At Four Weeks of Age, Shav...

...weighs 11 lbs, 1 oz.

...knows how to smile--sort of. I'm counting his first official smile as the one he gave me on Saturday morning, Aug. 15; but even it was a tentative, maybe-I'm-doing-this-right kind of smile. A treasure regardless!

...gets most of his baths in the upstairs bathroom sink. Usually likes them, except when the water is chilly (like I made it one time when I was concerned about it being too hot so I over-compensated with the cool water; he wasn't a fan of that).

...already knows how to pull my hair. Sometimes he inadvertently gets some of my hair in his tightly-clenched fist, and it's actually difficult to retrieve my hair from his firm grasp.

...has a pretty bad case of infant acne, but "this too shall pass."

...went out to a restaurant with the whole family for the first time yesterday. After our church service, Jeff's mom treated us to lunch at Golden Corral (and our friend Jane Burkholder came along, too). On the way, we realized that it was the first time that we had gone out to eat as a family since Shav was born; and Jeff and I wondered if we were up for the challenge. As it turned out, it all went fairly peacefully, despite a shaky start (when I was at the buffet getting food for Tobin and Jeff was at the table with Shav and Tobin, Shav started to cry so Jeff got up to unbuckle him from his car seat...meanwhile, Tobin grabbed Jeff's cup of iced tea and poured about half of it all over himself...when I returned to the table, I found Jeff holding Shav on his lap and letting Shav suck on his little finger while tending to a chilly, wet Tobin...but Tobin didn't seem to mind that he had washed his clothes while still wearing them, and things soon settled down after that). It went so well that we might actually consider eating out again in the near future--sometime before our youngest turns 5 and we don't have to spoon-feed anyone!

...has discovered that the swing is a pretty fun place to be. His brothers have discovered that the swing is fun for them, too...especially turning it on and off, varying the speed, and changing the direction of the swing. Fortunately for Shav, they usually leave it alone when he is in it; but not always. See Shav's little face looking up to see what David is doing at the top of the swing?

David apparently thought the swing was too dull of an environment for Shav, so he added some extra stimulation in the form of light sabers. I'm sure Shav's brain is developing by leaps and bounds because of it (though he doesn't seem to be paying a bit of attention to the colorful lights around him!).

...seems like he's always been a part of our family.