Baby LaTour: Three Weeks!

Wow, time sure does fly! Gabe is 3 weeks old today!

Another snapshot of our exciting life in bullet style:

On the 19th, Gabriel was up to 7 lbs 9 oz at his pediatrician appointment. The doctor called him a "pokey gainer," which I took to mean that he was doing ok but not great in the weight-gain department. At our breastfeeding support group, the lactation counselor said that equated to him gaining 13.3 grams per day on average, when normal is 20-30 grams per day. Not terrible but not ideal. I think he will be a tall string bean like his father, and at this point, at least he's gaining *something.* I refuse to stress about it anymore. So he's not like a lot of other babies and got back to his birth weight by 2 weeks of age. Oh well!
I need to start wearing my watch again, or maybe it's just baby brain instead of pregnancy brain now. Thank goodness we are only 20 or so houses down the street from the pediatrician, because I was on the hunt for a baptism photographer online & lost track of time, so we ended up running late for our appointment. I felt like such a terrible mother, but they were happy I called to let them know we were on our way.
I did end up finding a photographer who was available on such short notice (I can't believe I let the time fly and waited so long to line up someone!) and at a reasonable price. We all wish Auntie Chelsea was available to take photos at the church, but that's impossible since she is Godmother and needs to be in them, haha! At least she will be joining us at the house to capture a few moments of getting Gabriel dressed ahead of time; then the photographer will take over at the church.
Feeding plan: The doctor wants us to continue formula supplementation in the same manner as we've been doing, but after a lot of thought, I don't see why this is necessary if I'm pumping the same volume of breastmilk and could be giving him that instead of the supplemental formula. Not that formula is terrible, but there is that mantra of "breast is best." So, in cahoots with the lactation counselor, I've decided to try dropping one bottle feed a night in exchange for doing a breast feed along with weighing him weekly at the support group meetings. If he's still gaining at the same rate or faster, we'll try dropping another bottle feed for a breast feed until we get to all breastfeeding.
Pumping has been going well - I have a stash of about 10 bags of 2-4oz each frozen already (the one good thing about supplementing with formula, I guess).
Gabriel lost his umbilical cord stump on the 18th. Thank goodness! I swear, I must have been super-sensitive to the smell of it because I was so ready for it to be gone!
Gabe got his first real bath (instead of sponge bath) since he lost the cord stump. He *loved* being in the warm water! Thanks to my coworkers for the bath sling that fits perfectly in our kitchen sink. We are waiting to use the larger baby bathtub (thanks to my mom's friend Barbara for that one!) until he gets a little bit bigger, maybe back to his birth weight.

Loving bath time!
On Tuesday, Gabe & I took our first outing all on our own! I'll admit that I was very nervous for several reasons: I hadn't driven a car since October 28th (not that I forgot how but more like I was anxious driving with a newborn!), and I was worried Gabe would cry the whole time or nursing wouldn't go well while we were out of the house. It turned out that I worried unnecessarily! We went to the auto parts store, Stop'n'Shop, and Radioshack before a successful in-the-backseat-of-the-car nursing session. Then we stopped over to visit our good family friend Father Henry. Gabe was wonderful the whole time! He slept a lot of the shopping part but was pretty alert for our social visit.

Trying out our Infantino carrier to go shopping - Thanks Theresa!
My mom's seamstress Larissa finished Gabe's baptismal outfit, and we received it in the mail this week. She made it out of part of my wedding gown, and it is JUST BEAUTIFUL! I won't post pictures until the baptism because it would ruin the suspense and surprise, haha! On a side note, it's not easy to track down white newborn socks, but I finally did it.