One month

Welcome to our blog. We're a little late getting started; yesterday, Liam turned one month old. But as the rest of you folks with kids can understand, blogging is on the priority list somewhere below sleep, food, changing diapers, and shopping for more diapers; and somewhere slightly above going to a keg party and staying out till 6 a.m.

Liam is doing absolutely wonderfully for a 4-week-old kid. In the past week or so, he's become so much more interactive, less like a fetus and more like a real live baby! Here are some of the milestones we've reached recently:

He's given us a few tentative grins. They're not the full-face, eye-scrunching smiles we're waiting for, but he's definitely smiling AT us. He also smiles in his sleep quite a bit.

He loves staring at lights, whether it's sunlight or the colored lights on his Baby Einstein toy.

He no longer screams bloody murder every time he gets his diaper changed (only about half the time :).

He LOVES baths. He makes cooing noises and moves his head from side-to-side when he's in the warm water. He hates being taken out of the water!

By our unscientific weighing method (weighing ourselves while holding him), he's about nine and a half pounds -- almost three pounds above his birth weight. He's nearly outgrown Pampers Newborn diapers and is moving on to size ones!

His hair is falling out in patches. :( I'm assured this is 100% normal, but it's still sad because he was born with a beautiful head of sandy-blonde hair like his daddy. When it grows back, there's a good chance it will look completely different.

Sleep is still very much a challenge. Where are these 3- to 4-hour stretches of sleep that newborns (especially formula-fed newborns) are supposed to enjoy? Occasionally he'll sleep for three hours, but it's usually two at night and one and a half during the day. The plus side is that sleep deprivation no longer feels like deprivation. I'm definitely getting used to surviving on 5 or 6 hours of sleep a night!