I know, I’m behind on the weekly newsletter & photos. Been busy with th official, final move and CHRIS’S BIRTHDAY! Unfortunately, we don’t have Internet at the house until Friday, so I’ll have to catch up then – it’s too much a pain in the arse to write out anything long on my phone.
Author Archives: Nik
coo coo cachoo
This is more like it – click here to hear the Nugget happy noises.
14
No, not weeks, but pounds. Speaking of cranky (see previous), someone has been very much so the past couple days. 3 month growth spurt? Indeed. In his 12 week newsletter, I’d said that he’s stayed only a little over 13 pounds for the past couple weeks. But we weighed him again and he’s just an ounce or two shy of 14 pounds. We should really start measuring him, too, and see if he’s taller than 25 inches yet. (I’m pretty sure he is.)
wah!
Chris has been recording our little Nugget’s many noises. Of course, of all the happy sounds & cooing he recorded, he sends me Cranky Nugget, first. Click here to listen.
Week 12
So we’ve hit week 12, but it’s still not quite a full 3 months. Not for another 8 days. 3 months! A quarter of a year! There I go, trying to rush things again.
It’s been a pretty quiet week, just more of what he’s been doing. If you REALLY want to know all about him, lately, he’s taking to pooping just every other day. 3 months is supposed to mean another growth spurt, so we’ll see what happens – he’s been holding steady at a little over 13 pounds the past couple weeks. That’s unusual, seeing as up until now, he’s gained an average of a couple pounds every couple weeks.
Oh, but he HAS been consistently giving us a good 6+ hour stretch of sleep every night. That alone is a godsend.
I slacked on taking pictures this week – we’ve been mostly busy with the house. That’s my only excuse. But at least I got a few of he & I, even if it is pretty much the same picture over & over. So there you go, Mom & Dad.
My thinking is that we’ll be officially moved in to the house next weekend (we kind of have to be, since the temp housing is done on the 17th.) I CAN’T WAIT. Felix can’t, either, though he may not be aware of it. He needs some fresh air & daily walks just as much (if not more so) than I do. And I’m really hoping to get a new bike soon & see how we do with that. Luckily, our neighborhood is very bike friendly – lots of paths and places to ride around without running into any major roads. Oh, and luckily for ME, it’s flat enough that I can get back in shape with bike riding without killing myself on big hills.
One thing from this week that’s worth remembering – yesterday was pretty big in terms of realizing how aware of us he is. He was hanging out in my lap and had had enough (he likes to move around quite a bit) and was starting to fuss. Chris came home just then and said hi. As soon as Felix heard him, he stopped fussing and sat on my lap staring up & right at Chris and smiling. He certainly recognized that Daddy was home!
The past week’s few photos here.
PS I need to add, because this is just as much a record of his life for me as it is for everyone else to keep up with him – that picture of him with the bottle, it’s NOT formula. I feel pretty triumphant about that. Since he’d been unable to latch for whatever reason & I started pumping – I never thought I’d even last this long. In those first few weeks, all I could do was to pump day by day and keep giving myself little short term goals to get to, (one more day, one more week, just until he’s 6 weeks, etc) and I’ve surpassed them all to the point where it’s just part of the daily routine and I think nothing of it anymore. There are days when it sucks & I feel like I want to quit, but I’ve been dead set against him being a formula-fed baby. In my mind, I’m screaming, “I had a home birth, dammit! Home birth and formula do not go together!” I’m pretty hardcore when it comes to natural & unprocessed foods – I won’t even drink pasteurized milk (I prefer raw milk, much better for you.) So how do I, who doesn’t eat any chemicals, decide that it’s ok for my child? I would think that every time I felt like giving up and just keep going. Another day, another day.
Some days it feels like all I do is frantically pump, trying to keep up with him. Other days – like now that he’s sleeping in 6 hour stretches & no longer needing that extra feeding or two at night and I can keep up with his demand – it feels perfectly manageable.
I could try to get him to latch again, now that he’s bigger & older. The pediatrician has suggested we wait until we’re moved in to the house & settled, because honestly – the whole latch struggle was & is emotionally & physically exhausting. There’s a part of me that wants to contact another LC (lactation consultant) and go for it, after the official move. Another part of me feels like at at this point, let it rest. We have a routine, he’s thriving, I’ve adjusted. Trying to get him to latch again could just stir up a new wave of feelings of failure. Is it worth it? Yes and no.
Week 11: Sunny Skies Are Here Again
Just like that, as quickly as he turned into a miserable little demon, he went right back to being his old, cheery self. Behold:
I stand by my original assessment that the lack of sleep had caught up to him. That chamomile water worked WONDERS. Every since those two days where I had given him some, he’s gone from barely ever sleeping to sleeping A LOT. He’s consistently slept 6-7 hour stretches at night, for the past week, and he takes a few long naps during the day. When he’s not sleeping, he’s happy, cheerful & alert (unless he’s hungry/wet/tired).
His routine now is that he falls asleep around 10-11pm (unless there are grandparents around to exhaust him, in which case he falls asleep as early as 9-9:30). He’ll wake up around sometime from 5:30-6:30, fall back asleep until 7-8 during which time I’ll feed him and then take him back to bed just for us to lie together. For about an hour, he’ll lay there and coo and smile (and I’ll either coo & smile back or just try not to fall asleep, depending how tired I am) and then about an hour or two later, he’ll sleep again, until about 10-11am.
Then during the afternoon, he’ll sleep a couple times.
I have to say, we’re damn lucky. I hear horror stories about babies that wake up at 5:30am and stay up. Our kid sleeps from 10-10, for the most part. Weekends are great. I’ve (hopefully) started a nice little weekend routine – some family time of just laying in bed, awake for an hour playing with him. I think that might be my favorite time, ever – the three of us, waking up together.
I’ve also gotten far more adept at recognizing his cries & his mood. I can tell when he’s cranky & tired and usually a few minutes in the swing will be enough to knock him out.
A couple things I keep forgetting to mention – he loves when you rub something soft over his face (especially my hair.) I discovered the hair thing by accident one day – I was leaning over him on the floor and my hair was in his face. I suddenly heard noises of ecstasy like I’ve never heard before! His eyes were closed and he rolled his head back & forth, rubbing his face in my hair. He’ll do something similar if you drape a piece of cloth over his face, but my hair gets the biggest reaction.
If you put cloth over his face – he LOVES to eat soft things, as well. Or just lick & gum them, I suppose. You can set him down & put fabric over his mouth and he’ll lay there for ages just licking & smiling away.
He also started to eat his hand a couple weeks ago – or try to. At times it seems he’s trying to suck his thumb, but but often he’ll just make a fist & slobber all over it, or try to shove his whole fist in his mouth.
Then there’s his eyes. Straight on, they’re bluer than blue. But from the side, they look green. There’s definitely a ring of green around his pupil, some days it’s bigger than others.
We’re starting on the 11th week now – it’s hard to believe he’s about to turn 3 months. Again, I think “that’s it?” and “wow, it’s been a long 3 months” at the same time. There’s certainly been a lot of ups & downs, but I suppose anyone will tell you that that’s all part of having a baby. The ups far outweigh & make up for the downs.
Now that we’re moving into the new house, I’m SO excited to finally make up a room for him. Not that he’ll be using it much (they say co-sleeping should be done for up to a year, and I fully intend to – if not only because I can’t bear to sleep away from him.) Though I will try to use his crib for afternoon naps.
His room, as with all the upstairs rooms, is white. I want to get a brightly colored color block throw rug, and I got these vinyl decals for the walls:
Chris wondered if they might not be too scary, but a 3 month old doesn’t understand “scary” yet. I thought about dinosaurs, but they’re too cliche. Me being me, I wanted something unique. I’d have liked to have gotten vintage robots, but the only ones I could find on short notice were black & white, and I wanted color. By the time he’s old enough to think they’re scary (which I doubt, if he’s been looking at them since he was a baby), he’ll be able to choose his own motif.
Balls!
We closed on Thursday afternoon, got the keys on Friday afternoon, and went over to check it out again today.
Remember we mentioned that the previous owners had tax liens against them? Quite a lot? Well, turns out the electricity was cut off, in addition to the water, because they didn’t pay their bill. (Not a big deal for us, we’ve already called and taken care of it.)
But when we arrived today, we found collection notices on the door. Fun. I’m waiting for the day, when I’m home during the afternoon, and I have to explain to some collection officer that I’m not who they’re looking for & I’ve no idea where the previous owners are.
Then we looked out in the backyard and MAN, was I peeved. Part of the contract was that they had to finish clearing all their shit out of the house & the garage. Weird little odds ‘n ends they’d left in bathroom drawers, piles of crap in closets, a spare fridge and the overflowing piles of junk in the garage. I’m thinking that, considering how close to foreclosure they were, they weren’t in the best of moods, plus probably a little angry that we paid them $20k less than they asked for – but that was only fair, considering the house needs a whole new roof & a bunch of cosmetic work.
Well. They cleaned out the garage, the closets, and the drawers, but…
Click on the image to zoom in. Or not. Can you see all the little colored spots all over the yard?
“What’s with all the fucking balls?” Chris said.
Balls.
Balls!
Somehow, they’d managed to leave balls all over the backyard. Footballs, soccerballs, kickballs. 10-15 of them.
Were they trying to make some kind of statement? In all the clearing out they were doing, how could they not take 2 minutes to round up a few balls? Seriously?
We’re cracking up about it, and it’s pretty damn funny, but I’m also kind of pissed off. I mean, come on. BALLS?
The balls, to me, say “Make sure you have the locks changed.”
So here’s my new kitchen, the kitchen that I fell madly in love with. They put a bit of money into the kitchen, it’s pretty new – double oven, built in microwave, relatively new refrigerator, shelves that slide out in one of the cabinets and a LAZY SUSAN for spices! Sigh.
One of the bathrooms has this absolutely hideous countertop. When I first saw it, I thought they’d splattered mud or something all over it, but it was just the pattern. It will be replaced eventually, but it’s not a priority.
Then there was one of the downstairs, kid’s bedrooms – we had a lot of fun speculating on the holes:
So, like… angry teenager? Drunk wife? Someone kicking BALLS! around in the house?
There’s a great little deck upstairs, off the kitchen. I’d like to get another dog again some day – the deck is perfect for, say, wet days when you want to leave the dog outside until his paws are dry?
And there’s a treehouse in the backyard. It needs some work, but I figure we’ll just tear it down and build a brand new one for when Felix is old enough.
The downstairs “rec room” is awesome. The one half will be left open, as a space for me to do yoga in. When I’m not doing yoga, there will also be a projector on the wall, on that side, for video game playing & such.
And there’s a decked off area in the backyard, also – perfect for barbecues, playing with Felix, or just hanging out.
Oh – and in addition to the balls… the cleaned the freezer out, but really, we should just toss the whole fridge. The freezer smells like they put something dead in there and forgot about it for… oh, about 10 years. Bleh.
It’s a shame, for their situation. This house has TONS of potential and they barely scratched the surface.
As for us, it’ll just be SO NICE to unpack and not have to move again for quite some time.
Chamommmmmmmmmmmile
Note: Chamomile water = magical elixer.
When I say, “He doesn’t nap during the day,” you can’t possibly understand the weight of that statement or just how serious I am, without spending a day or two with him. He never does longer than 20 minute spurts and even those not more than a couple times a day.
The pediatrician gave me a bottle of chamomile water, which is supposed to relax (read: sedate) babies. Or anyone, really. Ever had a cup of chamomile tea at night?
He’s been napping in his swing for… oh, a good couple hours now. How does one go to a forced 20 minute catnap to two hours of sleeping? MAGIC, that’s how.  Or maybe the probiotics I gave him settled his tummy down enough for him to sleep. Or maybe a combination of the two. Whatever. He’s been napping and I’ve been able to sit here going through photos and blogging.
Chamomile water. GOLD.
Week 10 : The Fuss-Maker
This past week will be known as The Week He Became a Demon Baby.
See, I thought we’d escaped all that crying, colicky stuff. Serves me right for telling everyone how easy he is, and how he only cries when he needs something. Oh, we’re tired, but this having a baby stuff is so simple – tra la la!
And then the all day fussing started. About 10 days ago. I originally attributed it to another growth spurt, but once we hit day 10 of me wanting to shove hot pokers through my ears & into my brain, I got it. This was no growth spurt.
“Colic”? MY baby, really? Sigh. We hold him, he’s happy for 10 minutes, then he cries. Put him in the swing. Happy for 10 minutes, then cries. Put him on his mat. Happy for 10 minutes and he cries. I’ve tried everything. I gave him a bath one day, followed by a massage, and he napped for an hour and a half. That’s unheard of. He’s still not much of a napper, but we’re working on it. Kid needs sleep.
So I thought BATHS! BATHS & MASSAGES ARE KEY! I tried again the next day, but of course, it didn’t work again. While he may look increasingly more like Chris every day*, his personality is mine, all mine. Difficult. Inconsistent. Or maybe that’s just the “colic” talking. On good days, he’s a huge bolt of sunshine. In the morning & just before bed, he still coos and smiles, just to let us know he’s still in there. But in between… OH, LORDY, THE CRYING. THE CRYING THAT JUST NEVER GOES AWAY.
I went to the pediatrician today, just to be sure there wasn’t something else going on. You know, something concrete & simple that could be fixed. Nope. No such luck. Being the all natural person that I am, I was happy to accept a bottle of chamomile water & a recommendation to give him a pinch or two, each day, from my probiotic capsules. Chamomile is supposed to be calming and the probiotics are good for the whole digestive system.
I was almost convinced he was teething – you can see the outline of every single one of his teeth through his gums. I don’t know if that’s normal, but based on this past 10 days – WOW, am I ever looking forward to when the teething starts. Yeah. Looking forward to it. Just like I’d look forward to ramming my head against a cement wall. Although, if I rammed my head against a cement wall, I’d eventually knock myself out and get some relief.
Ok, that’s a bit dramatic. I jest. I mean, the crying sucks, but I know it’ll pass – and I also know it isn’t nearly as bad as most people have it. I’ve heard many stories of “colicky” babies who would start crying every day around 6pm and not stop till 2 am. For weeks on end. Felix is a considerate little man – he gets it all out during the day and gives us peace through the night.
At some point this afternoon, our realtor is supposed to be coming by to drop off the keys to OUR! NEW! HOUSE! *I* am looking forward to it because it’ll be so much easier to get out more often, and go for walks. I also can’t wait to have all my kitchen stuff back. Well, WE can’t wait for me to have all my kitchen stuff back. I’m sure Chris is just as sick of all the grab ‘n go & pre-made food as I am. And just maybe Felix is sick of not being settled already, too.
PS It occurred to me that maybe I should put links to the weekly photos here with the newsletter, as well, so here’s a link to this past week’s photos (week 9.)
* He is starting to look more & more like Chris, isn’t he? His eyes are still blue and I thought they were going to stay that way, but some days, when the light hits, it looks like there’s a pretty ring of green around his pupil, spreading outward. *Fingers crossed*
Week 9
As we speed towards his third month, I try to remember that we should be enjoying every moment of right now, but it’s hard not to want to hurry up to the days when we can take him to the zoo, museums, etc.
He’s been drooling like crazy, which I originally thought was just his new signal of hunger, but it turns out it’s just a normal development – a precursor to teething. (Oh, can’t wait for that fun!)
The joy of napping continues to elude us. This kid does not nap. Did I say this already? – I stopped napping completely at 5 months. So I guess this is mom’s revenge. I think I’m done reading all the guidelines & books about “this is what babies do at this age,” because everyone else I talk to is quite insistent on these things, whereas I’ve realized pretty quickly that all these guidelines are absolutely not true for everyone.
Especially when you have a kid as unique as Felix. *smile*Â Takes after his mother, that one – always bucking the system and doing things differently from everyone else.
Well, it’s not entirely true when I say he doesn’t nap. He takes 20 minute catnaps, at best. Perhaps 2 or 3 a day (depending on how desperate I’m feeling.) He agrees to nap for 20 minutes whenever I want to take a shower. So, that’s nice of him.
I’ve already warned everyone off of giving me suggestions on getting him to sleep – I’ve tried it all. The ONLY thing that does any good is movement. Again, like me, who only slept in the car. He sleeps in the car (so long as we’re not at a red light), in the stroller (so long as we’re actually walking/moving), in his car seat when we’re carrying it AND I’ve discovered, if I put him on my lap and bounce him around.
So, we’re buying a baby swing today and see if that might become my “mother’s little helper.”
I’d say, on average, including nighttime (or rather, ONLY at nighttime), he gets about 9-10 hours of sleep a day. He actually doesn’t seem all that cranky for getting so little sleep. Occasionally he is, but then I put him down for one of his infamous catnaps, and all is well again.