4 weeks

Dear Violet,

It's an early, overcast Saturday morning, a day before you turn one month old, and you're currently behind me sleeping in your yellow rocker.  Your mother is sleeping downstairs, a bit tired from the overnight feedings.  She's not a morning person, ([whispering] so she would be sleeping in like this anyway, but don't tell her I told you that).  Your Kuya Darien is asleep also, after spending what looks to be half the night awake playing video games (i know this because your Kuya leaves a messy trail that couldn't fool even the worst detective in the world).  He was up all night, because he slept all day.  That's his current 16-year old habit, that will change sooner than later as he gets older and more independent.  It'll be a rude awakening for him (pun intended).

So far, you're pretty consistent with 4 hour feeding intervals, and last night we took advantage of that to try and strategically get rest.  Before your mother went out to have dinner with her co-workers, she fed you around  630p, and you slept until she got back at 1030p.

Your appetite seems to be increasing as you ingested 5.5oz of bottled breast milk at 1030p, which is good, but I wonder just how much further it will increase.  Your Lola's memories of me as a baby include her using a funnel to feed me baby food and mango when I was your age.  I would cry as soon as your grandmother would take the spoon out of my mouth.....so she went with the funnel.

In any case, you fed again at 230a, and again around 6a.  Your mother and I are trying to avoid being awake (all of us) during that infamous 330a-430a window, where my experience in the firehouse (my 12 or so years of sleep deprivation) tells me, if you get caught awake during that time, it doesn't matter how much rest you've gotten, you're bound for an extended nap that will eat half of your day.

Your Mom and I know ourselves enough to know that she is a night owl, and not a morning person.  I, on the other hand, tend to stay up late and can get up early, but I usually drop off a cliff at night, and I usually need an "old man" nap in mid afternoon to recharge.  If I sleep through the aforementioned "window", I'm usually good to go for the day.

A few observations on your progress since I last wrote:

Your tummy time progress continues to increase.  You're able to hold your head up for increased amounts of time when you're laying on your stomach, and your eyes are definitely tracking people.  You even turn your head to track people as well.  But a lot of your actions are mostly still instinct and involuntary.

You use your hands a lot.  At first it seemed like your left hand more than your right, but now it seems with equal dexterity.  You stretch a lot, usually raising both of your arms straight over your head.  It remains to be seen whether you end up right or left handed.  Secretly, I hope you're left handed like your daddy.

You also like to look outside a lot.  I notice this on our car rides, and even out the window in the apartment towards the Berkeley Hills.

Mom just got up and fed you, and you're now on the couch talking about what kind of cake she's going to get you for your 1-month 'birthday'.

Talk soon.  I need to go do some grocery shopping.

Dad