesday. After a thorough checkup, Dr. Finkleman told us that he was fairly sure James had RSV, a common virus that can cause life-threatening complications for premies, but that James’ chest was clear so we would take a wait-and-see approach. The doctor called our house every morning for updates on James, and fortunately, our little guy turned around in a few days’ time and seems to be kicking the bug on his own.

On Thursday, we went forward with his routine circumcision. After much debate, it was decided long ago that our wee son would get that unkindest of cuts before he was able to remember it. (Sorry, little guy!!) I would have preferred to hold him during the procedure as it’s said to reduce stress for the baby, but we weren’t even allowed in the room. They assured us that he would have a nerve block and wouldn’t feel a thing (and indeed, the only time he cried was when they took his diaper off, per usual!), but I still could have used a Valium myself. James came out as happy as a clam and slept the afternoon away, but later that night we knew he was in pain.

Despite generous application of lidocaine and a dropperful of Tylenol, James was a fussy boy. He cried for hours and stayed up until 1 a.m. The next day, he continued to be fussy, but went to bed at 9 and slept for six hours straight. He was so not himself, in fact, that on Monday I took him in to the urologist just to make sure everything was OK. Luckily, all was well with his wee-wee, so we just continued giving him Tylenol periodically.

Then, yesterday, he had his two-month shots. As a newborn, his little feet were so bruised it was difficult for the nurses to find new spots to do heel sticks, and while I can watch a knee replacement surgery while eating lasagna, it was hard for me to watch my own baby being poked and prodded so much. Needless to say, even after nearly two months, I wasn’t looking forward to seeing James being stuck with needles again. Always the optimist, I asked the nurse if there was any possibility a baby of his age might just sleep through the injections. The nurse, as one might expect, looked at me as if I were insane. Oh, well!

James had four vaccinations and screamed mightily through each one. He cried so hard, in fact, that the nurse had trouble stopping the bleeding from the first site because he was straining so much. Naturally, the sight of such pain being inflicted on my little premie baby had me very nearly in tears as well, although I’m sure that my pain was nothing compared to that of my wee son.

Needless to say, James’ sleeping patterns are once more in chaos (not that they were ever really perfect in the first place) and he hasn’t been the happiest baby in a week or so. But who can blame the little guy?

And here it is — our pic of our 11-pound, 2-ounce boy (being subjected to yet more torture) at nine weeks old:

With the first kid, you learn to schedule. With the second, you get scheduling down to an art.

When the Phillips family has to leave the house, planning ideally begins the night before. Before I hit the sheets, I must calculate how many things we need to do before we get out the door, how long it takes to do them and how much “cushion time” we will need in case of such unanticipated emergencies as poop explosions and oatmeal hairdos. Because I like sleep, I will rack my brain to see if there are ways I can multitask and save time. For instance, if I pack the diaper bag and feed the baby while Maddi is in her high chair, that saves half an hour — but only if I time it perfectly, since James needs to be fed at least every three hours.

Conversely, if I do Maddi’s hair before the last minute, I will spend an extra 10 minutes fixing it at the last minute anyway when she gets bored and destroys her carefully constructed ponytails. Very much like a football coach outlining moves on a whiteboard, I have a finely-tuned game plan in my head hours or even days ahead of almost any outing. Amazingly, we have never been late to a pediatrician’s appointment, and I credit it all to planning.

When James was seven weeks old, my planning and multitasking skills were sorely tested when I decided to hit the fabric store and perhaps the mall — with both kids and no husband, on the spur of the moment.

Having just fed James, I figured we had a good three hours — an hour for travel and two for shopping. As we don’t have a double stroller yet, I planned to wheel Maddi in the stroller while carrying James in the sling. I even planned the order in which I would remove them from and return them to the vehicle. However, I failed to calculate the extra time it would take to load and unload two children from the car. Somehow, I managed to not just double but triple the time of entry and egress. I should have remembered that not only would I need to unbuckle James (doubling my time right there), but I would also need to don my sling, tuck him in (not an easy task as he is a wiggly worm!) and cover him with a blanket to protect against the weather (below 0 on that particular night).

Needless to say, rather than being the smooth, well-oiled travel machine we should have been, the Phillips mom-and-babies team faltered that night. I had planned on putting Maddi in the stroller and then tucking James in the sling, but Chris pointed out that the sling is tricky and Maddi would be spending a fair amount of time in the cold. Unfortunately, I failed to realize that if James was in the sling while I was getting Maddi out of her seat and strapped into the stroller, he would be spending an equal amount of time in the cold, but with a lot less fat protecting him. So we entered the fabric store with Maddi (as usual) grabbing everything in sight and dragging it into the stroller, James screaming and struggling in the sling, and me about to lose it. Needless to say, James was the first kid back in the car.

By the time I had navigated the fabric store’s narrow aisles with a gigantic stroller and a frontful of wriggling baby, made my purchases and then wrestled two freaking-out, tired kids back into their carseats, I was ready to skip the mall and call it a day. We’d left the house about 4:30 and somehow, we’d made it to 5:45 with only one thing accomplished. But since James’ last feeding had been at 4 and he eats every two hours toward evening as the big build-up for bedtime, he was fading fast. The cold air put my hungry boy over the edge and he began screaming at the top of his lungs as soon as we were settled in the car. The screaming upset Maddi and she thrust her germ-laden hands in his face to “help” with his pacifier, which made him scream even harder. We were definitely not going to make the 30-minute drive home.

So we stopped at the mall instead, where it somehow took 15 minutes to unload the kids and make it to the parenting room. (Part of that 15 minutes, I must confess, consisted of me dialing 411 to find the number for the fabric store in whose parking lot I thought I’d dropped my sling — only to discover that I’d never actually taken it off.) I miraculously managed, in the span of 30 minutes, to feed both kids, burp and diaper James, and let Maddi work off some of her energy playing with toys and jumping off chairs. I tried to visit a kids’ store that was having a 70 percent-off sale, but with Maddi pulling clothes off hangers and tantruming, I did the unthinkable and left the mall, the enticing sale racks left unplundered. With the kids (relatively) happy and fed, we headed home. Since loading the stroller is more involved than unloading, it took 20 minutes to get everything in the car. And I didn’t even bother locking the stroller’s wheels properly, because I was that ready to be done with my shopping trip.

Needless to say, I’ve put a moratorium on shopping alone with the kids until such time as I have a double stroller and more than two hours’ sleep in a row.

And here they are, James’ seven-week and eight-week pictures, respectively:

Normally, on a person’s birthday, it is customary for us to give them a little something. However, darling James was apparently in a generous mood on the night of his six-week birthday and decided to give Mommy a present. No, silly, not a “Mommy present,” as Chris so hilariously (or not, if you happen to be Mommy) refers to the offerings of our babies’ bowels. This present, for once, was pleasant and entirely odorless. Our wee boy slept for a record-breaking six and a half hours.

Of course this insanely long stretch of sleep was preceded by a four-hour cluster-feeding frenzy, but I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. When James squeaked this morning and I arose to discover it was not 2 or 3 a.m. but a quarter to 6, I nearly died from the sheer delight of having had more than three hours of sleep in a row (his previous record). James has been on a growth spurt of late, and theoretically his tummy is getting bigger as well, but you wouldn’t have known it until last night as he’s been eating steadily around the clock.

Our little premie’s eating has paid off, as he now weighs in at 9 lb 12 oz and measures just a hair shy of 21 inches long. It’s not much for a six-weeker, but it’s certainly not shabby for a little boy of 9 days, which is James’ gestational age.

James is reaching lots of milestones now that he’s supposed to be born. He’s holding his head up for short periods while being burped or enjoying tummy time, he says things like “ahhh” and “ah-gaa” on occasion, and if Daddy’s holding him, he’ll watch me as I walk from one side of the room to another. He has now officially destroyed many outfits with multiple brands of bodily fluids (not just pee). He can roll from his back to his side if he’s mad enough — of course we don’t let that happen very often. And I swear he has even been spotted on a few occasions (only by me, as usual!) using balled fists in a crude attempt to shove his pacifier back in his mouth.

Today, we purchased James’ first sling. (We would have put him in Maddi’s sling, but our chiropractor told me to stop using it. If the back problems weren’t enough, it swallowed his sister for the first four months of her life and she was about twice his size when she was his age!) We tried it out at the mall, and just as I suspected, our snugglebug felt right at home cuddled up next to Mommy. As soon as his suckie got properly adjusted in his little mouth, James promptly fell asleep. Maddi wouldn’t tolerate more than a few minutes in the sling, but then she is an adventurous and squirmy little soul. James, who has been laid-back since his fetal days, apparently likes nothing better than to be cradled next to my heart and will lie contentedly in his sling for hours on end. We walked around the mall and when we left, it wasn’t because Maddi was misbehaving or James was screaming; it was because Chris had reached his shopping threshold.

Of course, all the sleeping he does in the sling may very well backfire and destroy his new and improved nighttime sleeping, but that remains to be seen.

Here’s what James’ blog is really about — the cute baby pictures:

Because it’s so close to the North Pole and therefore can get upwards of 20 hours of sunshine on a summer’s day, Alaska is often called the land of the midnight sun. Lately, we’ve discovered that our home is not so dissimilar to the far-northern tundra. Normally our home is rather Arctic anyway, as Chris likes to keep the thermostat set not a single degree above “glacial.” But with the addition of James, the similarities have, shall we say, snowballed.

Because of our early bird’s fragile immune system, we are isolated from the rest of society right now. But mostly, our house resembles Alaska because it is the land of the midnight son. You see, for multiple reasons, James has become nocturnal of late. Much like summertime up north, when people cannot tell whether it’s day or night, our wee son has thrown my sleep schedule into utter chaos. After a day of on-again, off-again napping and snacking, James rises at 11 p.m. and, like an itty-bitty vampire, proceeds to feast voraciously until dawn, when he finally beds down for his “long” three-hour sleep.

It wasn’t always so. When we brought him home from the hospital, he ate every three hours like clockwork and spent the rest of the time snoozing. He was so sleepy, in fact, that for the first few weeks I set an alarm to wake me in case he slept through a feeding (it only went off once). Now, I am lucky if he goes 30 minutes between nighttime feedings. During the day, I set my PVR to record about six hours of television. I begin watching my recorded shows during James’ snacktimes after Maddi is in bed and by morning, I have usually exhausted most of my video.

The reasons for James’ sleep issues are as follows: First and foremost, he has been on a massive growth spurt this week. I have no idea what he weighs now (I’m guessing 9 pounds at the very least) or how long he is (I’d say 21 inches) but I do know this: Last week, I was buttoning him into his one-pieces — the kind with two sets of snaps to extend the amount of time a baby can wear them — and even using the top set of snaps they were a bit saggy; this week, his undershirts are pulled tight to bursting, even using the lower snaps. Clearly all that milk has gone to good use!

But the other reason James is nocturnal is clearly my fault. Over Christmas, we did a lot of driving and therefore James did a lot of day sleeping. Which means he did a lot of night waking. After the holidays, rather than turning his schedule around by keeping him awake all day, I was so exhausted that I foolishly followed the old adage, “Sleep when the baby sleeps.” Which means I slept until 10 and then took a big afternoon nap with the kids instead of persistently torturing James awake as I so clearly should have been doing. (Not that I don’t appreciate Chris’ watching Maddi every morning during my attempts to get some sleep. I am sure that is the only reason I am sane and lucid!) Rather than turning around, James seemed to sleep even more during the day — and less at night — until yesterday he was very nearly on an opposite schedule.

Rather than move to China, where James would be sleeping perfectly through the night, Chris and I have adopted a double-pronged plan to get our “midnight son” rising and shining at a more acceptable hour. Rather than my turning on the overhead light in James’ room every time our boy wakes up at some unholy hour, Chris purchased a $10 desk lamp to clip onto the side of the bed. It provides just enough light for me to feed and change James, but not enough for our little boy to be stimulated by his surroundings. Additionally, I am (temporarily) giving up naps so that I can keep James awake and alert during the daylight hours. He will enjoy short periods of sleep, but anything longer than 90 minutes or so, and he will suddenly find himself enjoying a diaper change, bath or tummy time session. It’s a little cruel, but there are a daddy and a little girl in this house who miss their wife and mommy. It’s time for James to live in the same time zone as the rest of the family.

With any luck, by next week’s blog, we will no longer be living in the land of the midnight son.

And without further ado, here is James’ 5-week pic, featuring our fast-growing little boy’s multiple chins and titled “Jabba no botha”:

In the past week, James has had all kinds of milestones. Not only has he marked physical milestones such as making prolonged eye contact, lifting his head from a prone position and stopping crying when food is presented. He’s celebrated his first Christmas, worn his first 0-3 month outfit, met several relatives for the first time, and in a few hours he’ll be a month old. He’s also had his first cold, an unfortunate milestone, but luckily one that has not thus far developed into anything threatening.

Fearing the worst because of his tender gestational age (he’s still got nearly a week to go before his actual due date), I took him to the ER last Friday after his first symptoms appeared, and in to the pediatrician today for an emergency visit when his breathing worsened, but while his nose is stuffy, James’ chest is clear and he is feeding OK. Despite being sick most of the week, our son still managed to pack on 14 oz., putting him at 8 lb. 4 oz. this afternoon after emptying his bowels with great gusto on the exam table.

Despite his sniffles and sneezes, James was able to make the trip to Nana’s for Christmas dinner and presents — albeit shrouded in a blanket-covered carrier and with strict rules about who could hold him and how much sanitizer they had to apply first. He unwrapped (with much help from his parents and sister) quite a haul of nice baby things. Some, like the blankets, clothing and wrist rattles, he can enjoy now; other things, such as the Little People playsets addressed to both of our tots, he will share with Maddi later. All in all, our New Year’s baby did pretty well for a little guy who came on such short notice and hasn’t let Mommy out of the house in a month! (Thank goodness he has a daddy who knows how to shop!)

Since premie outfits are hard to come by, and even more so premie Christmas attire, Chris and Nana assembled an outfit last month in hopes that James would grow into it. When we first looked at it, we figured we’d be lucky if James fit the clothing by March. But lo and behold, when we tried it on James on Christmas Day, it was only a little roomy. Our little boy has been eating his Wheaties!

However wonderful it was to celebrate my darling baby’s very first holiday, I’m relieved it’s over. You see, between being a newborn and having a cold, James hasn’t been sleeping well at night and therefore, neither do I. I count on his “sleepy time” between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. and his and Maddi’s big nap between 1 and 3 to get a decent rest, and holiday fun doesn’t exactly fit into that schedule. Now that the hectic holiday frenzy has passed, I intend to sleep (as much as James and Maddi let me) for the next month or two.

And now for the very most important part of James’ blog: the pictures! Below are his Christmas Day photo (complete with his first-ever 0-3 month outfit!) and his four-week snap.

When James was born, I was worried that he’d take a long time to catch up to where he would have been had he come on his due date. Apparently, these fears were ungrounded azithromycin 250mg. If anything, James has been doing better out than in.

This week, at his pediatrician visit, we learned that our little boy had gained a full pound in eight days, putting him at 7 lbs 6 oz. In utero, he’d be gaining only a half-pound per week. He’s doing so well, in fact, that his doctor decided James could visit every two weeks — even though initially he’d been expected to see the doctor weekly for the first month or even longer.

Because he had so little body fat initially, we waited until James was nearly three weeks old to give him his first bath so that he’d have time to add a little insulation. Monday night, as we bathed our boy, we noticed that not only does he have some brand-new thigh rolls, but he is the size of a normal newborn now. Every day, his premie clothes get smaller on him and his undershirts — which are the 0-3 month size — have gone from enveloping him to fitting perfectly.

One of the best things of all this week has been James’ newest (OK, maybe his only) skill — lifting his head a bit while he’s being burped. When he was born, our wee boy was completely floppy and it was hard to tell if he had any neck muscles at all. Now he can hold his head erect for a few seconds before it flops over. It’s not much, but we’re proud parents nonetheless!

James is spending more of his daytime hours awake and alert, and his cries, which were kittenlike a few weeks ago, are stronger now. He is sleeping more at night, although he goes through frequent cluster-feeding spells where he eats voraciously day and night, which we’re presuming is how he managed to gain a pound in the last week.

He still doesn’t do much other than eat, sleep and poop (eating and pooping more so than sleeping), and since he doesn’t have colic I’m not really sure what to do with him. It’s lovely having a baby who just lies there staring around at things and it sure makes caring for two kids a lot easier, but I feel like I ought to be teaching James tricks or something. It’s a bizarre feeling having two little ones and yet having so much downtime with them. I had geared up mentally for another three months of endless colic and misery, and James is so placid and easygoing that I feel kind of lost. What do other moms of normal newborns do?

Instead of rocking a screaming baby for hours on end, I can lay James down in his bassinet or the Pack ‘N’ Play and spend some quality time with Maddi, or I can snuggle my contented new baby against my shoulder and just be. It’s definitely taking some getting used to, but I certainly don’t mind getting used to it!

And here they are: Pictures of little James at three weeks old (or two weeks, six days, in the case of the bath pic). Look at those chins!

The past week and a half has been a blur. As with Maddi, the first two weeks have sometimes seemed like an eternity, what with the messed-up sleeping schedules and the hours of baby care, but it’s been a totally different experience. Rather than being shellshocked, we’re amazed how easy life with this new baby has been. I suppose it helps that James feeds for 20 minutes every two to four hours instead of for two hours at a time with 30-minute breaks in between, and that he doesn’t have hours-long stretches of inconsolable screaming, but it also helps that it’s our second time around with a brand-new baby and we’ve got things a little more figured out — except for that peeing thing. I have been “christened” far too many times already.

James has been gaining weight steadily, leaving the hospital at 5 lbs 8 oz and gaining nearly an ounce a day to achieve a weight of 5 lbs 10 oz by his one-week appointment last Tuesday. Today at his pediatrician appointment, we discovered little James has gained two ounces a day since the public health nurse weighed him in at 5 lbs 11.5 oz on Thursday, and he now weighs in at a staggering 6 lbs 6 oz — 10 oz. more than he weighed at birth. He’s doing so well that the pediatrician has decided that James is ready for regular office visits instead of hospital visits in the pediatric wing, and that James can make little outings to places where he won’t be in close contact with germy people.

Our mellow little man has adjusted well to life around the house as well as life outside the womb. He loves to be held and will sleep for hours in Mom’s arms, but he doesn’t mind lying around and watching the world from the Pack ‘N’ Play, either. He sleeps for much of the day, waking to eat, poop and cast the occasional glance at his surroundings. Maddi has adjusted nicely as well — she still thinks of James as a wonderful toy that Mommy and Daddy brought home especially for her. She often stops what she’s doing so she can run over and give James a kiss or try to entertain him by thrusting her sippy cups and favorite toys at his head (don’t worry, he’s well protected from these latter eager overtures!). When James is sleeping in his room and the monitor picks up one of his coos or grunts, Maddi is the first to yell “Baby!” and head toward his room to retrieve him.

This weekend, James began sleeping more at night and spending more time alert during the day. We backslid a bit last night, when he was up until 6 a.m. cluster feeding, but he also spent all day yesterday and today eating, so I suspect he’s gearing up for another massive growth spurt. At this point, Chris and I are beginning to think it’s a good thing James came out when he did — otherwise I might be giving birth to a 10-pounder!

As exhausting as it is taking care of a wee barracuda by night and an energetic toddler by day, I am blissfully happy being a mom to two. Between James’ snuggly laid-back sweetness and Maddi’s enthusiastic affections, I have ample baby-love available to me whenever I want it (although sometimes all I really want is sweet, elusive slumber!). Luckily, since there’s very little jealousy at this point, our days are very peaceful and while the nights are sometimes busy, I’m at least getting a few hours here and there, which is more than I can say for the first time around!

Call me crazy, but even with little sleep, two in diapers, and having just come off a scary, complicated pregnancy two weeks ago, I still feel like I could fill the house with newborns and not get enough of the baby sweetness! Of course we’re still planning to wait a good while before putting another bun in the oven, but the trepidation I felt after the placental abruption has been replaced with joy and the (premature and slightly delusional?) anticipation of our next little bundle.

It feels like James has been with us forever, and it’s hard to believe that if I was still pregnant, he’d be only 37 weeks along — just barely term — today. Good things may come to those who wait, but for having jumped the gun, I think we got a pretty good thing anyway! You can’t ask for much more than a happy, healthy baby who sleeps for two or three hours at a stretch!

And for those of you who have been pestering us for pictures, here’s one of me and the two babies on James’ two-week birthday: