Hard to believe it's been 4 weeks!

A common theme in what John and I say about Evan is that he's growing up so fast!  From the caption on the first few photos that John posted of him on Facebook (that drew a lot of laughs), to many of my posts on this blog, we are constantly being reminded how fast time is passing and how quickly that means that Evan is growing up.  For instance, it has now been exactly four weeks since Evan was born.  Hard to believe that at four weeks along in a pregnancy he would have just been an embryo the size of a poppy seed, but now, at four weeks old he's a thriving 9-pound baby.

Some new milestones for Evan on his four-week birthday are that he's using a pacifier and we've started putting him in the Baby Bjorn infant carrier.

The pacifier

We have two brands of pacifiers so far: Advent and Nuk.  Both are orthodontic pacifiers, so should hopefully help Evan's teeth grow in properly.  We wanted to start him on a pacifier before he learned to suck his hands/fingers, as we've heard that can lead to teeth growing in crooked.  I know from my own experience, as a former thumb-sucker, that I had some buck teeth that required braces to get them looking normal.  Between John and I, we definitely have some different names for the pacifiers.  My sister typically called pacifiers a "binky" with her kids, and thus I have found myself referring to it that way occasionally.  However, for some reason when Evan has his pacifier in his mouth, I find myself telling him it's his "paci" (pronounced passy).  John refers to the pacifier has the "dummy", and of course it makes much more sense to me now what John meant when he'd say Evan "spat the dummy" during Evan's fussy periods.

When Evan has his paci in, he is definitely a strong sucker.  It was strange, at first, to see a foreign object over my son's mouth, but I'm starting to get more used to his new look.  While he's sucking on it, he reminds me of Maggie Simpson (click her name for a photo).  For those that are not familiar, the popular "Simpsons" cartoon had a baby that always had a pacifier in her mouth, and she was always noticeably sucking on it.  In fact, it was almost like her own language she used to speak on the show.  When a scene in the show would highlight her, her response was always just a profound sucking of her pacifier.

Evan's first pacifier experience

The Baby Bjorn

Before Evan was born, I spent several of my summer weekends going to garage sales to buy Evan a lot of the major items he'd need.  I'm a bargain shopper, and after seeing all the great buys I got from my first garage sale outing of the summer, John was a strong supporter of garage sale shopping too, and often joined me for them.  The biggest garage sale shopping day for us was in June when our neighborhood, and two other nearby neighborhoods, had their neighborhood-wide sales.  We started off in our neighborhood on foot, and right away got his baby swing (for only $10! and which we had to carry home right away before continuing on), some baby clothes, a boppy pillow, some toys, and some books.  Then I set off in the car to the other neighborhoods and got his changing table with pad (for only $15!), a bouncer chair, a baby gate, and the Baby Bjorn infant carrier.  While these carriers often run around $100 new, I scored this one for $5!  I'd read various reviews about the Baby Bjorn brand...that while they are expensive (implying good quality?) and a popular brand, some reviews rated their ergonomic comfort poorly.  Thus, we'd registered for an ErgoBaby Sport carrier, which got much better reviews for ergonomic comfort (but is also over $100), so in the meantime I figured trying out a Baby Bjorn for only $5 couldn't hurt.

Before Evan was born John tried it on and wanted to get a feel for how to use it before we had a real baby in it.  We put a big bag of rice and a sack of flour inside it to give it some weight, and John practiced attaching all the pieces that are needed to secure a baby.  However, last night was the first test with the real Evan.  Evan seemed to be alright while in it, as he didn't really fuss too much more than normal (as we put him in it during his fussy period of the day anyway), but we didn't have him in it for too long either.  Either way, I thought he was just too cute in it.  When you look at John from the front, all you see are little arms and legs sticking out of it!  John said he didn't think it was that uncomfortable with Evan in it, however the real test for that will be after he wears it for awhile (say on a long walk, or on a sightseeing excursion).

All you can see are arms and legs coming out of the carrier on John's chest.

Just look at my little cutie in the carrier.  So precious!

Odds and Ends

Other news today is that the scabs on Evan's head, from the bruise he got during delivery, are all finally gone!  Hooray!  And, today I felt like a pro at the mom business when I was feeding Evan.  Evan had a couple burps that resulted in a big spit up and I got the burp cloth into the perfect position to collect the spit up without getting it on me, him, or anything else for that matter.  I'm sure this was just a bit of luck and/or good timing, but for that moment I was a pretty proud mom.  I felt like I'd finally figured out something right about this whole act of being a mother, and even exclaimed to John "I'm a pro now!".