Chug-a-lug

We can't believe a month has gone by already since the day Nate was born. I guess the corny statement is true, but man time really flies. Nate is currently at 4 pounds, 10 ounces and doing awesome. He's been attempting bottle feeding for about a week now. He struggled the first few days with it. He would do great on it at one feeding and then want nothing to do with it when we tried the next day. Joe figured out after a few days of this that it may be the temperature of the milk he didn't like, so we made sure to do it a bit warmer and so far haven't had any issues. Needless to say, Joe is quite proud of himself for figuring that one out.


Nate gets to try bottle feeding four times a day. Yesterday he finished the full bottle for 3 out of the 4 feedings! The other feeding he finished 32 cc's out of 40 - not bad. He's learning to be a little chugger :) Today he has struggled a little bit more and taken a bit more time to get the bottles finished. He tends to fall asleep with a little less than half of his bottle left but the nurses say he is doing great, especially for just being at 35 weeks gestational age.

Nate also passed his hearing test yesterday so we know that he can hear us. I could have already told you this because of Nate's glances towards his new noisy neighbor. He tends to be in the middle of eating when she starts hollering away. If he's awake, he will fully turn his head towards her, or move his eyes up to try and get a look at her. Joe is convinced he's willing her to "shut it" so he can eat! The nurses get flustered with how fussy she is so we're very lucky that Nate isn't so fussy all of the time. I think it's a good thing that he's learning to deal with people being obnoxious and bad roomates :) It'll help him when he gets home! He isn't too fussy, just when changing a diaper and about 15 minutes before a feeding. Other than that if we swaddle him he seems pretty content. I shouldn't say that because I probably just jinxed it!


This weekend Nate is having an eye exam done.
They do it once the babies get to be about Nate's age. I won't be around for that because they have to hold his eyes open and bug him for a while. Joe and I recently brought in a car seat for Nate to pass his car seat test. They have us bring it in and Nate has to sit in it for an hour and not drop his stats. He'll probably do this next week some time. There are all sorts of these tests that he has to pass before he gets the go-ahead to come home.

We've been working on Nate's room over the past week and have put up quite a bit. We have his crib set up, a dresser in the room, a shelving unit, and we are using my beloved Pac-Man machine as his changing table...yes that's correct, you read that properly. Listen, it works exactly the same way as buying some brand spankin new changing table. Don't worry, we have a nice changing pad and will have it securely in place. I refuse to put my Pac-Man out in the cold, and this way it can be utilized......stop judging me :) We'll cover it with something nice so it won't look like a tacky Pac-Man. By the way, Joe still has his ducks hanging on the wall in Nate's room, so Nate's just going to have to deal with our items still being in there. One of these days when we have a big enough house we'll let Nate have his own room with all of his own stuff, but until then he gets to have our stuff in there!

This last shaky shot is Nate's glance over at his noisy roommate. This isn't too bad of a face compared to some of the ones he makes at her. He had been in the middle of a feeding when she started to holler. He let go of the bottle and turned his little head this way towards her. It cracks me up.
Anyways, he's doing awesome and just needing to keep putting on weight and finishing all of his bottle feedings. No guess on when he'll be able to come home but maybe in the next 2 weeks or so if all continues to go well. Take care!