Born April 6, 2002, at 12:13 PM
I wrote the first draft of Silas' birth story largely (and yes, it IS large) for myself, so it contains a whole lot of detail on what we experienced and felt. If you a) REALLY love me, b) are a birth story junkie, or c) are trying to maximize procrastination on the web today, read this version. Alternatively, you could read a version about half as long, with the less interesting details edited out. For those who want to skip to the most exciting part (about a page worth), read this one.
Here are some pictures of Silas on his first day (in the hospital).
Since pictures are better than words for this subject, first, here are some shots of Silas in various baby poses about the house and with family. We think he looks a lot like Janet (Julie's mother). I'm not sure if you can tell from the pictures how much hair he has (though some is falling out in front now, we think). It's light brown in color when there's not much light, but when he's in the sunlight it's definitely red. But who knows what it will be next year!
The main thing to say about Silas' first month from our parental point of view is that so far, he's an EASY baby. He is very quiet: he sleeps most of the time, and doesn't cry much at all. When he does cry, he usually stops pretty quickly if we pick him up and walk around with him. During his awake times, he's usually in that adorable "quiet alert" phase, taking everything in with big eyes.
As for sleeping, it's almost embarrassing how much sleep we're getting as parents of a newborn (more than when I was pregnant, for sure). He generally goes to sleep an hour after I get Russell settled, sleeps for 4 or 5 hours, then nurses and immediately goes back to sleep for another 5 or 6 hours. This schedule works partly because he "cluster feeds" in the evening and morning (which I am HAPPY to do if it allows those long stretches at night) and partly because he doesn't poop at night, so we don't have to do a big complicated diaper change. (For non-parents, that's probably too much information, but parents who've had poopier babies will understand why we are thrilled!) Anyway, I am not so dumb as to assume nighttime will continue to be this easy, but every night like this we get is a bonus.
Breastfeeding Silas has been easy, too (as much as nursing an infant can be, anyhow) and painless, and he weighed 5 ounces more at 12 days old than he had at birth, which was pretty good. Since then, he's grown quite a bit and is getting nice and plump. He does spit up a lot, but nobody's perfect.
He's getting so much more alert every day. This week he gazes fixedly at us, and today (1 month and 1 day) he really smiled at me!! His eyes lit up and everything. So cute.
There's a lot to explain about Silas' name, so why not here?
"Silas" is an English or Latin (I've seen both proposed) name, and appears in the Bible (so I've heard). Julie's great-grandmother (mother's mother's mother, Bess Rosa, nee Naylor) had a brother named Silas, and Julie has vague memories of her describing him fondly. He died in his twenties of tuberculosis, so none of the family currently living ever met him. We liked the name and were also happy it's pretty obscure.
"Wright" is Julie's last name. We gave Russell the last name Parsons (David's last name), and felt we ought to alternate. After all, we had already doomed ourselves to having two family names when we decided we were both too old to change ours when we got married in 1997. No doubt it will cause a certain amount of confusion to have two full brothers with different last names, but hey, Americans should be used to confused families by now.
However, we gave Silas the middle name Loren, which is Russell's middle name too, as well as David's, and his father Roger's, and his father's (and the first name of HIS father). So they do all share a name... just not the usual one!