Big Weekend

Man, Jack was a traveling superstar this weekend. Actually, starting on Wednesday, he left the house every day through Sunday. Wednesday he went to church with mom, then to the dentist on Thursday. Friday he visited dad's work, where a world-record for the amount of people in an 8x8 cube was set.

But Saturday was the big day out.

It started with his first spectator sporting event, the finals of the church basketball league dad plays in. Dad's team, Milan Vineyard Church, was playing Ann Arbor Vineyard Church, a rivalry second only to the other big game on Saturday (sorry UM fans, I was actually pulling for them this game). Milan pulled through with a 10-point win after trailing by 14 in the first half. Jack was very excited (ok, he spent most of the game eating, but I could feel his support nonetheless).

We then took his biggest road-trip to date, heading out to Rochester Hills for a big family party.

He got to hang out with all his first-cousins, from left Jacob, Anna, Kyle and Matt.

Then he spent some time with the extended cousins, all 10 of them!

Papa played some patty-cake with him.

And finally spent some time with newly-born Riley.

It was a pretty busy day for him, but he did great. For some reason he didn't want to fall asleep in the car on the way home until we were 20 minutes into the ride, but he did fine after that. He must have been tired, because he went four-plus hours between feedings twice Saturday night.

Speaking of Saturday night, he got his first bottle from dad at 2:30 a.m. He took the entire two ounces in like 10 minutes, but that wasn't enough so mom still had to feed him a bit more. Ahh yes, like father like son, always hungry.

Sunday we went back to church, and he made it through the entire service this time. Then while dad was at Kroger after church, he returned an entire feeding on mom's lap. And her pants. And the chair cushion. And the ottoman. And the floor. And his blankets. And his outfit. And his face. Basically dad was the only thing to stay dry because I was in the frozen food aisle two miles away.

Good times indeed. Dad's looking forward to this week because he only has to work Monday and Tuesday and then he's off until the following Tuesday. I'm already sifting through my clothes to find the most forgiving waistband for Thanksgiving.

Finally you may have noticed a new author in recent days. Mom will be making regular appearances on the blog from now on. You can tell her posts by the lack of paragraphs, capital letters and punctuation (and she was the UM grad). Just kidding, we love mom!

Walks, naps and friends

Jack is now 2 1/2 weeks old, and he's been busy the last week or so. Grandma was here for another visit and her and mom took advantage of what was likely the last nice day of the year to take Jack's first walk.

We've been working on Jack's sleeping pattern. He's doing pretty good, going for at least four hours between feedings once a night for the last couple nights. That means mom can get an extended sleep at least once per night.

Dad went back to work for the full week last week, and mom did great at home with Jack. She had some visitors to help as well. We targeted Sunday as the family's first trip to church. And it worked... sort of.

We had a pretty good night of sleep. Jack ate a smaller than normal feeding at about 9 a.m., which would give us plenty of time to get to 10 a.m. service. Jack had other thoughts, however. At about 9:30 while he was in his swing, he spit up some of the smaller feeding. This likely meant he would be hungry again sooner than the normal three hours between feeding.

As a result of this spit-up, however, the swing and his outfit and much of the left side of his body were wet. That led to an unscheduled bath. We got that done and were off to church just a few minutes later than normal.

We got to church, enjoyed opening worship and announcements, and right about the same time Jesse started his sermon, Jack decided it was time to eat. And he was very adamant about it.

So we got to about 25 minutes of church. A good first step indeed and not too bad for our first outing outside of the doctor.

Speaking of, Jack's next appointment comes Monday. He's certainly growing, it's hard to tell but in the photo below he's wearing the Piston's outfit he wore home from the hospital, and he fills it out a heck of a lot better than he did just two weeks ago.

Jack was pretty awake while grandma changed his diaper.

Dad and Jack look pretty comfy taking a nap on the couch.

And also of note, the Lions are now 1-1 in Jack's life. So much for an undefeated lifetime of Lions football.