Summer Sleep Safari

WEEK

5

According to this week's BabyCenter, we can now expect to see some genuine smiles out of Scott. These first few weeks, we have interpreted grins as a signal that his digestive system is about to pour out some exhaust. However, we've already seen a few bigger smiles recently. Often, one of us will see the smile and call out to the other to come look -- but the sudden noise chases it away. We need to be a little stealthier.

Stealth is essential on safari.

I had one of my first baby-sitting stints this evening as R had to go out to a meeting. She was only gone for 1-1/2 hours, but it was long enough for me to put a camoflage boonie hat on Scott and take a few pictures. I have been searching all over for a decent sun hat small enough for a newborn. Old Navy had this one, which is still much too large. Fortunately, no one will notice that it's too big because the camo makes it nearly invisible.

BabyCenter also noted that babies start sleeping longer in the night by this point, somewhere around 4-6 hours in a stretch. Each evening we put Scott to bed at 8pm, and he usually sleeps for about 5 hours that first shift. Unfortunately, we've normally stayed up until 10 or 11pm watching hockey games or DVDs, so we haven't taken full advantage of this sleeping opportunity. Last night we did. We went to bed at 8pm and got out of bed at 8am. Scott let us sleep for nearly 6 hours (until 2am) and then only woke up one more time (5am) before 8am. It was absolutely glorious.

Well, the second period of the Senators' hockey game is on, but we're going to tape the rest of it so we can go to bed.