Hello everyone,

Life is good with Noah and we enjoy watching him do new things as he grows. He's a sweet boy and, this morning, we just saw him turn to see where Daddy's voice came from for the first time. He's holding his head up longer and longer, and one of his favorite things is to look out the windows as we hold him to our shoulders. He is staying awake for longer stretches now (without crying for food) and seems to enjoy looking and listening and making his small noises. However the only guaranteed spot for a quiet sleepy boy is when he's bundled in the stroller for a walk or in the car seat for a drive. We keep hoping for a true smile; I think we're starting to see happy faces from the boy in the past couple of days. He seems to respond to us more as well. He's a little more roly poly these days too, and his long dark hair grows longer.

Diapering is not nearly as difficult as we expected; mostly it means more laundry loads and a slight stinky aroma (to be remedied with a lidded diaper pail someday). The diapers do often seem too bulky for Noah; his legs are splayed out with them on - a situation we don't notice with disposables. Daddy thinks that our diapers are just a little too large for him right now. They sure do intercept and soak up the occasional changing-table fountain really well, if we're quick enough. Yesterday we finally found a tray to place under our warmer full of Donna's fleecy wipes so that it doesn't condense water all over the place. All to keep Junior's bottom warm and fresh like daisies. Donna and her mom appear to be nearly finished upholstering her glider chair in the nursery. She plans to paint a tree on the nursery (Daddy even geeked out and dug out his Harlow's Textbook of Dendrology as a reference!) Daddy is glad that Junior is not yet moblie enough to require safety improvements around the house, because there just isn't time to do them right now.

Daddy brought his computer speakers back home from school and swiped the microphone out of his stereo so that we can now participate in videoconferences. So the boy can see his cousins. In that special stop-motion kind of way. If you'd like to join us, email to get our usernames on Yahoo Messenger.

Daddy is desperately trying to get school and work responsibilities finished in the next few weeks so that our holidays can be somewhat stress-free. It is not fun at all but Daddy knew it would be like this. Because of his impossible load right now, this journal is not being updated very often.

If you would like to find out what's going on with us, please call! Donna's usually home during the day - which means you East Coast people can call anytime between say 2 pm and 2 am and still catch us awake. Phone calls are just easier for us these days.

As we find motivation and/or time late at night, new photos are uploaded to http://rehbergs.net/mike, and just click on the link for Noah's photos.

Grandma leaves tonight after a 3 week visit which went way too fast. It sure is nice having her here and enjoying the baby with us. We'll see the rest of you back East over the holidays. Please think happy thoughts for Mike so that he can get his life wrapped up so as to let him make a guilt-free family visiting trip in December.

Bye,

Mike