Smiles and Skin Issues

Matthias is now 6 weeks old...I can't believe how fast the time has gone, or how big he has grown! He has gotten so chunky. :)

Each day, he seems to have a few "smile sessions" where he is just the happiest baby and can't stop smiling. Today, I was positive that he tried to laugh. He made the cutest little cooing noise while smiling a couple of different times! I didn't catch the laughing on video, but here is a short clip I recorded today that shows a few of his big smiles.




For the last few weeks, Matthias has had some sort of skin problem on his face. It started out as baby acne, then he started to get little red patches/bumps that we thought might be an allergic reaction to something or a heat rash. The baby acne disappeared, but the red spots/patches got worse and his skin got very dry and flaky (his ears were actually kind of scaly!). We finally figured out that he had eczema on his face...both Jason and I have had eczema (Jason's is more severe than mine), so I guess it's not too surprising. Plus, it is very dry in our house, so I'm sure that doesn't help. This past weekend, we stopped using the scented Johnson's baby lotion and started applying lanolin and a non-scented Aveeno brand baby cream to his face a few times a day, and his face looks so much better. He is almost back to his original soft, flawless baby complexion he had for the first couple of weeks. :) He has also stopped rubbing his face against our shoulders so much...poor kid, his face must have been very itchy!

Here is one more video. Last week, Matthias was sound asleep and we were trying to wake him up because it was time for him to eat. He was propped up on Jason's legs, and every time Jason would pull him up, he would make this little grunting noise...but he would not wake up at all. It was pretty funny. You can't hear the grunts very well, but his other noises are pretty audible.