Transformations

So often I have been writing about things that affect Samuel because he's a preemie, I would to take a few moments to share how much he's been changing and hitting some full-term baby milestones during this month.  He is sure growing and changing fast!  So much so that when Ben has to be gone for Church or guard, he is always amazed at how much he's grown and changed while he was gone!

In May I started to hear some cooing sounds, but then I didn't for a while.  Well, in June, he's picked them back up, big time!  After a feeing when he's awake he will sit there and just make cooing noises.  I'll be in the kitchen washing out my pump and here a bunch of "ooh's" from the other room.

He's also gotten to be quite smiley!  Smiling and cooing seem to go hand in hand.  We learned that if we tap his lips gently with our finger it encourages more smiles and coos!  He has the cutest little smile (at least we think so, but hey, we're his parents!) and even a little dimple on one side!  Last night Ben was playing with him and did an Arnold Schwarzenegger impression and that even elicited a laugh from him!  Probably the first laugh he's done!

Between the cooing and smiling Sam's beginning to be quite fun to play with.  It seemed like we were locked so long in a pattern of changing diapers, feeding and burping and that was pretty much the only activities he participated in and he hated the diaper changes.  So it is nice to start seeing him become playful!  We have been ready to see this start and glad he is too!

Lately he's also stopped viewing diaper changes as the worst form of torture known to man kind.  In fact he sometimes seems to even like them!  He tends to really like them we he has a particularly messy diaper, which used to be when he howled the loudest and hardest.  Now he sometimes even smiles and coos while we change his diaper.  Of course there still are a few changes in a day where he's a little fussier during, but hey, this is a vast improvement!

We've also started allowing Sam to sleep longer at night.  Now he wakes up 1-2 times at night.  That's fantastic for all of us!  He tends to be more awake and playful in the day now and more sleepy at night. We have notice a few fussy times however.  He really doesn't like being put down to sleep that first time at night and he really doesn't like to pause eating to burp!  Yesterday he was being especially dramatic about the burping, so I was calling him my drama king.

On another note, we did another overnight trip to Milwaukee.  His first out of state adventure!  He did great!  We stayed at my cousin's house.  They are expecting a little boy in the fall and already have a 2 year old daughter so that was fun.  Their daughter got to learn a little about how to act around a baby (gentle touches).  We went to a wedding and Sam did great through it all!  On the way home we were going to try to stretch his feedings out a little and make the drive in one shot, but about a half hour from home he decided he was hungry, so we stopped (we would have made it, but we were somewhat slow at leaving the reception).  Oh well, we tried and he did great!  We are starting to really get this overnight traveling down!  Which is good and we have 1 more to go this month (We'll be visiting Ben's Grandma who has not been doing well.  We weren't planning on going out that direction until later this year, but we want to make sure she gets to meet Sam.).