I've been hearing a lot lately about how the third child is the hardest. It's definitely been the hardest for Christine. I can't really decide for me. My life is definitely more complicated since we brought this kid home.

Eli update

I'll try to do more updates in the future. :-)

In the meantime, here's a picture of the boy.

Eli on his side on Christine's lap

I learned a little trick with my Canon Powershot S10 digital camera. The camera does this double-flash thing that I've seen most digital and film cameras do. I think it's to meter the exposure with the flash. The problem, though, is that there's just enough time between the first and second flash for the subject to reflexively close their eyes.

My technique may not be an original technique, but it works. I turn the camera to the manual mode (the icon with the 'M' next to the camera icon). I pre-focus the subject by pressing the shutter button half way down. Then, I press the “Set” button on the back of the camera. This activates the first flash — the metering flash. Then I wait until my subject has recovered from the first flash and I push the shutter button and the second flash fires. The picture above was taken this way.

But anyway, back to Eli. This kid isn't sleeping through the night yet, of course. He doesn't sleep much at all at night, in fact. Looking at the time right now, it's 3:25 a.m. He got to sleep before 3 a.m. tonight, which is better than the just-before-4 night I had last night.

I've been doing night duty lately, which ruins my mornings, which ruins my productivity, which ruins my ability to produce gainful income. Arghs!

I'm not sure what we're going to do, but something's gotta give. That's one thing that's easier when you have just one kid - you can let your schedule revolve around his/her schedule. With two or more kids, suddenly, you're not allowed to have a schedule. You're there to serve them!

At his 2-week checkup (which we took him to when he was 12 days old), he was 1/2 ounce under his birth weight. This was a little alarming to me, until Christine explained to me that babies usually lose some weight after they're born. So, he was pretty close to being back up to his birth weight then.

Christine's been having trouble breastfeeding Eli because of a small pocket of fat that's obstructing the milk flow. She's talked to her doctor about it and she's decided she's going to have to stop breastfeeding. Otherwise, she runs the risk of continual infections while she breastfeeds. She was really upset about this because she feels breastfeeding is the best thing for Eli, but we'll deal with it.

He's sure been eating a lot. He eats pretty regularly every two hours- and he's been taking 2-3 ounces each time. As I look at him tonight, he's starting to look kind of chubby whereas up until now he's looked like a pretty trim baby.

Alright, that's enough for now. It's nearly 4 a.m. after all.