All Smiles (Well, Some of the Time)

Eight weeks ago today, Ezra James plopped into this world, all scrawny and bewildered. Now he's a chubby little baby, full of smiles and topping 9 lbs, and eagerly taking in the world around him. We're so proud! It's amazing to see him so interested in everything around him. If he's fussy inside the apartment, the instant we take him outside in the sling, he perks up and opens his eyes really wide. He can't stop staring at everything - cars, trees, people, sky. It's amazing to think what that must seem like - to not know exactly what all this stuff is. But he doesn't seem overwhelmed, in fact, he just soaks it up and loves it.

And he reached an important milestone (to us, at least). He started interacting with one of his toys! Hooray! It's a cool soft hanging toy (from Aunt Emily & Uncle Pete) that we have on the Moses basket, and all of a sudden one night last week he started batting at it. Here's a video:



His fussiness hasn't really gone away, especially in the evenings. It may be acid reflux - I've read that some flap in the esophagus of a baby doesn't develop for a while, so acid backs up and makes them spit up or just generally unhappy. Still, we seem to be finding measures to cope with it - when the Weego doesn't work, we swaddle him, when swaddling doesn't work, we sing to him, and on and on. And I've been told the reflux starts to go away by 12 weeks, so maybe it's just a temporary little hurdle to overcome before we have to start worrying about him sticking his fingers in electrical sockets and drinking Drano and stuff like that.

But like I alluded to in the title of this post, he's smiling a lot! Especially, for some reason, on the changing table. He seems to adore being naked. All the better if he can douse his parents with a stream of urine. Here's a little clip of him being smiley:



And we've been keeping the kid on a pretty active social calendar. So many friends to see, so little time (between feedings)! Last weekend, Ezra met our friends Ben, Catrin and Shawn for the first time. After some fussiness, he settled down into amazingly cute and cuddly. Here's a pic of him snuggled up with Catrin:


Sorry for the delays between posts! Gabe's been busy with work, and finding time to post when I'm holding Ezra all day can be challenging.

Love,
Ash, Gabe and Ez