One month

Eric is one month old! He's cooing and gurgling, and just today (Thursday the 23rd) I saw him smile, possibly on purpose. Mind you, he did not smile at me - oh no, he smiled in delight at the black and white design André put on the living room ceiling this weekend and which he has been staring at, enraptured, since Sunday night. (You may remember that Kim & Bridget came up with the brilliant idea of decorating the ceiling over the area where I nurse & over the change table when they visited after Thomas was born. Well, we're at it again - I swear we should market this idea!)

Eric watches the world

Eric remains an observant, relaxed baby. He looks at things so hard & for so long that sometimes I find myself looking, too, just to see if I can fathom how new the world is to him. Even Thomas tries to get his attention when he's looking hard at something. And, more and more, Eric's attention is focused on us. He seems to be recognizing us and his gaze will follow us around the room as he lays in his bouncy seat.

More? Well, these days Eric's got his Daddy's hairline - though it appears to be slowly morphing into his Grandpa Dave's "high forehead". Yup, Eric seems to be losing his hair (though he still has some fuzz on his ears - adorable). I'm fascinated because Thomas more or less kept his hair and it just turned lighter and lighter until one day he was a blond. We'll see what happens with Eric. I'm increasingly convinced that he will have dark eyes, too.

Our Wild Thing offers his brother a suce

Final note, Eric is nothing if not an efficient baby. As we learn together how to nurse, he is working on managing milk flow. Now, most babies have their own techniques, but last week I watched as Eric latched on to get the milk to let down, then pulled off entirely & opened his mouth slightly & just let the milk flow in - without even sucking! I'd call him "clever", but the word "lazy" springs to mind, too. Either way, I'm having to teach him to suck throughout an entire nursing session because we don't want my milk to dry up in a few more weeks. Silly kid.

Sofia, Thomas & Finn at home

As for Thomas, he remains delightful with everyone but me - and sometimes with me, too. This week they reorganized the rooms at his daycare, so he is once again in a classroom with his best buds, Finn & Sofia. So far the teachers haven't told us that they've been too wild, but I know they're all excited. At home, Thomas has been building forts from kitchen chairs (which he then uses to prevent me from getting him dressed), and he's really really excited by Thomas the Tank Engine. We have a book with ALL the Thomas stories, and lately that's almost all we read. Plus, it sometimes has to go into his crib during nap time, in case he needs to read a little on his own. In fact, as we paged through a magazine with homemade Halloween costumes, he found an advertisement with a Thomas costume & he has asked to "just look at it" several days in a row now. Hmm... I think I know what Thomas will be for Halloween. (And here I thought he was going to be a lion.)