Shav at Seven Weeks

To celebrate Labor Day (as well as jump start our celebration for the first day of school tomorrow), we took the boys out for breakfast at IHOP this morning. After a stop at Walmart and Home Depot, we came home; and I took Shav and headed outside to snap some pictures of him. It was fun--for me, at least. :) Actually, Shav did well, too, and didn't fuss at all. He didn't sleep either, but that's OK since he's past that sleeps-all-the-time newborn stage.

I like this first picture a lot...

...but Jeff says it looks like Shav is crying in it. As a matter of fact, he's smiling; and when I see this picture, I see joy: arms thrown out, feet kicking happily, not a care in the world, the I'm-naked-under-a-tree-and-I'm-soon-going-to-pee-on-this-blanket kind of joy. But to others, maybe he looks fussy. Oh, well, I still like it. :)

David came over after a few minutes and wanted to be in the pictures, too. He usually planted himself right in front of Shav, completely blocking Shav's face; but for this one, I told him where to sit and he complied. He surely loves his brothers.

David, being the hands-on boy that he is, wanted to take some pictures by himself, so I passed off the camera to him and followed his instructions to get in the picture with Shav. The result was a few blurry washed-out images...and one happy four year-old who got to do it ALL BY HIMSELF. From one of the pictures he took, I did some editing and ended up with this...
...which still isn't that great because it looks like I'm kissing a ghost--an adorable little ghost, to be sure, but a ghost nonetheless. I didn't know how to get Shav any darker though.

Last week I forgot to post anything about Shav's current weight, so before I forget again, let me mention that as of 6 weeks, he weighed 12 pounds and was 23 inches long--a healthy size and a good rate of growth. He's grown out of quite a few of his 0-3 month clothes, so I got out the plastic storage box of 3-6 month items and he looks good in those. :)

Shav still usually wakes up two times in the night to nurse, and I'm looking forward to that becoming "once" rather than "twice." He almost always goes right back to sleep after he eats, but last night he was much more interested in lying in my arms and looking at me and at the frames on the wall behind me than he was in sleeping. After I spent some time holding and rocking him, I decided that we had had enough face-to-face bonding time for the moment and we should continue it during daylight hours :)...so I went ahead and laid him back in his cradle while he was wide awake. He's still a little iffy on the task of getting himself to sleep in his cradle--sometimes it's easy and sometimes not--so I was very curious to see how he would do last night. Wonder of wonders, he did it! I'm so proud of him for how he's progressing towards this important skill of being able to get himself to sleep.

Over the weekend, I got more one-on-one time with Shav than I usually do; and I discovered all over again how delightful it is to have a newborn and be able to really enjoy time with him. For one thing, he's an excellent cuddle buddy, and I took advantage of that fact this afternoon when I napped with him on my chest--something I rarely do, but which I enjoy a lot. I can't say it often enough: it's such a treasure to have Shav, and we are so very blessed by his presence in our family. To have four happy, healthy, growing boys--and to be complimented on them by people we sat near at IHOP this morning as well as people we sat near at Dairy Queen tonight (where we ended this special day of celebration)--well, sometimes it seems almost too good to be true. My cup of blessings runneth over!