Who is our little guy?

I just finished reading the blog of another new mom. In it, she has a post about all the things she already knows about her new daughter. It was so charming to read that I decided I'd steal her idea and try to create the same for Akiva. Are blogs the new baby books?

Who is Akiva?

Akiva sleeps most of the day still. Mark and I take turns staring and smiling at him and trying not to touch him too much so we don't disturb his sleep. When he falls asleep and wakes up, he goes through a period of eye-rolling and cute facial expressions. He has an elvis face, a sad face, a big smile face, and a "whatever" face (accompanied by an eye roll). We've seen a similar phenomenon in the whimpers and leg movements in our dogs when they fall asleep. We know Akiva's not doing eny of these on purpose - they are a product of his brain falling asleep. Nevertheless, I wonder exactly what his brain is doing to stimulate these faces. Are they faces he's seen us make? Are they faces that are hard-wired into the human experience? Will I remember to get the video camera out to capture this adorable phase before he stops doing it?

After the show, he falls into a deep, angelic sleep. It's hard not to take pictures (see blog entry below).

When he finally wakes up fully, he's often content to gaze around the room. Light and shadows hold special appeal for him. He focuses on our faces more and more frequently, though, with his deep blue eyes - so blue at this point that I have to search for the pupils in their depths. We usually talk to him while he's doing his or we take the opportunity to participate in our other favorite pastime, kissing the baby. I can't get enough of kissing this kid!

Eventually, he either wants to eat or needs a diaper change. Just when I'm convinced that my two week old son is ageing so quickly I can't keep up, I have to burp him. He's so floppy and relaxed when he's eating that it's easy to remember that he's still a newborn. His little body folds up against my body as I rest his head on my shoulder. Again, more baby-kissing.

He hates his car seat until he realizes that he's going somewhere and will get to look at new stuff. We're trying not to give him a pacifier (though we did buy some for diaper changing purposes when he sometimes cries inconsolably). He's not really interested in them, anyway. He much prefers to suck on my or Mark's pinky finger.

He's oblivious to the dogs who come by several times a day to sniff him. Their barking doesn't bother him, a fact that worried us at first. Then, we realized that he'd been hearing the dogs bark in utero for quite a while.

If he wakes up at night I'll lay him down next to me and look at him in the eyes. Sometimes I fall asleep and awaken a few minutes later to a small hand brushing my lips as if to say, "Hey, Mom, wake up!". If he falls back to sleep he somehow manages to scoot the top of his body as close as he can to mine - very charming.

Right now he's asleep on my lap. He finished nursing a few minutes ago and I'm waiting for his slumber to become nice and deep before I lay him down. I think I'll go kiss the baby a few more times before turning in for the night.