Tummy Time!

This week, I've really started to make a huge effort to get down on the floor and play with Peter as he is sometimes so squirmy I can barely manage to hold on to him.

A great deal of our floor time is centered around our Tiny Love-Gymini-Play Mat featured in my last video. But also, in an effort to get some quality one-on-one interaction in with my son, I often spread a blanket out on the floor and we wiggle, kick, practice rolling over and practice holding up our head.

Well, Peter does. Since I can already do that stuff, I demonstrate for him and help him to figure out how to move his body.

On his back, Peter has suddenly become VERY fond of kicking. This is probably due to his time spent on the play mat and also his Daddy, who leads Peter through his exercises... helping him to kick his legs, run, pedal an imaginary bike or (in the bath) swim. (I have some video of it, but Matt swears he will never speak to me again if I put it on the Internet. Sorry folks.)

On his tummy, however, Peter has varied amounts of strength. Sometimes, he'll hold his head up at a 45 degree angle for as many as 5 minutes at a time, looking around as if he's been doing it for years.



Other times he seems to be doing push ups as he goes up and down repeatedly. The rest of the time he sort of lays on his own face at a variety of odd looking angles and either sucks on his own arm or just drools. I had some excellent video of this that I was planning on posting today, until early this afternoon when something so much cooler happened...

Peter had just had one of his "I don't want to be cuddled and held anymore!! I want to be a big boy so put me down right this minute and let me play!!!" melt downs. (Those, by the way, are a new development this week. Suddenly he'll just randomly freak the heck out, Matt and I will try EVERYTHING we can think of to soothe him until finally, as we are approaching the brink of insanity, we will put him down to catch our breath and he will calm right down. Happy as can be. As if nothing was ever wrong.) So Matt had laid the boy down on his play mat and let him be for while.

After a few minutes, we noticed that Peter has wiggled himself out away from the mirror/kick pad, off of his little neck pillow and onto his side. Daddy took the opportunity to jump in and help his son practice rolling over some more.

Then, this happened:



I simply could not believe it. I almost cried. My son won't even be two months old for two more days... so how on EARTH did he just turn over by himself?!?!

Also, on an only semi-related side note, it should be noted that years from now when Peter looks at the videos from the first few months of his life his Mother will be missing. Instead she will be replaced by a moronic sounding voice from behind the camera who says "Yeeeeaaaaaaaaah!" entirely too often. *sigh*

I'll tell YOU where to go...

The other day, as is often the case, Matt was working on an online crossword puzzle. When he started to get stuck, I jumped in to try to fill in the blanks.

As I began to work my way through the incomplete clues, Matt looked over my shoulder reviewing my work with the hope that some of the letters I filled in would help him come up with more answers.

Somewhere in the puzzle (let's just call is 15 Across for the purpose of this story) was the following partially completed answer:

IN_LA_ _

Matt: Could the answer for 15 Across be "in a lamp?"

As I hadn't gotten there yet, I stopped and read the appropriate clue which read something like, "Place for unwanted person"

And then I started to giggle.

Me: No dear, its "in a laKE!" When was the last time you told somebody to go jump in a lamp??!!

Yeeeeah, he didn't know either. But he did, very lovingly, tell me to shut up.

So now, when either of us is harassing the other, you can imagine where we tell each other to go jump.

Hang on to your lamps people.

Peter gets his Kicks

I think my husband wonders what I do all day.

"All day" being a relative term of course, since his current graduate school schedule has him in class only 4 hours a day. (I think the better question might be why my ubber-nerdo husband leaves the house usually well over and hour early each day and also tends to schedule/lead his classmates in voluntary study groups. I'm not complaining much, he's getting straight A's, I'm just wondering what happend to the guy I new in undergrad who had a GPA hovering in the 2's, just like me...)

But I digress.

Twice last week Matt asked me if I could run some errands. He then returned home several hours later confused to find me still unshowered and in pajamas or sweats and couldn't seem to understand why I hadn't accomplished much else.

Forget the fact that I get a very slow start in the morning...

And forget all time spent feeding the baby...

And subsequentely changing the baby's diaper...

And then feeding him again...

Forget the fact that I too have to eat, and preparing food with one hand (while the other is holding the baby) can be a very slow process...

Yes, forget all that please. Because here is some of what I spend any remaining time doing:



and, this is what's its all about.

:)

Wake up calls

These past few nights I've been exhausted. The baby has become pretty much a champion at going to sleep after his bath at around 9:00 and then sleeping through until around 4:00 am. I, on the other hand, started the 3rd book in the Eragon series two days ago and have already completely messed up my sleep schedule by staying up entirely too late reading..

(And the really annoying part, is that even though this was SUPPOSED to be the FINAL book in the three part series, the author, apparently, couldn't wrap everything up in this 800 page installment, so, when I finally manage to plow my way through this one, I STILL won't know how it all ends. Because its no longer a TRILOGY, now its a CYCLE. Whatever. Now, I'll have to wait another, who knows how long, and shell out another 20 bucks, for the final book, whenever he gets around to finishing writing it. Man am I ever glad I let the book gather dust on my shelf for the past 6 months rather than rushing to read it last summer!)

But back to my point. Which is that I have not been getting the appropriate amount of sleep. Because of this, I am a probably a little slower to respond to the little baby noises coming through the monitor at 4:00 am. The ones that tell me that my first born is thinking about, possibly, maybe being hungry, in awhile.

And I'm not kidding. If I wait for my baby to actually CRY at night when he's hungry, well, I'd be waiting a while. A good long while. Trust me, I've tried it. He prefers to whine and moan and coo and grunt and stuff to get my attention. Which is weird because at least once a day DURING the day he skips straight to the crying even when he ate like, 45 minutes earlier. The rest of the time though, he mostly just fusses.

Needless to say, instead of listening to him carry on with his random noises for an hour or so in the middle of the night to see if he's really serious, I usually go to him after 3-5 minutes. Yes, I time it, because otherwise I can't really tell if he's just making noises or if his noises actually mean he needs something.

I know you still don't believe me. But seriously, he just doesn't generally like to put very much effort into being upset. He certainly does NOT get that from me. But, the last time I was at my doctor's office he started his little cry from his carrier seat to let me know he was hungry and in need of a new diaper and the receptionist was like, "Is that the best he's got? C'mon, he's barely even trying!"

So ANYWAY, last night (why can't I seem to stay on track to tell this story) I slowly but surely was roused from a very deep slumber at 3:45 am. Somewhere in the midst of my dreams I heard a little "Eeeeeeeh!" and then a a few minutes later some grunting.

This went on for a bit while I forced my eyes to open and rolled over to look at the clock. More little baby noises came through the monitor and I took a deep, cleansing style breath to prepare my self to get out of bed.

Then I heard it.

And I only wish there was some way I could spell the sound.

Because it was the cutest thing ever...

Peter blew a little raspberry.

:)

As usual I'm sure it wasn't on purpose. But still. When I got to his crib he was stretched and grinning as though he found himself to be very entertaining.

Then he did his little "heh, heh, heh" laugh.

Someday maybe I'll be lucky enough to catch some of this stuff on video.

Baby Noises

So far, Peter's favorite thing in the entire world seems to be his own tongue.

That sounds weird I know, but over any of the music we play/sing for him, or the toys we show him or the swing or the bouncy chair or anything, NOTHING seems to make him happier than when he plays with his tongue, sticking it in and out and sometimes rolling it up.

From the very beginning of his little life I often entertained myself (and hopefully him too) by making funny sounds and waggling my tongue at him.

Apparently, Matt does the same thing too, although I didn't know this until I came downstairs earlier than usual the other morning.

So anyway, a few minutes ago I was holding my sweet boy after feeding him and he was just sort of staring up at me happily. I smiled back at him for while and then randomly stuck my tongue out at him saying a nice loud "Bleeeeh!" along the way.

And then...

I swear to goodness...

Peter looked at me sternly, stuck out his own tongue and said "Bleeeeh!" himself.

Then he looked sort of startled and embarrassed.

The news of course is NOT that he returned the favor and showed me his tongue. He's been doing that for ages with Matt, although rarely for me. The news is that he imitated the sound I made. :)

I tried and tried to get him to do it again, but failed.

I sort of doubt it was on purpose. In the very least it was accidental.

But it might have been the cutest thing ever.

Might have been.

Because last night, I think Peter tried to laugh:

I was holding him, after a feeding and trying to rock him to sleep. He was, as usual just staring up at me happily. So I decided to tickle him and make funny faces and just generally tried to entertain him. In response he made this, dry "heh, heh, heh!" sound in the back of his throat with a humongous grin.

I decided this was his attempt at laughter.

He did it again, several times this morning while Matt was doing his weirdo voice and trying to entertain the boy, which furthers my belief that this silly sound is the first version of his laugh, intentional or otherwise.

Weirdo

So, Matt is currently enrolled at Naval Postgraduate School (which is why we recently moved to Monterey) pursuing his MBA. The Navy runs the school, and pays him his regular salary to attend, mostly because they will eventually require him to have a Master's degree if he ever wants to become a Commander.

One of his classes this semester is on computers and for a recent assignment he had to design his own webpage. Apparently the professor didn't care what the pages were about, he just wanted them to know how to put one up. So people just did a lot of random topics: Surfing, Motorcycles, their families... that kind of thing.

What did my husband choose?
Guess!


C'mon guess!!!



(You're never gonna get it!!)



Alright, you give up?





Ready?









Meat.




Yes, you read that right.


As in beef, poultry, pork and other, "tube meats."
No, I don't know why either.
He's a strange one, that man I married.

More on the Sleeping

Last night we bathed the baby at 8 pm, dressed him, read him stories and put him down at 9 pm. He slept through until 3:45 am. (Mommy didn't, she woke up about 3 and laid there in the dark, obsessively staring towards the green light of the baby monitor which had the volume turned up super loud so I could here him breathing. And also listen to the faintly received am talk radio program... until she finally heard him wake up.) So that means he made it alllllmost to a 7 hour stretch.

Maybe my 8 hour "goal" is attainable soon after all.

Sleep and Hunger

As I sit down to write this, Peter is starting to doze off in his swing. I'm crossing my fingers that will last awhile because its the first time all day I've been able to put him down for more than 12 seconds without him freaking out.

Also, ever since Matt attempted to reseed the back yard we've been getting swarms of birds eating the seeds. First it was sparrows. Then pigeons. Today, however, its woodpeckers. I find this sort of strange since they're not even in the grass going after the seeds. They're on the fence, pecking little holes and presumably going after bugs.

So maybe its just a coincidence their being here now.
Anyway:

It's been an interesting couple of days. Peter was 7 weeks old yesterday, and seems to be going through quite a growth spurt. I've read in several baby parenting books and a few dozen websites that this is "normal" "around" 6 weeks.

So let me back track and catch you all up.

Sunday Night: Peter slept in his crib for the first time.
He went down at 9:00pm. I woke him up at about 10:00 pm to "top him off" and again at2:00 am to avoid exploding breasts. He then slept until 7:00 am or so before Matt fed him a bottle of pumped milk, then my Grandma took him until I got up around 9:30 am and fed him breakfast.

Monday night:
Peter went to sleep around 7:30 pm in my Grandma's arms but I didn't put him down until after I fed him at 9:30 pm because my Grandma was soaking up the love for the last night before she had to go home. He was up for feedings at 1:30 am and 3:45 am. Matt took him downstairs at 4:30 am and I got up and fed him breakfast at 8:30 am. This was the first morning in a couple of weeks where he didn't get a bottle of pumped milk.

He was hungry ALL day Tuesday. I fed him apx every hour to ninety minutes, until I was literally dry and he always seemed hungry for more.

So this brings us to Tuesday night:
We gave Peter a bath at 7:30 pm, and he went down at 8:00pm. He awoke at 9:00 pm apparently starving. At 10:00 pm he was up again, but Mommy was still pretty much running on empty so Daddy thawed some pumped milk from the freezer and our little bottomless pit sucked down another 4 1/2 ounces before finally going to sleep around 10:30 pm.

All of this led Mommy to the conclusion that she is wholly inadequate. Clearly my poor boy had been starving since not getting his bottle in the morning, which I'm assuming tends to be his largest meal of the day and had never been able to catch up all day. This, of course, is all my fault because if I was not such an awful mess in the morning we never would have gotten him into the habit of taking a bottle first thing in the morning, which would have meant that he never would have been horribly thrown off when one morning he suddenly didn't get one. Not that he hadn't eaten at the same time, mind you, he just probably didn't get as much from me as he was used to.

This also reminds me that when something is working, you shouldn't try to fix it. He was doing fine getting the bottles in the morning so I'm not sure why I decided to change it.

Back to Tuesday Night:
Peter slept from about 10:30 until 4:00 am at which point I fed him, Matt took him downstairs and he slept again until about 8:30 am when I fed fed him breakfast.

I began to rejoice. I thought my boy was done with the whole "starving to death" routine and had also gone 10 hours over night with only 1 (ONE!!) feeding in the middle.

I shouldn't have been so quick to react.

Wednesday was the same as the day before, except with the added bonus of Matt coming home much earlier to help me. I fed the baby roughly every hour again, and still he always seemed to want more. I started to panic that my milk was drying up prematurely. I fed Peter as much as I could, until finally in the early evening Matt gave him another small bottle, this time of formula (since it's supposed to be more filling) while I pumped whatever I could every 30 minutes or so to try to get things flowing again.

Mind you, the books and the websites all told me that Peter was just going through a growth spurt/hungry spell, and I was just finally regulating my milk supply (7 weeks in?) but I didn't want to take chances. I'd rather deal with occasional engorgement and leaks than feel like I'm starving my child.

So eventually, we got to Wednesday night:

We bathed Peter at 8:00 pm , I fed him at 8:30 pm and he went down easily at 9:00. This wasn't too surprising since he'd spent the greater part of the day screaming at us for more food.

He slept through until 4:00 am AGAIN.

Hmmm... The books and Internet tell me that "sleeping through the night" doesn't necessarily mean a baby sleeps from 10:00 pm until 6:00 am or whatever the conventional 8 hour sleeping schedule might be. They say that for many babies the night might be midnight to 6:00 am, or a stretch of about 6 hours. Now, 10:00 to 4:00 is six hours. Does this mean I can say the he is sleeping through the night? At this age?

I certainly feel more rested getting that long stretch of uninterrupted sleep...

But 4:00 am is hardly morning....

The jury is still out.

But really, for 7 weeks into this, I'm so not complaining.

I am wondering, though, if the long sleep stretches at night are contributing to the extra hungry/neediness/fussy/crankiness during the day. Maybe I should go ahead and wake him around 2:00 am to prevent him from getting overly hungry?

There should be a hot line for these types of questions.

The Fair and the Crib.

On Friday, since Matt doesn't have class and my Grandma was still here we decided to spend our afternoon checking out the Monterey County Fair. It didn't open until noon so we stopped at McDonalds beforehand for some lunch. Now, before I go any further I need to state for the record that I do NOT plan on being one of those parents who regularly feeds my child fast food, but I do think that for rare special occassions, The Golden Arches can be quite a nice treat for kids. I know it was for me when I was growing up.

So naturally, Peter had to have his first Happy Meal, even though at this point he certainly could not eat it himself. Instead, I ate it for him, figuring that in a few hours he'd be enjoying his french fries and cheeseburger himself through my breast milk. He did, however, get the toy (a dinosaur) and a french fry... to HOLD, not to eat. :)


So, anyway, after lunch, we headed to the fair.



Which was not very impressive. Maybe I am spoiled because I grew up in the capital of Ohio and therefore enjoyed the State Fair every year in all of its wonderfulness. And, while I've been to other county fairs as well, Monterey county is not exactly a thriving metropolis so I guess its not too surprising how lame its fair is. The rides of course, did not interest us, the booths were mostly stupid and the food choices were sadly lacking.

On the other hand, I always find animals interesting and the fair did have plenty of those. My favorite was the Spalsh Dogs competition.


I'd love to get Brutus in on this, except I can't trust him off leash and he's been deathly afraid of water ever since he fell inthe fountain at Balboa Park when he was a puppy so it probably wouldn't work out.

Aside from the jumping and swimming dogs, I also enjoyed the rabbits,



the poultry,



the beef,


(this cow was getting vacuumed, yes vacuumed, before being shown by its owner)

the pork,



and the, um, wool.


It was sort of funny, in a really inappropriate way, when we were walking through the sheep barn. The animals had all been sheered and many were wearing protective smocks, presumably, to keep them clean. There were a small group of black sheep who wore white smocks which covered their whole bodies AND their heads and faces and made them look very much like wooly little members of the KKK. Matt said they were all like, "We don't like black sheep! Wait a minute, WE'RE black sheep!"

It was hilarious, but, maybe you had to be there.

Anyway, Matt was happy to find a real live beekeeper, since he still maintains that will be his second career when he retires from the Navy.


No, I'm not kidding. He really says that's what he is going to do. It's a step up because he USED to say he was going to be an alcoholic. Really though, a bee keeper isn't much of an improvement because he wants to use most of the Honey to make alcohol.

*sigh*

Towards the end of the afternoon I started to feel sort of bad for my son. He's been on so may little adventures in his new life already, but he tends to spend all of them sleeping in the stroller. Because of this, I decided he needed a souvenier to remember his visit to the fair. Happily, a booth on pests and insects was giving away mini fly swatters. This seemed to be perfect for Peter since aside from whining, crying, dirtying his diaper and sucking on stuff the only OTHER thing he's really good at is holding things- like pretzel rods, french fries and now fly swatters. :)

***************

On Sunday evening, I decided it was time to move Peter to sleeping in his crib at night. I had several reasons for doing it:

1. He's over 6 weeks old now and I wanted to get him moved out of our room fairly early on and establish a solid night time routine.
2. His bassinet maxes out at 15 pounds. Since he is already 12, time was running short.
3. My husband can't sleep unless the temperature in our bedroom is darn near freezing and I'd really hate for my sweet boy to get hypothermia in his own bed.

I was NOT looking forward to making this transition.

Never the less, Sunday evening at 8:00 pm, after I fed him his "second supper", I took him upstairs, changed him into some nice warm footie-pajamas, read him two stories and put him down.


But I mean, honestly, could you have walked out and left this little face?



Yea, you're right, I couldn't either.

At my friend's Allison's recommendation, I have a Fisher Price music player thing that shines lights on the ceiling. I turned it on and let it run its course for 15 minutes before it shut itself down. Peter cooed quietly in his bed until the music and lights stopped. Then he started to complain.

I let him go for about 5 minutes and went back to check on him. He was still okay, but fussing so I turned the music back on. By the time it ended again, he had stunk up his diaper really well which left me no choice but to pick him up, change him and start the whole process over again.

By about 9:15 he was asleep.

I however, barely slept at all. I kept waiting for him to wake up and let me know he was hungry, but he really never did. At 2:15, when he stirred a little I took the chance to wake him up and feed him, so as to avoid spraying breast milk all over my house. After that he slept again until almost 7:00 am.

My own anxiety attacks not withstanding I'd say we were off to a pretty good start.

But don't worry, last night he was up every hour and a half. And today, now that my Grandma has gone home and nobody is around to help me, he's decided to fuss and cry all day.

I've now been working on getting this post up for just about 7 hours, between feedings, and diapers and all out screaming.

It's days like this that I must remind myself what a good baby he has been up til now, and hopefully will continue to be. And, GOSH, just look at this smile:

The Dark and the Doctor

A few nights ago we had an unexpected power failure. Abruptly at 8:30 the neighborhood went dark. There never was any indication why the power went off, and although our entire Base Housing Complex was dark, I could see the city lights still shining down the hill in town. Matt and I dug out the candles and flashlights and waited for the lights to come back on. But after about an hour, we gave up and headed for bed.

Peter had been down for the count since before anything out of the ordinary happened and continued to sleep soundly. Matt whined about being hot and needing to turn on the fan and ended up sprawling out on the floor of our room before passing out himself. Meanwhile, I just laid in our bed and stared at the candles and my baby's face for several long minutes. Finally, with a high powered flash light beside me on the nightstand, I worked up the courage to blow out the candle and try to sleep myself.

As soon as the little flame was extinguished I realized something kind of embarrassing:

Apparently, I am afraid of the dark.

First of all, this is something I never really realized before, because honestly, except in the case of the very rare night time power failure, when do I ever find myself plunged into complete darkness. Normally there are always, little lights from the computer, the clock, the smoke alarms and the like glowing "brightly" chasing away the darkness for me.

And even though I could see the lights glowing downtown out of my window, it was much darker in my house that night than I can ever remember.

The darkness didn't scare me, per say. It had more to do with Peter actually. I kept thinking that in the dark I wouldn't be able to find him (even though he was right next to me.) Or that I wouldn't be able to figure out how to help him if he started crying because I wouldn't be able to see what might be wrong.

(Forget the fact that there was a flashlight next to me, I was being afraid, and fear is rarely rational.)

Then I started to think about this movie I saw a long time ago where the power mysteriously goes off and just never comes back on. Ever. The movie had Elizabeth Shue in it, and its all about how society sort of breaks down without the convenience of electricity. Laying there in the dark listening hard for the sound of my baby's breathing I started to have a teeny-little anxiety attack about what how I'd be able to provide for Peter if something like that were really happening.

Then, suddenly, the power came back on.

Peter continued to sleep peacefully.

Matt got up, turned the fan on and crawled into bed like a normal person before zonking right back out.

And I was left to feel completely foolish.

**************

In other news:

This morning was Peter's 6 week check up so we have an update on his measurements.

As a reminder, when he was born he was 8 lb 2 oz, 22 1/2 inches long (although that's up for debate with my pediatrician) and his head was 36 cm around.

He now weighs 12 pounds even (which is the 75th percentile.) He is now 23 1/2 inches long (90th percentile,) and his head is 39 1/2 centimeters around (50th percentile.)

Dr. Ruckle did his exam and says he's doing well and looks good except for his gunky blogged tear duct which she prescribed some medicine for. Hopefully, this means in a few days there will be no more gigantic gunky pussy blobs coming out of his eye when he wakes up.

Finally, he had to have his first round of vaccinations. I'd be lying if I said I was looking forward to those. Today there was one oral and 3 shots. Peter did very well first with the oral dose which he sucked down slowly with only moderate protest. Then the (evil, mean, demon) nurse gave him the first shot in his left thigh. I had tears in my eyes before the needle even went in. Peter, meanwhile, took the prick, relatively calmly, gasped, turned deep purple and screamed bloody murder. Then he sort of relaxed into a whinny moan long enough for the other shots to go in his right leg.

Peter flailed about and screamed loudly again immediately. Louder than I think I've ever heard him. The nurses quickly disappeared, and I can't say I blame them. I doubt I'd be able to listen to the baby's cry after I'd given them shots either, and that's not to mention the drama caused by the baby's overly protective mothers.

Anyway.

I swept Peter up into my arms and hugged him, bounced him, and kissed him until he calmed down after about 3 or 4 minutes.

I couldn't believe it.

Then again, I wasn't about to argue. He is my Mellow Fellow after all and I guess, in retrospect I can't say that I'm really surprised at how easily he relaxed. Man is he ever a blessing.

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Today, since my Grandma is in town to help us with the baby, but is also going crazy with boredom because Peter is so well behaved that there is usually nothing for her to help with, we packed up our little family and went to the Aquarium.

Who am I kidding? I've been dying to go to the Aquarium since I first set foot in this town since it is the closest thing they have here to Sea World, and, as you all know, I looooove Sea World.

Granted, this Aquarium is NO comparison to Sea World, but it is prety cool none-the-less.

And of course, since I am crazy about taking pictures, I have lots of photographic evidence from our day.

Here is the California Kelp Bed Aquarium:




Matt enjoyed an exhibit demonstrating Ocean Currents. Here he's turning the handle making the current stir up for the fishes (notice the direction of the sea grass,) and by the look on his face it's quite a lot of work:



I quite enjoyed the Tidal Zone exhibit, especially the little alcoves where you can look up into the pools from beneath and get a better fishy perspective:


My Grandma and me:



Peter did his part and spent most of the day sleeping in his stroller, but did take the opportunity along the way to show off his very apporpriate whale outfit to anyone who might be interested:


Speaking of Whales, here is the model of a California Gray:



And my personal favorite, SHAMU!!!

... er I mean, an Orca:



The penguin exhibit is nice, but none of the birds were swimming. :(



Somewhere along the way I caught Matt, ever the proud Papa, making faces at the baby. This isn't the greatest picture, but it was the best I could get on the sly:



The jellyfish were beautiful and amazing:




We enjoyed the wide variety of Sea Horsies they had on special exhibit:



and Matt appropriately posed under this sign, demonstrating his likeness to sea horse fathers the ocean wide:



The otters were cute, but they were mostly all lazying their afternoon away.



Never the less, I was happy to demonstrate my love for the furry little water rodents:



All in all, it was a great little adventure for our little family.



and we put the price of our admission towards a family membership so we'll be able to enjoy the marine life many more times over the next year.

When we got home I fed Peter and was then hanging out with him since he was WIDE awake and super-extra-squirmy after his long afternoon spent napping in the stroller. I noticed, definitively that my baby has pretty much mastered the "art" of holding his head upright for several long minutes at a time, without so much as a wobble...


...at just 5 and half weeks old.

I'm not sure what I think about that. He already seems to be growing up too fast.

Finally a few other random (and adorable) shots of my little man from the last few days.




This last one is Matt's doing. He is forever taking off Peter's shorts or pants in favor of his son hanging out in his underwear (or in this case diaper) as Matt himself has often been known to do. After a diaper change, Matt neglected to replace his son's shorts, then proudly propped his first born up in the corner of the sofa and started giggling as took advantage of Peter's newborn grasping reflex by handing our son.... a pretzel rod.

Paranoid Much?

What is it about being a new mother that makes you paranoid?

Paranoid that he isn't eating enough, pooping enough, sleeping enough or, I don't know, growing enough.

But those are probably just the normal worries.

Meanwhile, I'm paranoid that he'll roll over and get stuck on his face and suffocate, or that he'll roll into the corner of his bassinet and suffocate or that he'll pull the blankets over his head and suffocate. I'm terrified that he'll manage to roll off the changing table or that he'll bounce himself out of his little chair and break every bone in his tiny little body.

Perhaps it is all the reading. It seems like every baby book is filled with terrifying statistics about horrifying things that can happen to children. Accidents primarily, but then they start to go on about Cerebral Palsy, SIDS, allergies, and dozens of other illnesses.

Ugh.

I have to admit that I sometimes have a hard time trusting Matt with the baby because he is just so relaxed. He hasn't read all the books and horror stories and seems blissfully unaware of all the potential dangers. Oh how I wish I could be blissfully ignorant too. But then again I want to do right by my son.

All the stories you hear don't help either. It seems like everyone you meet has a friend who knows somebody who had a baby that something horrible happened to.

When I was in high school I had a friend who's baby brother died of SIDS. (Incidentally, that same friend saw a kid get run over by the school bus when he was in Elementary school, so just knowing his story is enough to scare anyone half to death.)

Then of course there is my very helpful pediatrician who, at our one week check up was so thrilled with Peter's weight that she said she didn't need to see us again until six weeks. She assured me that if I had concerns or questions I could absolutely call or make an appointment sooner. Mostly though, all this did was eliminate my ability to casually ask stupid questions (like in the course of a normal check-up) with out seeming like an idiot, or, you know, paranoid and calling every five minutes.

I'm getting paranoid about being paranoid.

And then of course that same pediatrician casually shared with me that every year locally (ie, within Monterey County) she hears of cases of babies dying from SIDS. And one time, last year apparently, a young mother fell asleep in the Hospital (the same hospital where I delivered Peter) and her baby died of SIDS IN HER ARMS!!!!

Why my Doctor felt she needed to tell me this story and TERRIFY me further is completely beyond me.

Meanwhile, I feel like everyone is judging me and this is where the very worst paranoia lies. I honestly do have a GREAT baby who almost never cries, but when he does, I can literally feel the eyes staring at me, watching me deal with him, waiting for me to snap if he doesn't calm down right away and judging my every mothering move.

The truth is, that when he cries it stresses me out, sure. A little. But babies cry and since he hardly ever does, even when he screams bloody murder, I don't think I've ever, even got anywhere even remotely close to my patience threshold. (And I am very, very thankful for that.)

But I feel like nobody believes me.

And the more people assume I need help, the more I get paranoid that people think I can't cut it as a mother.

Want to know what drives me crazy? People jumping in to help when I don't need it. I appreciate the offer, but I need to be able to calm my baby by myself. If I need help, I'll ask for it. And the truth is, the only thing I can do to help me stop being paranoid is take care of him myself.

I trust ME after all. (Even if I apparently don't think anyone else does. I'm working that.)

And, for the record, I'm also working on better trusting other people with him...

I am a work in progress after all.

One Month

It's hard for me to believe that a month ago I didn't really know my son. He'd been a part of me for 9 months but all that had told me was that he got the hiccups a lot, he had a humongous head (which made my belly poke out at an odd angle on the right side just under my ribs) and he was stubborn enough that he'd never turned into the proper, upside down position for delivery.

A month ago I was so tired of being pregnant.

And I really gotta say, that as much as the C-Section was awful at the time, my recovery has been so smooth that I am very, very, very grateful that things turned out the way they did. (Thank you stubborn-ness for being genetic.)

One month later my waistline is close enough to where it started that nearly all of my regular clothes fit again. Nearly all of the 34 pounds I gained are gone as well and I'm back around where I "started" at for my first, 10 week, prenatal appointment just about 4 pounds above my normal weight (Now if only my "normal" weight could be about 10 pounds less...) and, its almost as if I never was pregnant at all.

Except for the part where I'm a mother.

I look at Peter, and I can't believe I had such a hard time imagining what his face would look like. His sweet little face with enormous blue eyes (for now) and a button nose. His face which has already changed so much since the first time I laid eyes on it that I can hardly believe it. His face which lights up my world when it smiles and breaks my heart when it frowns. How on earth is it possible that a month ago I'd never seen that face?


In his first 31 days of life my son has changed my entire world.

He still gets the hiccups a lot. He still has a humongous head. He's still very stubborn. But also he's so much more.

So much more that there aren't really words for it.

So instead, I'd like to take a moment to be thankful:

Thank you God for providing me with my little miracle.

Thank you Matt for helping me make him and for not killing me while I was pregnant and most of all for being my partner in this journey.

Thank you Peter for being awesome.

Thank you everyone that sent us gifts to help us raise him.

Thank you Pampers and Desitan and Johnsons & Johnson, Target and Babies R Us.

Thank you Gramma for spending 2 weeks with us to help and for filling our freezer with meals to last us another month at least.

Thank you Allison for sending me a box of Godiva chocolates.



(By the look on his face, I'd say the baby was even more excited than I was.)

And finally, thank you to all the people who haven't said "I told you so!" because while everyone tried to tell me about how awesome this would be, I basically refused to listen. I really had no idea.

More on the Cats

This morning when I came downstairs Matt said to me, "Ok so the cats aren't allowed outside anymore." I found this sort of odd, because after the missing-cat drama of yesterday I certainly wouldn't have willingly let them out this morning.

So apparently this morning Chase is still pouting. Last I saw him he was sitting in the litter box (yuck.)

Meanwhile, KC went out into the yard as usual with the dog. But a few minutes later when Matt went out to check on him (no, I wouldn't have left him out there unsupervised either, but that's beside the point) KC was gone. Instead in his place there was a scratching sound coming from the other side of the fence.

Then, after a few moments, KC appeared, jumping/climbing back over the fence and into our yard.

Matt says he must have watched Chase do it yesterday and then learned to do it himself today.

Maybe KC isn't as big a doofus as we always thought he was.