Doctors Visits Aren't Much Fun

Naomi and Evan had a fourth month checkup at the doctor on Monday. Poor little things, they had no idea going in that this particular visit was immunization time. I guess in order to get it over with a little quicker, the nurse actually brought in a helper and on the count of three both nurses hit a leg of one baby with one of the immunization shots. Needless to say, this didn't go over well. Erin described it as something akin to a grenade, "You could just see it in their faces. They would get the shot, then a huge wide-eyed expression, then nothing but screams."

Other than immunization trauma everything went well. Naomi weighed 13 lbs. 1 oz. and Evan was 11 lbs. even, maintaining his two pound disadvantage. Naomi's weight has actually pulled her up into the middle of the pack in the magic children's growth chart that all doctors have showing national percentiles of growth. Evan, on the other hand, is maintaining his "1%" status. The good thing is that both are tracking well to the curve, and maybe are even faster, so there aren't any concerns about their growth.

Probably the biggest change since the last time I posted is we now have full-blown smiling from both babies. To all you new parents out there not yet to this stage, I can only say hang in there. It really is a pretty dramatic difference just in our mental state, being able to interact with them and actually get a response if they like it. It's just a little easier to take when Evan is refusing to drink from the bottle, but laughing at you while you're scowling at him.

New Baby Photos (Described)

The local camera shop in Lexington rents studio lights for the weekend, and since light kits tend to be pretty darn expensive, this seemed like a fun way to experiment with some "real" lights.

All in all it was definitely a good experience. There's a pretty large learning curve with using light that bright (at least there was for me). The rental kit came with three lights but I only ever used two at most for the kids, sometimes even just one. My rickety home-made backdrops filled that role once again, with the addition of a king size white sheet that desperately needed ironing. The lights were strobes with modeling lights, but taking the light that emanated from the modeling lights and conveying that into what showed up on the camera was a pretty big jump. Thank goodness for digital, there's no way I could have done anything otherwise. My main method of getting the right exposure was just to pick an arbitrary starting point and watching the little view-finder until it looked about right.

Evan and Naomi are both doing well. Naomi's turning into quite the little chunk, she's up over 12 pounds now and happily drinking the bottles we give her. Evan's about two pounds behind her, about to crack the 10 pound mark and still being a squeaker when he drinks his bottle. The best news though is that both have started to interactively smile back at us, an extremely positive breakthrough that I don't think you could explain to anyone who wasn't already a parent. They're definitely very aware of their environment and love watching their mobile go round and round or just kicking back and watching the fan turn. Naomi is our lazy baby; she typically falls asleep shortly after eating and stays pretty conked until the next feeding time. Evan, on the other hand, well, Evan's not real big on sleep during the day. He'd much rather lie awake, or wave his arms, or look at the mobile, or suck on his pacifier, or really do just about anything else BESIDES go to sleep. Well, that is until about 30 minutes before it's time to eat again. Then he's out like a light. Figures.

In addition to the seven pictures in the slide-show I posted, there are a bunch more in the main Photobucket site. I tried not to be as picky as I normally am and just get some posted; let me know what you think!

New Baby Photos

To stop the slide show, just hover over the picture and you'll see three buttons, back, stop, and forward.