March 28th, 2003

Landon is going through an awkward stage right now, he’s losing his hair, one randomly selected patch at a time. Over the past week his hair slowly has disappeared to the point that now he posseses the hair style of a participant in a ‘hair club for men’ commercial. All of his hair has abandoned the top of his cranium, and small patches are beginning to fade away on the sides and back, if you look at him at just the right angle, you can almost make out a bulls eye pattern. The hair that is left is still pretty long and dark brown. Every morning we wake up not knowing what new look Landon will be sporting, and every morning his new hairstyles give us one extra reason to smile.

As if the hair loss wasn’t enough, Landon has also been experiencing a fairly bad case of baby acne. It has something to do with the difference in hormones that he is exposed to now since he is no longer in the womb where Rhiannon’s hormones ran rampant. The pimples began on his forehead, and slowly spread across his face until they had conquered every pore on his precious little face. They have already begun to fade away, although they did leave a permanent mark on his one month portrait. His soft baby skin has begun to return to his chubby cheeks.

Landon is also growing, which makes sense because of how much he is eating (although sometimes the amount of crap he generates seems large enough to cancel out his intake). We weighed and measured him at the hatchery the other day, as of March 27th, Landon weighs 12 lbs and in 24 inches in length. He is averaging 8 oz and a half an inch of growth every week. At this rate, he will be taller than his dad in just a few short years, and ready for the NBA by kindergarten.

A new sound has been heard around the house – Landon has begun to coo. It is the softest, sweetest, gentlest sound. Every time he emits this new vocalization Rhiannon and I anxiously look to each other to confirm what just bounced off our ear drums; another way Landon has lightened our days with increased smiles. It definitely makes the tough, crying and wailing periods easier to handle. Welcome to the ups and downs of the rollercoaster ride of a newborn.