Amusement

Friday Five

2016-04-08T00:50:26Z

From thefridayfive:

1. What's an unfinished project that you should really get to finishing?

Nate's nursery. For. Freaking. Real. It's been like 90% done since the month before he was born, but we have two pictures to hang and a wall to repair and it drives me CRAZY that it's still not done.

Also grading these papers. I've been sick all week and they've been sitting here staring at me sadly, ungraded.

2. What's something you want to finish in the next six months?

Mostly small stuff. The semester. Re-mulching the flower beds and possibly moving some plants. Planting a garden. Printing and framing and sending out pictures from Nate's one year photo shoot.

3. What's something you've done in the last year or so that you're proud to have accomplished?

Kept a kid alive! Breastfed for a year (and still going). I've also done a lot of big projects at work of the sort that get little recognition, but which I feel very proud of - rewrote our for-credit research class, taught it for the first time, created a plan for the shelving of our books, etc.

4. How do you make yourself do something that you don't feel like doing?

Ug. Sometimes I don't. Other times... IDK. I make lists? I like lists. Checking things off makes me feel accomplished. But it's rare that I have a 'project' that I need to do and just don't want to. I (mostly) like the work of my job, and I generally don't mind housework and organizational work.

I sometimes sit around bored and annoyed at myself for being bored (this usually involves refreshing reddit a lot), and I'm trying to keep a list of 'things I could do instead of being annoyed and bored', which helps. If I find myself in that mood, a list helps me actually motivate myself to get up and do something else.

5. Is there anyone around you who's great at staying motivated, who gives you inspiration to be productive?

My former coworker was super motivated and organized, and she gave me a lot of energy. It's one of the things that I miss about her. Most of the time, I'm the organized, productive one in a group, and it was really great to have someone else like that in my life, both to help take the weight off, and to enthuse with me about progress and change.

I have some virtual friends (HELLO teza) who are similarly motivated and organized and productive, and projects with them are likewise usually awesome.

When I work with those people, I feel like being productive actually gives me energy rather than draining it. It's like-- the introvert/extrovert thing, but with productivity. There should be a word for that.

Habits

2016-03-23T20:51:29Z

I'm not usually one for nonfiction books, but I've been reading The Power of Habit, and it is seriously fascinating. If you've read that story about Target figuring out a teen was pregnant before she told her family, or about how they learned to market Febreze, this is the book it comes from.

I find myself analyzing my routines now - my cues, my routine, my reward. I have some hope that it might help me set some better habits (it hasn't yet - I'm weak of will) - but also, it's really interesting to start recognizing these things in myself, and in my family.

The second half of the book talks about institutional habits, and how good ones lead to prosperity and poor ones can lead to disaster.

I recognize some of those, too.

Yeah.

Week 50. I think.

2016-03-07T15:54:28Z

So here we are, three weeks short of a first birthday. WHAT.

Nate has been pretty delightful this last week. His clinginess is mellowing out, and his fourth tooth broke through on Saturday. He spends a lot of his time exploring and playing with things. Favorite toy is still the flyswatter, followed closely by the remote control. I've got to find him a good 'push buttons' toy for his birthday.

He's cuddlier, too, which I enjoy the hell out of. Sitting with him on my lap and pressing my cheek against his soft baby hair is one of my favorite things, and he barely fits anymore. This is totally how people end up with more babies.

He's really into mimicking right now, which is fun. He loves to have you pat something and then he'll pat it. He's started playing that game where I put my hand on his and he pulls it out and puts his on top of mine. He'll do high-fives about 75% of the time at home (and never when out - too many distractions). He'll mimic sounds, too.

No real signs of words yet, but he's pretty verbal. He spends a lot of his time moving, a lot of time on his feet. He can balance for several seconds without holding onto anything, but rarely does. I feel like we've got a month or so before walking, but who knows. The kid surprises me constantly.

He's laughing more at things that are 'funny' instead of just 'fun' - like being tickled or flipped upside down (he LOVES being flipped upside down). Sometimes Rob will make a face and he'll start to crack up. It's adorable.

He's very focused and slow to frustrate, which for some reason I find hilarious. Rob will play 'keep the pacifier away' with him for a good 5 or 10 minutes, and the kid just keeps trying, adjusting his angle or his hand or whatever. I watched him spend five minutes stretching up through the bars on his crib in an effort to reach his snuggie, perfectly patient while he worked on it.

My aunt keeps telling me he's such a serious baby, because when we're out, he spends all his time watching things very carefully. At home, though, he's got tons of smiles and laughs.

I've started sorting through pictures for his birthday party, and the contrast is insane. I mean, a YEAR. It doesn't feel that long, right? The pair of pants I'm wearing is older than that. And yet.

I've got 75 pictures in the folder and I haven't touched my phone yet. So uh. There's some trimming to be done. We'll get there. Eventually. I'm sure.

Week 47

2016-03-02T14:14:24Z

Clearly my count is off somewhere, because we hit an official 11 months on Sunday. I think just by a week though. This is really 48? That's not too bad, all things considered.

ANYWAY.

Nate's third tooth, which he's been working on for a while, popped out yesterday, so now we've got two on bottom and one on top. His teeth are super slow moving - from the time they pop through the gum to the time they're fully in is anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks, and I'd say it's nearly that long from when I think one is coming to when it pops through. I think this is probably a good thing - he's honestly a fairly pleasant teether and at worst we seem to get a day or two of crankiness. Just lots of gnawing and drooling.

His new thing this week is rocking back and forth, which is pretty adorable. He's also really picked up shaking his head 'no' at me again, though he thinks it's a game - interestingly, one he plays with me all the time, and with Rob rarely. He loves to do it on the changing table and right after nursing.

We had a little bout with constipation recently. My mom offered (out of nowhere! bless grandmothers.) to take him all night Friday and let us sleep in and have the morning off. It was glorious - and then I learned that he'd slept 8-11:30, then 3:00-5:00. AM. He has NEVER done that for me. Ever. He was fine the next night, but Sunday night he woke up a few times and was inconsolable (fortunately, all before 1 AM), and then he writhed and screamed to push out the tiniest little poop. TMI?

Anyway. Tylenol and gas drops got him through the night, and we have been working to up his water intake. I suspect that he's a little dehydrated, because we've been cutting back on breastmilk in anticipation of my no longer pumping at work when he turns one (HALLELUJAH), and I'm not sure we've been great about making sure he's getting enough other liquids.

He drinks like a champ, though, when we remember to offer. We have one of those great 360 sippy cups, and he can handle it entirely on his own and drink a good half a cup per meal. We probably need to work on the sign for 'drink' more so he can ask for it.

Cause he sure can ask for milk these days! If he REALLY wants it, he'll start to whine and just frantically clench and unclench both fists in this little adorable ball of MILK NOW MOM. It's the only sign he's great with, probably because it's the only one we're really consistent with. He'll do 'more' sporadically. We do 'more', 'all done', 'eat', and 'drink' sporadically. I also do 'bath time' with him, which he seems to know, but doesn't do.

Rob told me last night that he realized that Nate is more pleasant when I'm not there - which is true! Some of it is that I come home in time for the dinner-bath-bedtime routine, which often includes 'I'm tired and hungry' mild crankiness. Some of it is that I'm an anomaly to his routine and he wants to be on me a lot when I'm there. Both frustrating and endearing.

Most the time this kid is a hoot, though. He's (usually) pleasant and fun to be around and loves to play games. He's thrilled to pull all the rings off his stacker, he loves to be flipped upside down and thrown onto the bed, last night he was learning to high-five, he can pet the cat gently, and he loves to climb all over everything. He's pretty into books, too, and adores turning the pages.

Almost a year. Man.

Week 46

2016-02-24T19:49:38Z

Yesterday Nate was hugging onto his snuggie while nursing - he's started to get REALLY attached to that thing and will drag it all over the house if we let him - and out of nowhere, he starts covering and uncovering his face with it. PEEKABOO!

This morning I went in to his room to grab him after getting dressed, and instead of his usual morning routine of digging out a basket or pulling all the books off his shelves, he was laying on the floor with a book open in front of him, looking at pictures and kicking his little feet in the air.

Moments like these remind me that this kid is a person doing person-like things. Toddlerhood is so close we can taste it.

I'm pretty sure he's working on one or two top teeth, but I've decided that his teeth just move slow. His bottom two still aren't fully in, and they broke ground about Christmastime. I can feel the bumps, but they're still below the surface. I'm bracing myself for a couple nasty days near the end, but he's usually quite happy after they break through, so there's that.

Nate's pretty into books these days. He loves turning the pages and gets annoyed that he can't manage it on his own. He prefers books with pictures of real things instead of drawings. In general he just loves to look at stuff. If I have him on my lap on the couch, he often scrambles up to stare out the window, which he can do for a good 15 minutes at a time. We went out to eat Monday and he spent the whole time hanging sideways watching the waitresses walk back and forth.

PS, this kid can eat a whole Denny's kids meal and then some now.

Also PS, taking him out to eat makes me realize how freaking terrible kids meals are and how few places even have sides I want to feed him. Denny's is actually pretty great - for $3 I can get him an egg, some toast, and half a banana or an order of broccoli.

He's in a blowing mood lately, so he crawls around with his little mouth in an 'o'. He's started clucking his tongue. He'll often repeat babbling back to you, especially if you sing it. And he's started bouncing to music when it plays.

Generally almost-eleven-months is a pretty fun time with him. He gets clingy in the evenings, which I could do without, but is a lot of fun to play with, and much snugglier than he used to be. Sometimes he'll even deign to lay his head on my shoulder.

I'm pretty excited for this spring, when he'll be able to go down slides and on swings. It's gonna be wild.

Book rec?

2016-02-17T19:30:41Z

I'm in the mood for a good love story, preferably with a solid plot to go with. Must have good, fully-developed characters. My usual fare is genre stuff (sci fi, fantasy, horror, etc), but I'm open to other options.

Suggestions?

After four nights of going 9+ hours without eating, I'm tentatively prepared to say it...

2016-01-08T13:32:08Z

... and let's hope I don't jinx it!

I THINK THIS KID IS FINALLY SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT!

For the longest time, we were down to two wake-ups for him, one for me - a feeding at 11, and one at 3 or 4.
Over Christmas break, I had a solid week off, and I decided to cut back the 11 PM feeding and go down to one. He'd done it a few times randomly and it felt like a sign he was ready.

And our sleep WENT TO SHIT. We were up two, three, once even four times at night. No pacifier or rocking would console him. We MUST EAT. For a week and a half, life was terrible. And just as I was about to give in and add the 11 PM feeding back in...

Lo and behold, our first tooth! Once it pushed through the gum, things got slowly better, and we have had FOUR nights now where we have not fed him at all - in fact, I have not even gotten out of bed to give him his pacifier. I have only heard him awake once, and I decided to let him fuss until he actually cried - but he never did! Put himself back to sleep!

There are no words for the feeling of getting a full night's uninterrupted sleep after a year and a half of interruptions.

Paper

2015-12-24T13:18:44Z

Just now Nate has found a piece of stiff paper which makes a pleasing sound when he waves it in the air. He's been waving it back and forth and cackling while kicking both legs and waving both arms for 15 minutes now. Every once in a while he pauses to explore the texture of the thing, then decides to go back to waving it and laughing.

Kids, man. I mean seriously. Who knew it'd be this much fun?

Weeks 33, 34, and half of 35

2015-12-03T20:13:59Z

Good grief, I'm behind. And the further I let myself get the worse it is. SO MUCH HAPPENING.

When last I left you, I had a child with a runny nose and clingy fussiness. The nose cleared up, the fussiness lingered through the weekend before Thanksgiving. He just wanted attention, attention, to be held, held.

I was really concerned about the 4.5 hour drive we had for the holiday and how he'd do away from home, since the last big trip we took with him - to Texas - turned into a nightmare. It coincided with the 4 month sleep regression. I strongly suspected that this one would coincide with the 8 month one. That weekend we also went back to two feeds a night, which we hadn't done in AGES.

Fortunately, my fears were for naught. We drove about an hour and a half, and Nate slept for about an hour of it. Then we did some shopping and let him crawl around a bit in the 'husband chair' section of the stores, had lunch, did some more shopping, got back in the car just in time for another nap. We stopped by my grandparents' house and they met Nate for the first time. He was lovely for them - full of smiles and happy to show off crawling and laughing and sitting and other various baby milestones.

We rented a house about 45 minutes south with my parents and brother & family for $82/night, and it was enormous. Rob and I took the master bedroom, which had a bathroom the size of our living room, because PAST the bathroom was a giant walk-in closet big enough for Nate's pack 'n play. The place had three sitting areas, 2.5 baths, four bedrooms, two flat screen tvs, a lovely kitchen with an island, and a table that seats 8. It was really great for everyone to hang out in. Eight of us stayed full-time, and another 5, including my grandparents, came for Thanksgiving.

At one point my nephew (6) was taking a bath and my SIL asked if Nate could join him. It was pretty much the cutest thing ever. I could hear a ton of splashing and giggling from downstairs. When I went up to watch, my nephew was holding Nate's green frog and going 'froggie froggie froggie' at him, and Nate was cackling.

The pair of them were a hoot all weekend. My nephew spent a lot of time playing with him and reading do him. Nate soaked up everyone's attention. He actually slept really well the whole time, and was in a good mood.

He also learned some new skills. He's started laughing when things are funny rather than just when he's ticklish. He'll laugh at funny faces or voices or unexpected things. He's gotten really good at going from sitting to his tummy without crashing by leaning forward over his legs. He's started pulling up on things, and last week managed to climb the first step from our den to our kitchen.

He had a real Thanksgiving meal, with turkey, green beans, stuffing, rolls, and noodles. He's nearly got his pincher grasp down, which shocked me. One day I looked over and watched him pick up a small bite and put it in his mouth without his fist getting in the way, and it was wild. It's funny how big these steps seem when 'putting things in our mouths' is such a basic skill for most adults. He can do cheerios on his own now. This means that I no longer have to find things that can be cut into big strips so he can hold one end and gnaw the other one - I can cut up small pieces and he can eat them.

We've started feeding him more of the food we're cooking. Last week he had gnocchi and shredded chicken from a spicy mexican bowl we made. Loved both. I fished some tomatoes out of my tomato soup and made him half a grilled cheese. My SIL suggested freezing yogurt into yogurt drops so he could feed them to himself, so now he usually gets two of those after a meal as a sort of dessert. He really hated the cold at first and made really hilarious faces, but he's getting the hang of letting it melt slowly in his mouth.

Our ride home was a little rougher, because we drove 3.5 hours straight without stopping. Nate was clearly sick of the carseat, and we bought extra time with hardcore distractions like cheerios and noise games.

Oh! That's the other new thing. Right before Thanksgiving, when he was really whiny, we'd start to bounce him, and he discovered that bouncing while making noise produced an interesting effect. He'd get distracted from crying and start making noise just to hear it.

So in a similar situation, my mom started patting her hand over his mouth to make the 'wah-wah' noise, and he loves it. It's really funny to listen to him start and stop his noise in time to your hand.

He's been SUPER vocal this week, in fact. Jabbering to himself just about constantly, and loudly, with a wider variety of sounds. This is the most babbling I've ever heard him do. Sometimes he does it in the morning and it's so loud it keeps me up unless I close both doors between us (at which point I can't hear him cry). I try to only do this if I'll be up within 20 minutes anyway.

Sleep has been a bit up and down. It's never been more than up twice, but that's been rough to re-adapt to. The last several nights have only been once, though, so hopefully we're getting back on schedule. I've skipped his 11 PM feeding a couple of times and I honestly don't think it makes a difference either way, so I'm going to work on cutting that FOR REAL unless I see consistent additional wake-ups. It'll mean me getting into bed earlier.

I mean, ideally I'd just start toward bed and feed him earlier, but that's not the reality. The reality is that I start toward bed at the same time regardless, so if I feed him, that's 15-20 minutes later that I sleep. It feels a little like he's trying to come out of whatever the crap sleep was and reestablish a 'normal' - his wakeups are unpredictable right now. One night he slept until 5:00 and I got a full 6 hours IN A ROW. Last night he work at 2:30, but then slept til 6:30. So I don't know.

Still no teeth poking through, but there is a general consensus that we can see them under his gums. I don't know. I guess we'll have teeth when we have them! I don't know what all the fussiness bad sleeping was about if not that, but there are so many options. Sleep regression, growth spurt, developmental milestones, etc etc etc.

Here's what's wild: by Christmas Nate will be pretty much 9 months. On the outside as long as on the inside.

Some kids are walking by then. I wouldn't be surprised if Nate's working on it. He's usually on the early side for motor stuff and a little further behind for vocal stuff, and he's on a serious 'learning to pull up' mission right now. Though he's still military crawling.

WALKING. Guys. WALKING.

Week 32

2015-11-19T19:10:14Z

I'm gonna pretend I posted this two day ago when I started writing it, okay? Okay.

I had a three and a half day weekend last week, which was lovely, because I got to spend a lot of time with Nate, and not so lovely, because he spent most of it being a fussy whiny pants.

His runny nose has mostly cleared up, with no other symptoms of a cold and no actual teeth, so I'm still up in the air as to the cause. I THINK I can see teeth below the gum, but nothing's poked through yet. I've read that it can take weeks, though, so who knows. Maybe this is part of his fussiness - the more I though about it, the more horrifying teething sounds to go through. I mean, your teeth come UP FROM YOUR JAW and PUNCH THROUGH YOUR GUMS. Ow, right?

Part of the fussiness also seems to stem from the onset of separation anxiety. He's had bits of it before - a few weeks ago he clearly started noticing when we left him in a room. But it's sort of cranked to eleven lately, where he wants to not only be in the room with us, but RIGHT NEXT TO US with us, preferably with us paying attention to him. On the plus side, he's gotten happier about sitting in your lap. On the downside, he wants to sit in our laps a LOT, and also to be doing things like pulling on the pages of my books. I've been grateful for our Mei Tei a few evenings, because I've put him in it and done some things around the house and it really seems to calm him down.

Today I put him down for a nap and he spent fifteen minutes just HOWLING, which he's never really done. I went in eventually and picked him up, held him for about a minute, then put him back down and patted his chest, then left, and he was fine.

The neat part of this though is that he shows real preference for wanting this person or that person (usually Rob or I), which warms your heart a little. He's also started raising his arms to be picked up. It's funny, that seems like such a usual baby thing to do, but it took almost 8 months for it to appear.

He is SUPER ticklish in his good moods. Today I could basically tickle anywhere on his body and have him in giggles. His feet and inner thighs are almost always sure bets, but his ribs and up and down his back also often work. If I sit him up after his bath (all naked) and run his fingers up and down his spine, he gets this huge grin and hunches over like it's ticklish but he loves it and then starts laughing. It's pretty ridiculous.

We've started feeding him more things that we're cooking. I gave him rice and beans and chicken when we did enchiladas this week. Last night he got some marinated chicken from our chicken chili rice bowls and some warmed pear, as well as some sauce-covered rice on a spoon. He seems to like flavorful things, even with a little spice. He'll also suck on lemons at a restaurant and seems to enjoy it! I don't even know.

He's really into playing with our digital clock and X-box controllers (and anything else with a cord), as well as pulling the books off the bottom bookshelf. I guess I need to pack that stuff up somewhere until he's old enough to learn 'no'. We also need to get a fence/gate for our giant fireplace this winter. It's gonna be hard enough keeping the floor clean so he doesn't shove bits of wood in his mouth.

Last night I went to bad (too) late and had long passed his normal 11:00 feed (I'd given him his pacifier when he woke at about 11:45), so I decided to skip it and see what happened. What happened? He slept til 2:30, 7 and a half hours after his last feed and maybe 30 minutes earlier than his usual feed, then went back to sleep. Then up for the day at 6:30, which is usual these days.

So basically I think he's ready to drop that, and I suspect he may be ready to drop the middle of the night feeding if I pushed it. I'll start with one and maybe work on the next over Christmas break, when he'll be 9 months. WE'LL SEE.

Week 31

2015-11-10T18:33:17Z

Nate is finally getting over his cold (I think). He never had any other symptoms besides a stuffy nose, but boy did he HATE that one. He now starts to whimper as soon as he hits the changing table because he knows the nose sucker is coming out. We have sucked prodigous amounts of snot out of this kid's nose.

We have been gradually improving on the sleep front. We've moved his bedtime up to 7:30, which seems to be helping him sleep longer (?!? right?). It's been at least a week and a half since I've had to get out of bed just to give him a pacifier. Most the time he's up once at 3-4 and then wakes between 6:30 and 7. I sometimes do give him a pacifier then because he has a habit of talking loudly to himself in his crib and will instead play quietly if he's got a paci. I am not energetic enough to get up unless he forces me, so he often plays quietly in his crib for 20-30 minutes before I get up and get him up for the day when my alarm goes off.

He's starting to take real 'steps' on his knees, more than one in a row, but he can't quite get the cooridination down, which frustrates him. He likes to sit more and more, and look around at everything. He also likes sitting with me on the couch and crawling around to check things out. He remains a huge fan of chewing any cord in existence and will beeline across the room to find one.

Food continues to be fun. He's had pear and eggs, and Rob made him a pseudo omelet with mushroom in it this week. He also had 3 fries and an onion ring at BW3s on Friday because our food took 40 MINUTES and he was done by the time it got there. He was a pretty big fan. We gave him a little bit of peanut butter on a spoon last night and he sucked it off like a champ. He's getting to the point where I can hand him a variety of things off my plate, which is fun!

He's big into raspberries again and playing with blowing air in different ways, which is pretty amusing to watch/listen to. Also I realized last night that at some point in the past month or so, the excessive drooling has just... stopped. It's awesome.

We're going to Kentucky for Thanksgiving, and we rented a house along with my parents and brother and sister in law, about 30 minutes from my grandparents' house. They haven't met Nate yet. I think it'll be a fun trip and I'm kind of looking forward to it, even though it's a 5 hour drive. We'll see how it goes!

Ouch

2015-10-26T15:38:49Z

Just paid all the charges for Nate's emergency room visit and MRI.

Am now super broke.

We had four charges: ultrasound, ER (including CT scan), anathesia, and MRI. Guess which one hurt most?

Anasthesia was over $1,500. Everything else was under $40.

Yeah.

Weeks 28 & 29

2015-10-26T14:28:15Z

And another two weeks in one. You can probably tell what my life is like in general by how often I manage to write 'weekly' write-ups. Last Friday was the library dedication, which means that the last two weeks have been a flurry of last-minute panic attacks by certain people and a lot of unexpected physical labor.

But it's done. DONE. I don't think we'll have that many eyes on us again, even for opening. We have a more low-key open house for faculty, staff, and students today that should actually be a little fun. Friday was super stressful.

So! The last two weeks!

We started solids last weekend, and so far Nate has had avacados, sweet potatoes, banana, some bits of bread, and I gave him some tomato at Olive Garden yesterday. He really, really likes food, and is pretty good at feeding himself provided things are the right size and we don't mind a bit of a mess. He makes a pretty amusing 'wait, what is this?!' face for the first bite of new things, but then swiftly turns enthusiastic.

I've learned that I'm really terrible at laundry if it's more than normal wear and tear. How do I get goopy mashed avacado out of a bib? HOW DO I DO IT? Not to mention those 'peanut butter poop' stage diapers.... Fortunately, we have moved onto (TMI here I'm sure) the 'ploppable poop' stage, which is far more pleasant to deal with with cloth diapers.

Sleep is okay - I sleep with white noise now, which helps. Most nights I'm out of bed 1-2 nights, with one of those being a feed. He's still a good napper, still puts himself to sleep well most of the time. Sometimes he needs his pacifier, sometimes not. He'll often suck on his snuggie instead. He pretty much always sleeps on his tummy with his knees tucked up under him and his butt up in the air in the most adorable way possible.

He'll go up on his hands and knees now, but can't figure out how to coordinate arms and legs, so he mostly gets frustrated and goes back down to scoot. He can book it across a room if he's determined, and has started to dislike being left alone, so he's been known to traverse the short hall between living room and kitchen if he wants to join us. We have a set of two stairs down into the den that I'm hoping not to gate, and he's scooted over to investigate them several times now. He's nearly toppled a few times, but has so far caught himself. Really hoping he learns 'don't go down those'. Even if he doesn't, they're short enough that I'm not super concerned about injury.

He can sit like a pro, but gets annoyed because he can't get down and move around unless he just topples (and usually hits his head). We have put him in high chairs at restaurants 3 times now, with mixed results. He /can/ sit straight, but sometimes gets tired and annoyed and ends up slumping at an awkward angle.

We went up to visit my brother, sister in law, and nephew yesterday and spent a rainy, chilly day at a farm festival/corn maze/pumpkin patch, which was pretty fun. Nate was a trooper despite the chilly wind and poor naps. Next year I think will be super fun. I always enjoy watching my nephew (6) talk to Nate and try to play games with him.

Week 27 (and a half)

2015-10-14T15:11:12Z

Another week where I haven't had nearly enough time with Nate.

His sleep is better - in fact, I've nearly gotten used to only getting out of bed once, for a feed around 3-4 AM. He often doesn't do the pacifier wake-ups at 1:30 or 5 anymore. He has taken to waking up for the day at 6:30 or 6:45, which I am not fond of AT ALL. So far I have been toss a toy and pacifier in his crib and sneaking another half an hour of sleep, but we'll see how long that works. I'm hoping he'll go back to sleeping til 7:00.

He's clearly slowed down on a growth spurt. His sleep is better and he's eating less.

Let's see, what else. Still no solids, every day I think 'maybe today', and every day we end up taking dinner to my mom or home late from work or some such. Scooting like a mad man. It's now no issue at all to just traverse the room after what he wants. Many times what he wants is a cord, so we're working on baby proofing. It's hard to not have cords, though! He's pushed up on hands and knees a few times, but never for long.

He can sit for several minutes if you sit him up. I got this triangle toy from Once Upon a Child this weekend, and he really likes it. It's a great height for him to sit and play with, since he can use it to help his balance.

We had a lovely time at the clothing swap on Saturday, where Nate flirted with everyone and was generally adorable and well behaved and snapped like a champ in his pack 'n play. I got the remainder of his 12 mo wardrobe and a good chunk of his 18 mo, as well as a few 24 mo(!!) items. I expect him to be in 12 mo in early winter and 18 mo about Feb-March.

I also found several fleece sleep sacks that are a bigger size for this winter, and a really super adorable dragon halloween costume! Also his first shoes, which he's not super fond of. And all of it for free!

I have had to pause this entry 5 times now, so I guess I will wrap it up.

I filled out Nate's baby book on Monday, too. Look how accomplished I am. Go me.

Conversation with my husband

2015-10-06T14:00:56Z

GUESS WHAT

WHAT

BABYKIN

SAID

MILK

WHAT

WITH HIS HANDS?

Well, he signed it.

REALLY?

Like you asked him do you want milk and he did milk?

Yep. I took his hand while I was holding the bottle and made the motion with it. Then I did it with my hand, and he signed it twice very quickly.

AHHHH!!!

OUR SON IS A GENIUS!

lol

Week 26

2015-10-06T13:50:57Z

I blinked and it's Tuesday. I don't have a ton of new things to say this week in part because I feel like it's been such a rollercoaster otherwise (my mom is in the hospital and my dad suffers from severe anxiety even in the best of times) that I've barely had down time with Nate. Most our time has been him in car seats or hanging out with aunts and uncles, that sort of thing.

We had some really, really terrible sleep this week (one night I think I was out of bed 10 times), which I think is a combination of two things. He had a period of 3-4 days where he was completely off schedule, both for naps and bedtime. On Sunday he went down at 8, then woke at 9 and was up until 10:30. I mean UG. And also, growth spurt.

I put him in a pair of pants on Sunday that he'd worn two weeks previously. Two weeks ago, I'd had to roll the legs up a good inch or inch and a half. Now they fit him. I'm pretty sure this kid grew at least an inch in two weeks. So this was probably part of his increased nighttime wakeups and difficulty putting back down (I gave him and nursed in twice per night THREE TIMES this week).

We had a more typical night last night, with 2 brief pacifier wake-ups and one feeding, so I feel almost human again.

This week I learned to get him to cackle by tickling his ribs and his thighs, by which I mean 'actually pinching him pretty darn hard'. It's adorable.

He's also started sitting pretty well, though we don't do it often. Generally I prefer to let him do things he can manage himself, I think it's better for his motor skills, but I do try to sit him up once a day or so so that he gets practice getting out of sitting and falling over. If he's lazy, he'll lean forward on his hands, but he can actually sit pretty straight on his own, and he'll put a hand to one side now if he starts to wobble.

Still no foods. Meant to. Week of exhaustion and stress instead. So maybe this week. Our 6 month appointment is tomorrow. Last time she suggested rice cereal, so this at least is a chance to ask her if there is some benefit to it we're missing or if we can just skip it. Also her philosophy on timing of new foods for allergy reasons.

This weekend is the clothing swap my SiL helps run, so I'm driving up for that. Will probably take Nate with so 1) I can make sure socks and shoes fit him and 2) give Rob a bit of a break. He's been doing a lot of sitting with my dad this week. I have a list of things I'm looking for, but need to double check it a bit.

Mostly I need socks, neck size up pants, sleep sacks, a winter coat. 12 mo and 18 mo onesies would be great too. I think I took up maybe 2 dozen items, which means I can get that many in return, but my SiL often has extra 'slots' that she'll give to me. She also said they get baby carriers, so I'm kind of hoping maybe someone's tossed a ring sling in. I love my mei tei and my ergo, but I'd like to try a ring sling for hip carries when he gets older. I just can't bring myself to pay for another carrier because we don't use them often enough.

Anyway. Six months and a week, yay.

Week 25

2015-09-30T14:30:41Z

Nate is 6 months (and two days) now!

I am trying to be enthusiastic about this, but right now all I can think about is how much I miss constant sleep. It's like a rollercoast - one week we're climbing up that hill, the next week, for no reason I can discover, we're PLUMMETING BACK DOWN! Nate's having a hard time soothing himself back to sleep again, which means more times up for the pacifier in the middle of the night. I keep thinking about handing this duty off to Rob, but it's so hard to drag him out of bed that I'm honestly not sure I'd get any more sleep out of it. Anyway, I'm particularly exhausted today after a bout of 20-minute-catnaps from 5-6:15, when I finally decided to just nurse him and he conked out for another hour when my alarm went off. I let him sleep in in the hopes that he'd be less grouchy and Rob would get some extra sleep, but apparently he woke shortly after I left, so WHATEVER KID.

We've had some fussy, clingy days this week (I say, like it's so terribly hard, when usually Nate is so mellow that even an hour of wanting to be held feels annoying). I don't know if it's just an off few days, or if he's finally teething, or... who knows. He's also started REALLY protesting when he's annoyed/hungry/etc. He used to just sort of fuss, now he actually cries.

Sometimes he clearly just wants attention and to be played with, because he'll cry and fuss, and then as soon as you look over at him, BOOM. Smiling. Like, wide-eyed grins.

In fact his grins are getting more and more fun. Yesterday I came home from lunch and he started grinning so hard it nearly broke into a cackle, and just kept doing it for like 10 minutes. For literally no reason except that I was there.

Rob can get him to cackle by kissing him all up and down his neck and tummy. Sometimes bounce-a-baby gets it, too. He gets so excited that he stops breathing, then lets it loose in a cackle. No real giggles yet, though.

This is also the week he started the hardcode military crawl. This kid can book it across a room - like a good 5 feet or so - in a minute or two. He's developed real preferences, this toy over that one, that are fascinating to watch. He's feeding himself his bottle most the time now, and he can pull it away and put it back just fine (and sometimes he tries to treat my breast like this, too).

He still LOVES to touch faces, especially when nursing. He almost always wants to have his hand on my chin or my nose or in my mouth, which is both sweetly adorable and really annoying.

He's super into the jumperoo. He loves to make it swing, and can turn the chair in a circle and play with nearly all the toys on it. He loves to make the things spin, and this week he realized that if he stretches on tip-toes, he can pull the bird down and stuff its beak in his mouth.

He's working on sitting. He can do the tripod thing, especially if supported by a boppy or something else. As soon as he starts to move, he tends to topple to one side or the other, though. Last night I watched him move from tripod onto one knee and then his stomach in pretty smooth succession, which was wild. He still loves floor time, and especially likes to be on his tummy now. He's pretty good at balancing and reaching with one hand.

We bought an avacado to start him with this week, but haven't fed it to him yet. To be honest, I feel like we are way not prepared for this solids thing. It's a different level of work, from prepping the food to cleaning him up to dealing with the non-breastmilk diapers, and I at least don't have the energy for it yet. We may way til our doctor's appointment, next Wednesday. IDK.

In some ways this feels like a huge step, and for me it's kind of sad. This is the point where my baby boy is no longer mine, in some ways. Right now, he's a 21 lb and some change chunk who has been entirely made by me. All of him. It's silly to be sad to lose that, especially since I think we'll be nursing for quite some time to come, but still. It is.

I also feel like this is the time when he's really starting to have preferences, and food is another part of that. Oh, he loves sweet potatoes, he hates broccoli, etc. I want that for him, but it feels like such a change from the little potato we brought home, which WASN'T THAT LONG AGO, that sometimes it's a little hard to deal with.

Which is stupid because I don't even like babies!

Except this one. I like this one pretty well.

aerrin @ 2015-09-30T09:07:00

2015-09-30T13:06:37Z

Ug. I am so tired this morning that my eyes will not stop watering.

I really miss a full night's sleep, guys. I really, really do.

Week 24

2015-09-21T13:08:13Z

Look at me updating on a Monday! Like a person doing things on time!

Nate has been kind of wild fun in the last week. His favorite game right now is 'bounce-a-baby', where he gets bounced on the bed. Rob can make him cackle by eating his belly (and this kid is weird - he likes to almost literally be bitten, it cracks him up). He loves to shake noisy rattles. He's really into his jumperoo and loves to make it swing and bounce, and last night was the first time I watched him play with the spinny toys. Every day he is more and more aware of what's going on.

This week he started stretching out his arms for people he wants. Mostly for my dad! He loves my dad's mustache and that he sings to him and makes funny faces and noises. My father has basically no dignity when it comes to this kid, and it's hilarious to watch. My mom is also a goof, but far more reserved compared to him. He also LOVES my parents' dog, and will reach for her and start grinning and cackling when she comes near. Fortunately, Maddie is patient and doesn't mind having her hair tugged. This is a great difference from our cats, who Nate is really into watching, but who only tolerate being near him if Rob forces them (and he does force them).

Nate is definitely mobile now. He's been rolling around for a while, but now he'll lift up on his hands and reach for what he wants, sometimes quite a ways away. If he can't get it, he'll inchworm his way across the room. The entire room. Sometimes it's an amusing inchworm/rolling combination. He's starting to show real preferences and choices, which kind of blows my mind. There's a real live human being with things he likes and doesn't like in there!

We're trying to cut back on pacifier use because he'd gotten a little too used to it, and I think it is helping his sleep a little. Sleep is largely the same - I'm out of bed about three times a night, twice for a pacifier and once to feed. For a while the pacifier trips were taking longer as he was still fussing and losing it again, etc, which is why I want to try less pacifier during the day. He's generally happy with it, it's just a huge DROOL issue.

I packed away his 3-6 month clothing and got out his 9-12 months. Which is the last size I have completely bought ahead. He's still in 6-9 months, so we have probably 2-3 months before I'm in trouble, and I'm hitting a clothing swap and a consignment sale before then. I'm going to have to start planning some for-real Once Upon a Child trips, though.

I seriously don't know how people afford to clothe babies in new clothing. He grows so fast and is often in two outfits a day! He's hovering at somewhere between 20.5 and 21 lbs now and I'm pretty sure he's put on several inches. We'll get weighed and measured for real in two weeks.

We finally stopped with the open-bottomed sleepy gowns last week as the evenings started to get cooler, so now he's in footie pajamas at night (and often during the day), as well as his sleep blanket. I need to get some larger sleep blankets, too. His sleeping gear when it gets really cold in the winter and we keep the bedrooms closed while we heat with the fireplace and it's 62 in there is a thing I haven't figured out yet. We may just buy a space heater, IDK.

Nate turns 6 months a week from today, which is impossible to believe. We have his 6 month appointment a week after that, and then we'll be starting solid foods. That high chair that's packed away because 'we won't need it for forever'... we need.

CRAZY.

aerrin @ 2015-09-16T09:47:00

2015-09-16T13:47:46Z

The class I'm supposed to be teaching right now unexpectedly didn't show up. Can't say I'm too sad about that, to be honest.

With my extra free time, I fixed a stupid mistake making our log search for XF not work (at least it was a stupid mistake, because it took like 5 minutes to find and fix).

And now I'm sitting here waiting on texts from my dad. My mom is in surgery today; they are removing part of her colon to take out the bit with diverticulosis. This is hopefully a fix of the problem. It has a small chance of redeveloping, but it's small.

Now I'm going to sort through some survey results, try to get numbers of books vs shelves, and try to get caught up on marketing stuff I'm dangerously behind on.

Weeks 22 & 23

2015-09-14T13:15:55Z

Annnd I've missed a week again, but given the level of busy that last week was, I'm not feeling bad about it. Maybe I will eke out 20 minutes today to write about THAT. I do wish I'd forced some time to write, though, because we're back to leaps-and-bounds and it makes me sad not to record them.

Sometime in the past couple of weeks, Nate has learned to latch and unlatch himself while eating. For a while, this meant that he thought it was awesome to eat for a few seconds, then turn and look around, then relatch. Sometimes the turning involved discovering new and exciting ways my nipple will or will not stretch. Ow.

Two weeks ago he also learned how to hold his own bottle. Not just hold it, but reach for it, take it from you, lift it to his mouth, tilt it back, and guzzle the whole thing. We spent five or six days with him then treating me the same way. It seems to have settled down a bit now, which is nice, but I admit it's kind of amazing to watch him figure out how to do for himself a thing I've been doing for him 5-12 times a day for the past five and a half months.

He's starting to play with toys instead of just chewing on them. He likes to shake his rattle or his plastic chain. This morning he spent 15 minutes just considering the details on a small plastic frog bath toy that I keep on the changing table because he now likes to writhe and twist and turn over on it if he's not occupied.

He can push up on his arms with confidence and can hold himself on one while reaching for a toy with the other. He's starting going after the toy he wants instead of just the one nearest to him, and will roll his way across the room to get it. He has rolled the entire length of the den more than once.

Rob says he's excited for him to become mobile. I told him 'good, because your life is going to seriously change!' No more putting the kid down on the floor and assuming he's fine while we do other things. Already he's yanked a clock off a table. I have no idea how we're going to baby proof our giant fireplace this winter. We might have to cave and buy one of those insanely expensive kid pens. I've at least seen a few on craigslist for $60 instead of $120 lately, if we're willing to drive.

We've started playing a game that involves bouncing him on the bed, which he LOVES. Most mornings he greets me with a pretty thrilled grin. He's getting better and better at hanging out in his crib by himself and I'm getting better and better at sleeping through his non-upset noises. More than once I've woken up to my alarm to find him awake, and I've had no idea he was up. I used to be unable to sleep through ANY noise he made. If I'm out of bed three times in a night, even for pacifier, that's a lot (most nights - we had a couple bad ones last week, but it's usually only a night or two). We've been pretty firm on the one feeding a night for quite a while now. The other night I actually rocked him back to sleep because he was worked up, but he didn't require feeding.

He's really fascinated with faces right now, and loves to reach up to feel your nose or grab your lip. He's fond of this when nursing, but does it a lot if I just lay next to him or lean close or hold him on my lap as well. I think he finds it interesting how different mine is from Rob's.

He loves looking in mirrors and usually grins at the baby there.

He's really starting to develop a personality. He's been fun to play with for a couple of months, but his moods are expanding beyond 'happy' and 'tired', and he's showing preferences, and there are games he clearly likes. I'm really looking forward to the next few months with him.

In October we're going up to visit a corn maze/pumpkin patch/fall festival with the nephew and fam. We went last year when I was pregnant, and I was pretty darn pregnant by then, so it's sort of a fun full circle tradition. We don't get to spend a lot of time with them alone instead of with my parents, so I think it will be a fun cousin tradition to keep up.

And then the holidays start, and I am SO EXCITED to take him to meet some of my extended family over Thanksgiving and for our first Christmas with him.

Two more weeks and I'll have a 6 month old. Man. We're so close to starting solids that I bought some bowls and have been doing reading on how we want to approach it. We're thinking about skipping the baby food phase and going straight to finger foods (called 'baby led weaning' these days, even though it has nothing really to do with weaning). I'm not looking forward to meals getting more complicated, but I am excited to watch him try new things.

I'm also hitting up a clothing swap and some giant consignment sales in the next few weeks, so hopefully I can finish up his winter wardrobe and maybe get a few more well-priced toys and MAYBE find a great deal on that giant baby fence. We'll see.

Students

2015-09-04T02:20:57Z

So the students are back this week, which means my job has gone from lazy summer days to busy busy busy most the time. It'll even out again in a few weeks to the usual happy medium, which is honestly what I prefer. Days where little is required of you are nice for a while, then drag on long and pointless.

It also means that I work Thursdays 1:30-9:30. In theory I really like this. One day a week to sleep in, or run errands, or whatever. I'm often super productive on Thursday mornings around the house. I only have about an hour after I get home before bed, but that's doable.

But tonight was my first night back and it's kind of unbearably sad to come home after Nate's already tucked into bed. I need my evening smiles and cuddles!

I'm sure we will adapt to this, as in all things - and it's worse this week because I actually went in at 11 instead of 1:30. But still. It sucks. I don't like it.

It's weird how you can see someone every day (and the middle of the night) and still miss them at random intervals. Even when they don't do much of note outside of smiling really, really cutely.

On the wonders of breastfeeding

2015-08-28T12:49:52Z

Funny thing about the internet: reddit is a complete cesspool of humanity, except for when it is an amazing, informative, supportive community.

The parenting community online is really-- sometimes hard to take. There's a lot of judgment and echo chamber and acting like every kid and every family and every situation is the same. Reddit has a few really great subs that are not like that. There is one that literally has the rule 'you don't talk about this sub elsewhere on reddit'.

There's also one for parents of March2015 babies which is just amazing. It's small - about 50 - which means that we have gotten to know each other and each other's kids to some extent, and people have been really supportive when things go wrong, or right, or sideways. One of the babies there had hernia surgery at 3.5 months, and her mom gave me all sorts of information about what her MRI was like that really helped me a lot.

The breastfeeding sub is also ridiculously amazing, and though I think I would have been successful without it, I can't say for sure. It really strikes me how important a supportive, knowledgeable community is to succeeding at breastfeeding. It's one of those things that feels like it ought to be easy and natural. But even for women who have a relatively easy time (I did), there are just THINGS. Things that happen that you don't understand that can be terrifying.

To start with, you can't tell how much your baby is eating. Ever. So if your baby is fussy or only seems comforted by the boob, it's easy to think that the issue is that you just don't make enough milk. If you don't understand how the supply and demand of breastfeeding works, or what clusterfeeding is, it's easy to think there is something wrong with you and you need to supplement or your baby will starve. And that can feel like a very personal, devastating failure.

So two simple things made my first weeks so much easier: 1) I knew that newborns eat constantly and that the way to tell if they are getting enough is by number of wet diapers and weight gain 2) I could go somewhere to have my baby accurately weighed every week, for free.

It's so simple, and yet lot of the bf'ing moms I know are lacking BOTH of those two things.

And there's a lot more. How to avoid thrush and mastitis, what to do with a clogged duct, what happens if you skip a feeding, what happens if you produce too much and your baby chokes on it, what to do if your son suddenly decides to start screaming as if in pain every time you try to feed him...

Those last two are issues I had, and both of them freaked me out on a visceral level. There is nothing quite like trying to feed your son and having him scream like you've poked him with a pin every time, and then having to put him down without a meal. (It lasted 3 days; he's clearly fine. I still don't know why.)

The thing is, most of my mother's generation didn't breastfeed. They used formula. We had an entire generation where we systematically dismantled the support and knowledge system that is women teaching other women how to breastfeed. That support used to be social and familial, and it's largely gone. My mom breastfed for six weeks and two weeks, which is enough to sort of know things, and so little that I passed her months ago.

And now the pendulum is swinging back toward breastmilk, which is amazing for so many reasons (including ones we don't often talk about, like weight loss and post-partum recovery for mom, as well as severely reduced chances of breast and ovarian cancer). Many communities are trying to fix this with programs like the weigh-in I went to, but many aren't. A lot of women do not have access to a lactation consultant or a formal support group.

So enter the internet. Enter /r/breastfeeding and facebook. Enter hundreds of women who read your crazy problem and offer advice and commiseration and support. Enter local, grass-roots groups that meet up at parks just because it's nice to know other faces who are doing this too. Enter state-wide milk exchanges, where women freely offer and receive pumped milk for literally no reason other than that we want to.

I don't think this revival would have been possibly 20 years ago. Maybe not even 10. I don't know that I could have done it 20 years ago. Or that I'd know enough to want to.

I started this whole post because I wanted to share this article about the amazing ways breastmilk works as communication between mom and baby. It's really, intensely wild. I mean. Nate is sick right now, and when he nurses, his saliva tells my body to produce antibodies for him, and my immune system literally helps him get better. Every time he eats.

That is crazy.

And there's more in there too.

Breastfeeding is one of those things I always thought I'd do because it's good for my son and it's free and the more I do it the more I realize it's also easier (no bottles, no clean-up, no warming, no worry about things going bad because it's been out too long! always ready on tap!).

And for the first couple of months that's pretty much what it was.

It's taken me by surprise, though, how attached I've become to it. I know there are all sorts of hormonal reasons moms get attached to breastfeeding (there's a huge oxytocin dump every single time), but it seemed like it took me a long time to really feel the weight of them.

But now. It is one of my favorite times a day. It's a time when you are forced to sit down and stop doing anything but relax. Sometimes it's playing solitaire on my phone. Sometimes it's watching Nate while he watches me. He likes to hold my thumb and move my hand all over while he eats. If he's sleepy, he'll sometimes put my hand over his face and cuddle it close. If he's happy, he'll sometimes grin up at my with crinkly blue eyes. At night we dreamfeed, and he's still asleep, with his lashes long and soft on his cherub-cheeks and his breathing slow. I cannot begin to describe the sweetness with which your heart swells.

And now we're five months, and in four short weeks we'll be starting solid foods, and there is this crazy part of me that is so, so sad. Every inch, every ounce of that kid has come from me. Every single roll and extra chin and bit of chub. I mean think about how wild that is! But here it comes, this part where already you have to start letting go.

And I never wanted to be a clingy mom. But it makes me just a little bit sad, and I kind of get it. It's hard to let go.

Weeks 20 & 21

2015-08-28T12:22:01Z

Annnnd it's been so long again that it's nearly next week. I think I'm just going to call amnesty and smoosh two weeks together here. They have been similar weeks so it's totally okay to do that!

We had our MRI last Friday, and Nate did well. Children's was excellent, everything ran smoothly, the nurses and doctors gave Nate lots of attention. He had his done in the surgery wing because they gave him anesthesia and put him completely under, which to be honest, was the bit we were most scared about. He is very, very young to have general anesthesia.

We did not get to watch them put him under like they do some places, which was both good and bad. They took him away from us awake and brought him back awake, if groggy. They keep you updated on his status (along with 50 other kids) on color-coded TVs that tell you if he's in prep, surgery, recovery, etc, which is nice. That said, there is nothing sadder than a Children's hospital. You look around you and realize that every one of these parents has a child who is sick, sometimes seriously so. It makes you feel like the lucky one to be there for a test that's probably going to show everything is okay.

It's kind of funny, I always thought that the thing where parents say 'I can't watch movies where children are hurt anymore' were just melodramatic and buying into this whole 'kids are your life' thing. And yet. I would not say that my son is my life, but I find it disturbing on an intense, gut-twisting level to read about or watch children coming to basically any sort of harm. Especially harm from neglect or abuse. I don't think it's because I imagine Nate in that situation, or at least not entirely. I think in part it's because having a child makes you so very keenly aware of how dependent they are on you, and how easy it is to mess up, but ALSO how easy it is to NOT mess up. To not neglect or beat or berate your child. And of how they mimic you and follow your cues and how you are shaping an entire person. The intensity with which the things you do matter to someone else is cranked up to 11.

Anyway. That was a tangent I guess, but it's one of the things about motherhood that has really taken me by surprise.

Our pediatrician called on Monday and told us all looked well. She thought we should still hear from the neurologists, but we haven't yet. I think because he has no overseeing doctor there, the communication is-- not great. I'm supposed to call the ped's office and have them get on Children's for follow up since we haven't heard from them, but work has been intense this week, so I haven't yet.

Nate is in one of his more serious phases, where he's really into watching and looking at things and not as into smiling and cackling. He started grabbing for real last week, about the time we went up to Children's. I can hand him a toy now, and he'll take it from me. It used to be that you'd put it in his hand or on his belly. Children's let us pick a free toy, so we got some more plastic chain links, and he LOVES them, because he can grasp anywhere, chew on all of it, and also wave it around wildly so it rattles together.

He's started to pay attention to the sounds his toy makes, and I gave him a rattle for the first time and he seemed really into it.

He wants to be upright more so he can see things, which sometimes makes him grouchy. He's been getting more jumperoo time because of it, and he can make it swing back and forth now. He's starting to actually play with some of those toys as well. He doesn't have the balance to sit yet, but he clearly wants to.

Rob finished Beedle the Bard and now he's reading him Harry Potter at bedtime. My mother says this is not a children's story. I say that he doesn't even know what we're reading him yet, the important thing is the words, and he's more likely to get read to if it's something Rob enjoys (IE, not repetitive board books). We'll go back to the baby stuff in a couple of months when he starts paying attention to pictures and such. Right now he still watches the ceiling fan.

He slept through the ENTIRE NIGHT for the first time this week. 11-7 on Tuesday. Of course that hasn't happened again, and the past two nights I've fed him twice, which is unusual. It's because he's had a bit of a cold for the past few days, which has made him sleepier, but then also a poorer sleeper for long stretches (like night). Rob took him to the doc's yesterday, on the triage nurse's instructions, but they said it's just a bit of a cold, nothing to be done. His breathing sounds better today, so I think he's getting over the hump of it.

This got longer than I thought. Maybe I should have split it up. OOPS.

Nate is officially 5 months today.

Warning

2015-08-21T20:03:39Z

You will all be happy to know that Nate will not be driving or operating heavy machinery for at least 24 hours. I had to sign a paper saying so to release him from the hospital.

(Everything went fine, results next week)