What an amazing week we've had! First of all, the one night of good sleep mentioned in our last post was not a fluke. We are so thankful, because this little guy has been sleeping so well at night. Marésa, merciful heart that she has, proposed that Jan only get up if Duvan cries in between feeding times, or if he has a hard time going back to bed after a feeding. Marésa reckons Jan doesn't have much of a breast to offer, and will come wake her up anyway if Duvan's hungry. Duvan is so good though, that Jan's soothing services are rarely required.

Duvan's facial expressions are amazing. It's as he's communicating every sensation and thought with a full flexing of his facial muscles. He has so many unique facial expressions. It's so neat to watch! We captured some of the expressions one afternoon during happy time on Marésa's lap. He wasn't really making any noises, just hanging out...

Jan attempted the same, but tried to capture smiles. They were all too short though, and whenever he clicked the shutter, by the time the camera had focused, the smile was gone :(.

We realized how precious this time is. He already seems bigger to us, (that was confirmed at the doctor's office today). Although this is probably the time in which he interacts the least with us (although a stare straight into your eyes speaks more than a thousand words), we're already sad that this time is running out.

Duvan was dressed for success for his first doctor's appointment!

He was so good in the exam room, not uttering a single cry, and constantly amusing Dr. Walker with his looks. He seemed very perplexed during the examination. :)

Here's Duvan hanging out in his bouncy seat. It's more like a rocking chair though. This was the first time that he seemed to grab something. He looked unaware of it though. :)

Since our honeymoon is over, we're now hard at work at establishing a healthy routine. Please pray God's wisdom for us in being successful at doing this. Our first priority is trying to teach him to fall asleep on his own. Tonight seems to especially challenging. He's either become quite crafty at figuring out when we're about to leave him, or is just upset over something. He will not go down to bed anything! This last picture is from earlier this evening when he was really tired (though would still not go to sleep). Right now we're longing for that moment. :)

You might have noticed that we slowed down a little in updating the website! Our goal is at least once a week, especially now that we're back in the swing of things.

God blessed us with an amazing group of friends, who cooked dinner for us for 7 nights in a row, allowing us all of last week without having to cook. It was such a blessing, and we're so thankful!

For a (very very brief) moment we wondered whether we should save the cord for posterity, but realized that posterity might not appreciate it. There are other things to save and cherish. :)

Well, at the end of our last post we mentioned about Duvan's slight disposition toward sleep. It turns out that we learnt an amazing lot about our son in the last week. It's amazing, but it's as if in the first week, Duvan did whatever his reflexes told him to do. This week however, he's already starting to figure out that some things he likes more than others. He definitely likes to be in our company more than being alone. He likes more to be held upright that held lying down. He loves it if you walk around with him. Surprisingly, he can get enough of being held - and gets to a point where he wants to be out of arms (though not out of sight). Most evenings when Duvan's bedtime is not synchronized with what our idea for his bedtime should be, it appears that one needs to be a little pragmatic, trying different things until those eyes are just too heavy.

We're at the end of our first "regular" week, with Jan at work and Marésa at home with Duvan all day. Our evenings are so different, and have simplified a tremendous amount, with one or two major things that gets accomplished with Duvan. Typically, it's bathtime, feeding time and bedtime. Marésa and I have to make the most of little pockets of time we have in between for just the two of us. We don't know how one could ever have the baby sleep in your bed with you, and still have time for each other. We're thankful we stuck to having Duvan in his room.

Here's a one-eyed little guy, half opening an eye to see what Dad's up to with that weird looking thing pressed to his face.

Then, moments later, peace is written all over him. Now here, Duvan is sleeping like a baby.

To celebrate Duvan's cord falling off, we'd like to post the last picture with the cord still on! Bath time is already becoming more fun. At first Duvan would be very unhappy about all the wetness applied to his warm body, but now he seems to enjoy it. I guess he's starting to like the massage. We love it too, because he is super alert, and will interact a little. Bath time is still close to the kitchen sink, which seems weird at first, but once you realize how much easier it is to have him on counter-top height to work with, makes a lot of sense.

One thing that we still wish to capture to share with you, is Duvan's noises. Particularly while latched on to the breast, he makes the sweetest little sounds communicating ultimate satisfaction. Or when he is hungry, he will gobble down gulp after gulp, stopping only to catch an audible breath. It is so precious!

Well, it's appropriate to talk about sleep today. We noticed last week that Duvan is definitely not close to sleeping the average 16-20 hours of sleep that newborns get. Marésa, prudent mother that she is, decided to start keeping a log of when Duvan is sleeping and we were a little alarmed to find that he was getting a mere 9-12 hours of sleep (in total) each day. Whoa. Not enough, we reckoned. To add to the complexity, we ran into the difficult question of how we should approach naptimes. As we've mentioned before, we'd really like to teach Duvan to fall asleep on his own, rather than to be rocked to sleep. Conventional wisdom tells you that if nothing else is bothering baby, it's okay to let him cry for a while before falling asleep. This way he'll learn the skill all parents covet for their babies - self-calming. That's in theory. In practice, it's a whole different story. First of all, it's heartbreaking to listen to a baby cry, and 5 minutes quickly start to feel like 5 hours, so that the 20 minute limit that some of the books suggest, seems days away. Secondly, it's not clear that this philosophy works for a 2 week old baby, with whom you're still building a relationship of trust. All the latest literature hold fast that you cannot "spoil" a child this young by rocking him/her, and that it's better to tend to baby at this age than to leave him. Hmmm, the dilemma is though that he will not stay this young, and once he's older, he'll love the habit of being rocked to sleep, so that we might have a harder time breaking it again. In our hearts, we know that the right way is for him to learn that at night, we will not always come when he has to fall asleep.

Anyway, we spent a lot of time the last couple of days trying to find a position to stand on in the sleep-area. We've come to the following conclusion. We'll take somewhat of the middle ground. We'll wait until Duvan's at least 1 month old before attempting to let him cry himself to sleep. In the meanwhile, we earnestly prayed to the Lord to start teaching Duvan this technique, so that we won't have to listen to his heartrending lament. :) Now, let me remind you that we serve an awesome God. If He had given us His Son on the cross, wouldn't He do this for us? Yes, He gladly will. So we followed the advice of Phil. 4:6:

"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God."

...and made our requests known to God in earnest prayer. Well, the last two days has been amazing. Duvan has not required any lenghty bedtime routine the last 2 nights. After his late-evening feeding, with him being milk-drunk and already very drowsy, he falls asleep quite peacefully (as opposed to before where he would wake up after 10 minutes and really call (read: cry) for us). Or tonight (and this morning), he would lie and groan a little, coo a little and just be talkative for 20-30 minutes(!!), and finally fall asleep. This is amazing, and if you have kids of your own, you'll know how much this means! Yes, it's only been two days, but again, the Lord has shown us that if we cry out to Him, He is quick to answer in the most loving manner. We can absolutely not take any credit for this behavior, because we've literally not done anything different. Praise God!

So... that's the long story to Duvan's first 7.5 hours of uninterrupted sleep. We're very excited!

Sunday was Duvan's first time to church. We took all of the morning from 7am to 10am getting ready for it, and was still 10 minutes late (well, we were interrupted with a fairly long phone call from great friends, so we really did okay). Either way, he was peaceful and slept through most of it the 2 1/2 hour service. Maresa missed the sermon since she had to feed him midway, so he cheated a little. :) Afterward, he fell asleep on Dad's chest.

You may find this hard to believe, but we're also taking pictures with our film camera. :) Yes, Jan has somewhat of a disposition toward the camera, so will take any opportunity he gets. Since we had a roll to fill, we also snapped some with the digital camera for the site. It was the first time that Duvan was awake while being outside (he's hardly awake when in the stroller), and he was quite taken by the world we live in. The sky, the son, the trees and especially our faces in the sunlight, he took it all in with wide-eyed marvel.

Hehehe this look is classic. Whenever he's done feeding, and gets burpin', he'll be on your shoulder like this. Sometimes he's lazily throwing his arms over your shoulder, other times he'll arch his head back and try to look into your eyes, or he will plunge face-first into your shoulder and fight with your shirt for breath, until the shirt wins and he sleepily turns his head to lie on his cheek. Other times, like here, he seems to grab a hold of your shoulder and hang on for dear life!

Monday afternoon Duvan was smashing the scales on adorability in his bouncy seat. Marésa caught a couple of his expressions, and we'd like to share the wave with you! The smiles are coming more frequently now, and we actually reproduced one this evening 3 times in a row. Whoa, that was the coolest.

Look out in the right-hand column (the menu) of this page. Pretty soon we will add a "Downloads" section. We've developed an Excel sheet to keep track of Duvan's vitals, to see how he's doing on sleep and on the ins and outs of food. This is crucial info for a doctor whenever you'd like to call them for advice. It also allows you to plot your baby's development against the official US growth charts issued by the Center for Disease Control, so you'll know when baby is not thriving as it should. Pretty nifty, but could be considered overkill for some.

Now, we'd like to start out by saying that the great start to last week (as far as sleeping goes) persisted right through the week. Last week, Duvan fell into a schedule of getting up once at night, between 1 and 3am, and then sleeping through the night. Saturday night the rumble of a serious bowel movement announced itself through the monitor to Jan while he was working on the computer. Duvan seemed not to care so much, but dad thought he'd rather get him dry, so in the process of changing the diaper, Duvan woke up and realized that this heavy deposit to the diaper left a big hole in his stomach. So he convinced Dad to wake up Mommy for a midnight snack. Well, we used the opportunity to capture on audio the little noises Duvan makes while nursing. We'd like to share these with you, if you care to hear them.

Nursing Clip 1 (30 seconds, MP3, 90kB)
Nursing Clip 2 (30 seconds, MP3, 90kB)

(If you're not familiar with mp3 files, don't worry. In most cases, you should be able to listen to the file by merely clicking on it, and letting your web browser figure out the details.)

When he's hungry, he's really verbal while eating, and let's you know that he's not going anywhere. :) His grandma Jacobs identified the sounds (over the telephone and halfway across the globe) as that of a lion cub. We'll stick with that, it suits his African roots.

Monday was a day of highlight upon highlight. It started with the visit to our pediatrician's office. Duvan saw a different doc this time, although she had met him in the hospital during a routine check-up. She was very happy with him, especially his alertness. He was a real charmer, being very talkative and watching her every move. She was concerned with his eyes appearing a little jaundiced, so wanted to be careful and sent him for a bilirubin blood test. This led into the episode mentioned above where Duvan cried his first tear. The way he responded to Marésa's soothing efforts, turning his wailing into whimpering appeals for more of the comfort only she could provide, caused a flood of completely new and very strong emotions to dance through Marésa's veins.

In the afternoon, we got to show him off at Jan's lab, and he hung out with Jan for an hour in the office while Marésa went grocery shopping. Duvan used the time to give Jan some good pointers as to how to get this PhD wrapped up.

Here Duvan's hanging out with Mom. He's now able to lift his head like this, especially if there's something worth seeing. In this case, there definitely was!

Monday evening, Duvan had his first real bath. He seems to grasp now that it's actually a fun activity, so he provides endless entertainment for his parents.

The highlight of bath time on Monday night was his reaction to being in water for the first time. His first reaction to this new sensation was fear, which caused him to cry for a short while, until his brain figured "Hey, this is actually kinda cool, it's like being back in the womb!". He then loved it, and for the longest time would just lie wide-eyed in utter astonishment.

We feel like the Lord poured out blessing upon blessing on us Monday. The emotions that are evoked when dealing with your own child is extremely powerful and unlike anything that you've ever experienced. This love is like the rising tide of the ocean, constantly washing into deeper chambers of your heart, quickly becoming part of everything that defines who you are.

We are thoroughly enjoying our time with Schalk & Jana visiting. They love Duvan, and hang out with him a lot. It's amazing how much we as parents appreciate love shown to our child!

There are certain times during the day when Duvan seems to be particularly adorable. Anytime late at night, when it's a struggle to keep the atmosphere conducive to sleep. Another time is in the mornings; he's particularly happy early in the morning when waking up, and also after his morning nap. The changing table is another favorite spot, he always radiates with contentment while being changed. It may be the routine and the fact that it is a familiar environment in which he's getting loads of attention, but he's definitely super cute during that time! He might not necessarily be smiling ear to ear, but his eyes and body language are singing of happiness.

At times Duvan looks like has a million things to say and straining with all his might to try and get it out. He'll wave his arms in excitement and groan and do baby-talk, and work himself so deep under your skin that you cannot help but bubble with love for him.

Stretching makes out a big part of his daily routine. He looks just like an Anne Geddes baby (Dad wishes he could capture him like that too) when he stretches. When nursing, he will let Marésa know that he's done by pulling in his legs, pushing out his bum and stretching with a groan and a lot of talking!

Thursday night was really chilly, and Duvan got cold towards the morning and had troubled sleep. We decided that he could hang out with us in bed to warm up for the rest of the morning.

Sleeping has been going extremely well. Putting Duvan down for the evening went from a ~40min affair in the first 2 weeks to 10 minutes in the last two. He's falling asleep on his own now, although he still sometimes require us calming him with our hand on his belly, or just anything that lets him know we're around. We are now able to put him down while wide awake, and can expect him to fall asleep within the next 20 minutes. That is such an amazing blessing!

Here Duvan is spending some time with Jana. All he wanted was sleep, and Jana had the hardest time trying to convince him that mommy needs for him to be awake, since he had just eaten. He won the battle though and got to take a nice quiet nap. :)

Well, we really can't say enough about how alert Duvan is. He's growing so quickly, and literally surprises us on a daily basis with how much he seems to learn of the world he lives in. This morning he figured out that he can make the toys in his play-gym swing around if he swings his arm around in the same general vicinity of the toys. So he would just lie there for a while and every now and then "hit" the toy to watch it swing and hear the rattle. This evening Jan carried him around the house and explained each room a little, and he really loved the guided tour. Here he saw himself in the mirror (although he found the light above the mirror a lot more fascinating).

We've decided to take a monthly picture of Duvan in the same position on the same blanket, so that we can compare month to month to see how he's growing. In a couple of months, we'll let you in on the series, so you can experience the growth! Thank you so much for your comments (and private e-mails) on this site. We love to hear that you've visited, so please keep up the commenting! (If you haven't figured it out yet, there's a link right below this paragraph to the right that will allow you to "Post a Comment". Click on it and fill out the form to contribute to this webpage!).