Raisin Update

Young Raisin and his father on a rainy morning

On Saturday Mr. Raisin Face turned one month old, and there was much rejoicing. I had every intention of posting about what he's up to on the actual day, but life got in the way. We've had a lot of that happening around here lately, and while I'm a little tired, it sure makes for an exhilarating autumn. Take it from me: if you really want time to fly, just have four kids in four years.

Dooo it.

Anyway! Mr. Raisin is a precious wonder who is a genius. On Wednesday he officially turned 4 weeks old, and to celebrate he finally lost his umbilical cord stump. (Seriously, it took that long. I declared that he was stubbornly hanging on to the last tangible reminder of the best time of his life.) Thus we were able to start using the wonderful supply of cloth diapers we had waiting for just such a time, and things on that front are going swimmingly. We are using a hodge-podge collection of prefolds with PUL and woollen covers, contours with same covers, and fancy-pants yuppie diapers that don't take much brain power. I love them all, and I love that I'm not running across town to Target three times a week to stock up on ridiculously priced diapers that I will just. throw. away.

Mr. Raisin also celebrated his one month birthday by suddenly and completely refusing to fit into newborn or 0-3 month clothing. Sure, the cloth diapers help by giving him the most bulbous butt ever, but the child is loooong. And easily the heftiest of all our skinny babies. So his mother had to scramble and fill in his wardrobe with the next size up. She also cried. Hey, she's pretty hormonal.

In less happy news, The Professor and I are giving up and finally admitting that we have another colicky baby on our hands. King Peter the Boy had screaming-from-8-to-12-every-night colic for 3 solid months, and while Raisin doesn't scream his heart out for quite that long each evening, he sure puts up a good try. It makes for much exhaustion and frustration. Colic sucks.

To counteract the colic, we've had lots of good family and friends take care of us with meals, dates with the big siblings, and baby-holding so that a frazzled mama can get in a quick shower from time to time. Janie and Juniper just recently spent an entire week with us, bringing meals and lots of help and fun, while The Professor was away for many days at a conference out of state. I may have gone insane without their help. Janie: Thank you. From the bottom of my heart.

So things are pretty typical of a home with a newborn. I thought I should give you a quick update, just in case you were wondering where we had disappeared. I have some great things regarding my big kids to relate, and I'll do that soon, I promise. It's just that Mr. Raisin is sort of taking center stage right now and deserves his fair share of blog posts.

He's such a diva, y'all.