short but sweet

good morning

!!!

SAYAN SLEPT FOR 6 CONSECUTIVE HOURS LAST NIGHT!!! from 8:30 - 2:30. i can't believe it! soooo exciting! yay sayan!

bath with daddy

getting hungry

he makes these cute little cooing/grunting noises when he gets hungry.

ella and sayan

new friends

the mullenneaux/martlins were in town last week and sayan loved spending time with them. he has only recently started to connect with people (mostly just jaison) but ella wanted to hold sayan and we put him on her lap and he gazed up at her with total awareness and almost adoration. he was cooing and smiling and almost laughing at times. a definite karmic connection there. so cute to see! and nayan was adorable with him, he kept "petting the baby", gently touching him on the top of the head. when the kids were together they were all so fascinated with each other and on their best behavior, so much so that we realized we should have gotten them together sooner!

possible outie

so sayan has an umbilical hernia-- which sounds much worse than it is. a few weeks ago we noticed that his belly button was starting to be poofy (see the bath video) and when we pressed it back in it made a funny bubbling noise. we took him to his pediatrician who said he has an umbilical hernia and that it's extremely common. apparently it's a predisposition of the intestine to pop out into the belly button and many cases naturally heal within 12 months but if it doesn't then the belly button turns into an "outie". i always thought it was how the cord was tied that determined that but nope, it's dependent on if that baby had an umbilical hernia. it looks like it must be really painful but our doctor said it isn't at all. the good news is that we took him in for a check up today and the doctor said the internal gap has started to close up and is healing!

bath with daddy

sayan had his first bath in the big tub the other day. he really loved it-- it was so cute, as soon as we put him in his eyes got really big and he was super still and looking all around. then he settled in and relaxed and now he takes a bath with one of us most of the time rather than in his little tub-- which he has almost outgrown! i'll upload a video of his bath also.

bunny love

so sayan's FAVORITE thing is the bunny mobile that valerie and joe got him. he would watch it for hours if we had the patience to keep winding it up! we set it up over his changing table and we will often just bring him in and lay him down there even if he doesn't need to be changed. sometimes we set up a chair next to him so we can do other things and then periodically wind up the mobile. at first he would just watch it but now he actively grabs for the bunnies. we went to des moines again the other day to pick up furniture (yay!!) and brought the mobile in the car and pulled it out when he got fussy. hooray for the bunnies! i have video of this but it's not uploading... i will try again later, lots of little clips to share.

growing up so fast!

we have internet! and soooo much to tell about sayan! i will try to upload lots of pics and video and stories in the next couple of days to catch everyone up to date on our little man.

home sweet home

FINALLY!!! although we won't have internet for awhile so the blog may take a hiatus for a week or even more. love to everyone...

baby sneezes

getting chubby!

he's getting little baby chub! he now weighs 9 lbs 14 oz and is 21 3/4 " tall. Dr. Iles also said he is acting like a 4 week old so he is advancing really fast. with preemies they go by their gestational age rather than birth age and it usually takes 1-2 years for the babies to "catch up" but sayan is already almost adjusted! she was very impressed with him.

music man

so it seems as though sayan really likes music. in general, whenever we sing to him he gets super still with big eyes. on our way to washington on monday for his check-up he was contentedly staring out the window, alertly taking in the outside of the car for the first time. then at about brighton he started fussing and then screaming for several minutes. we decided to turn on music and jai put on "angel" by sarah mclachlan and after 10 seconds he completely stopped crying and sat there with big eyes. as the song ended he started fidgeting again and we were terrified that he would start up again so jai kept hitting repeat all the way to the doctor's...

just a cute pic

social bunny

well we had our FF debut yesterday. christen and i walked with sayan to the golden dome market to get a few things and ended up seeing half of FF. i have to say that the ladies definitely love him!!! he was like a magnet, we never had less than 4 people paying homage to our little man.

my heart

my heart is growing more and more full with every day that passes. and that fullness seeps into every cell until my entire being is pulsing with love for my sayan. we are so blessed.

tummy time

we try to put sayan on his tummy for 5-10 minutes every day. it's sposed to develop his strength and crawling coordination. he has super powerful legs, if we put our hand behind his legs he pushes forward and scoots along. we'll try to get some video of that too.

daddy time

sayan is most alert and expressive when he is with his daddy. jaison has a way of inspiring connections and communication that no one else does and sayan loves looking at and interacting with daddy. jai tells sayan stories and sings to him and sayan eats it up and responds. it's the most fulfilling experience to watch them together. i love my men!!!

chillin in the tub

Auntie Christen

sayan's favorite person to sleep on is auntie christen. no matter how fidgety he is, as soon as she holds him he immediately settles down into the deepest and looooongest sleep.

little talker

morning eyes

at night sayan has started sleeping in 2-3 hour chunks, 3 1/2 when i'm really lucky. it was definitely hard at first but i'm adjusting and feeling pretty rested these days. well, relatively speaking!! the hardest thing is sometimes he wakes up for feeding at 5:30 just as it's getting light and he is awake and wants to have awake time. i want to play with him and encourage awake time but i'm also so exhausted i just want to go back to sleep. i have to say sleep usually prevails...

big yawn

our precious companion

we found out after we'd named him that sayan means precious companion. such a perfect reflection of him.

SAYANA

a family friend recently pointed out that Sayana was an important commentator on the Vedas:

Sayana (from Wikipedia)
Sāyaṇa, (with honorific Sāyaṇācārya ; died 1387) was an important commentator on the Vedas. He flourished under King Bukka I and his successor Harihara II, in the Vijayanagar Empire of South India. He was the son of Māyaṇa, and the pupil of Vishnu Sarvajna and of Samkarananda. More than a hundred works are attributed to him, among which are commentaries on nearly all parts of the Veda; some were carried out by his pupils, and some were written in conjunction with his brother Mādhava

Sayana's major work is his Vedartha Prakasha (literally, "the meaning of the Vedas made manifest"), or commentary on the Vedas. His commentary on the Rigveda was edited by Max Müller, 1849-1875. The core portion of the commentary was likely written by Sayana himself, but it also includes contributions of his brother Mādhava, and additions by his students and later authors who wrote under Sayana's name. "Sayana" (or also Sāyaṇamādhava) by convention refers to the collective authorship of the commentary as a whole without separating such layers. He has also written many lesser manuals called Sudhanidhis treating Prayaschitta (expiation), Yajnatantra (ritual), Purushartha (aims of human endeavour), Ayurveda (Indian traditional medicine), Sangit Sara (The essence of music), Prayaschitra, Alankara, Sarvadarshanasangraha (philosophy) and Dhatuvrddhi (grammar).

big weekend

sayan had his first real outings this weekend. we went to des moines on saturday, 4 hours in the car and furniture shopping all day and he did really well! he was pretty good on the drive and then spent most of the day in a sling with daddy or with papa walter in the car. yesterday we took him to the reservoir for a picnic with some friends. we set him up on a blanket under the trees and he seemed to enjoy his time there. we're still not planning to take him into crowded environments but are slowly easing into him into life out and about.

my favorite thing...

...is at night when we are lying in bed, if he is squawking and fidgeting and not settling to sleep, as soon as i put my cheek or forehead on his forehead and angle him very close he immediately squeezes his eyes shut and starts making sleep cooing noises and breathing really fast and then ultimately drifts off to sleep. it is the sweetest experience. as soon as i touch my head to his, he tries so hard to go to sleep!

baby exercises

first bottle

Sayan had his first (well second if you count his trial hospital) bottle today. i went to get my haircut and we had read that 5 weeks was a good time to "introduce" the bottle. much later and they might not take to it. so jai fed him and said he was pretty confused for the first few minutes but then adjusted. though he kind of lost interest before eating too much. and then got very excited to return to his normal dinner offering. we'll probably give him one a week or so to keep him familiar with it for when we really need to feed him that way. any thoughts in that regard are welcome!

we took some cute video of bath time today but it's too big to upload so i need to figure out how to edit it down before posting...