Monday, September 26 . . . Superman

or "swimming" . . . either way, it's not quite crawling.

I realized that I haven't been documenting all the "little" things he does, as those things that I'm going to forget about the minute he stops doing them.

-- He reaches up and grabs my face when he's nursing. Sometimes he puts his hand in my mouth and grabs onto my bottom teeth (did I accidentally teach him that by constantly looking for new teeth?). Other times he grabs my cheeks and opens and closes his hand like he's trying to pick up something. It was really cute at first. But sometimes he scratches, so I'm trying to encourage "hand-holding" instead.

-- He grabs onto his feet every chance he gets. He doesn't always get them in his mouth, but he often gets distracted by them, especially when wearing footy pajamas. Sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night to practice.

-- He smiles at me first thing in the morning. It's sort of like a "Oh! Right! You're here!!!" sort of smile, like be had almost forgotten about me, and it's a pleasant surprise that I'm there.

-- He takes food and puts it in his mouth. I'm not sure if he realizes yet that it's food, or if it's simply something to put in his mouth that has a surprisingly delicious taste.

-- He gives baby hugs, where he grabs on real tight and smooshes his face into my neck or my hand.

-- He absolutely HATES being carried on my back. He freaks out and pulls my hair.

-- He blows raspberries.

That's all I can think of right now. Oh, he sleeps in the evening now, so I have time to do things like eat and blog and watch How I Met Your Mother . . . though that's actually on right now, and I'm totally not watching it, because I'm about to go to bed. God bless the DVR.

Thursday, September 22

Someone has another tooth coming in!!!

In unrelated news, we got our first "he had a great day!" from the daycare yesterday! I don't know the details, but that's much better than "he was terrible".

Tuesday, September 20 . . . pumping fail

Such a small part. Such a tiny, insignificant part. Such a small thing, it's no wonder I left it in the dishwasher. But  without that part, my pump doesn't work.

Time to learn to hand-express.

***
Update: the hand-expressing actually went ok. Didn't get the full amount I need to keep up with the baby, but it's better than nothing . . . and better than exploding. I think I may have weirded out someone in the ladies room (I didn't feel like treking up to the pumping room to NOT use my pump) by sitting very quietly in a stall for SEVERAL minutes. Oh well.

And tonight I cooked while pumping with the battery pack. Serious multi-tasking.

Monday, September 19 . . . Sleeping Like a Baby, cont.

After a very difficult week, I feel like we had a breakthrough on the sleeping front yesterday. While I was out in the morning, Dad put baby down and after only 15 minutes of crying, he slept BY HIMSELF for an hour! (and it may have been longer, but I had to get him to leave).

(I feel like I'm in that Excedrine Migraine commercial, where Zoey from the The West Wing says, "it starts relieving pain in half an hour. And if you have migraines, you know how fast that is." If you've lived with our screaming infant for the last week, you know how fast 15 minutes is.)

Then last night, I put him to bed WITH NO CRYING!!! We read our book, nursed in bed, and when I put him down he looked at me and then zonk. out. for 3 hours (which, again, if you've lived this past week with me, you know how long that is).

Daycare was VERY excited to hear this!

Sunday, September 11 . . . Five Months!

I'm glad I had something to focus on today other than remembering the tragedy of the September 11 attacks. My baby is FIVE MONTHS OLD TODAY!!!

The Series:

     

  

He's gotten so CHUNKY!

As of today, my baby can . . .

Reach out and grab things.

(after he pulled them off my face)

(you can't really see, but he's grabbing her skin/fur and trying to chew on her)

Smile even BIGGER!!!

"Walk" in his walker thing

Recognize Mommy from far away.

And a new talent . . . refusing to sleep!

Still no real laughing . . . I guess we're not funny enough.

Saturday September 10 . . . sleeping like a baby

This weekend is the first time we're trying any sort of sleep "techniques". We've been having issues at daycare with R's sleep pattern . . . in that he doesn't have one. Lately it seems to be getting worse, as the summary of the day from the teachers has gone from "He had a pretty good day" to "He was a bit difficult today" to "He was terrible."
(Side note: it's not a great idea to tell a mother that her child is "terrible". Leads to a bit of self-loathing and "I must be a shitty-ass parent". Just sayin'.)
So last night we discussed how to go about teaching him to sleep on his own. We decided we just had to be stubborn: put him down sleepy but awake, and keep letting him cry, comforting him but continuing to put him back in his crib. It was ok last night, because by the time we went to bed (9:30, we're SO LAME), I just nursed him when he woke up and it was like business as usual.
Today, however, was a different story. He fought us every step of the way. The minute we would cuddle him in that "time to go to sleep" way, he would FREAK!!! We spent several hours mid-morning putting him in bed, letting him cry, picking him up, calming him down, putting him back, rinse and repeat. He ended up sleeping for about 20 minutes.
In the afternoon, it was the same thing. It was about three hours of the same, sometimes letting him scream longer, because we couldn't think of what else to do. Even Google couldn't tell us what to do! GOOGLE FAIL! Eventually Chris tried swaddling him, which we haven't done since he was 2 months old, and bam. out. Mom and Dad: 1! He slept for a solid 30 minutes.
Around 7:45 or so I gave him a bath and nursed him in the dark room, put him down awake.
8:10pm: As soon as I left the room, he started crying.
8:20pm: I gave him a few minutes and went back in but didn't pick him up. I sort of "petted" his head and arms, and he dozed off again.
8:30pm A few minutes later, same thing. I gave him 5 minutes of crying, and went in and did the same sort of "petting". I also readjusted his swaddle (which he seems to hate), and he dozed off.

It's 9:10, and he's still out. A record, in my book. We'll see how long it lasts.

Friday September 9 . . . a Change in Priorities

Yes, the baby is the most important thing. like ever. 2nd comes sleep and food. Chris is in there somewhere. Lower down are things like vacuuming and having clean sheets. I've managed to keep showering pretty high up there, though not without some serious effort.

But I've also noticed a serious shift in another aspect of life -- things that make me cry. If you know me, you know wear everything right there on the surface. I can't keep secrets, I can't lie, and I can't hide it when I'm upset. And up until about five months ago, I would cry at the drop of a hat. I'm that person who cries at Hallmark commercials, inspirational sports movies, and anything with babies being born. Seriously, I missed most of "The Business of Being Born" the first time, since it was blurred by tears. I nearly had to take a personal day after the Morgan Freeman VISA Olympic ads started last time.

(ok, this one still gives me chills)

I first really noticed a shift while watching Juno for the ump-teenth time. I always ALWAYS cried when Juno gives birth . . . "and he was there." Flood gates.

But when I was about 8 months pregnant, I watched it again. To my surprise, I didn't cry at that scene. Weird, I thought. I must just be in a funny mood.

The scene that follows is when Jennifer Garner's character is looking at the baby through the winder of the nursery. The nurse comes out and says to her, "Would you like to meet your son?"

BAWLING!!!!! HOLY CRAP I'VE NEVER CRIED SO HARD AT A MOVIE!!!!

So all of a sudden the birth wasn't the emotional part, it was the "becoming a mother" part.

Since R was born, I've noticed a few more times when I was upset/not upset at surprising times. While reading The Hunger Games, I didn't get upset the way other people did with certain plot points (like when P found out the K had been pretending; when we see how P has been HJ-ed; what happened to Prim) . . . (was that cryptic enough?) . . . the only part I got upset about was in the last book with the pen full of children outside the capital building (I can't say more without completely spoiling it). I can't watch videos where children are getting hurt. I had to leave the room when Deep Impact came on a few weeks ago -- there's a scene where everyone is trying to evacuate to higher ground, and Elijah Wood is on a motorcycle and goes to get his girlfriend who is in the car with her parents and baby brother. The mom puts the daughter on the motorcycle and then gives the baby to her so she could save the baby. Seriously. Had to leave the room.

Will this get better?

here we go again . . .

Thursday September 8 . . . a Moo Point

(I was going to write out the quote, but this is way better)

Anyway, I'm having issues being a functioning mammal lately, hence the "moo" discussion. My milk supply has been dwindling at work, and I'm not pumping enough to keep up with what the baby is drinking during the day (I barely got 6oz from three pumping sessions yesterday). Up until now I haven't had to pump at night or on the weekends, but I think I may have to start. Uhg. That means lugging the pump to and from work, which is a pain (figuratively), plus subjecting my nipples to extra pumping sessions, which is a pain (literally).

I got all worked up about it last night when I counted up how much milk I have in the freezer. At the start of this week I had about 30 bags, each with about 3-4oz (which is about 1 bottle). If I had to defrost one bag each weekday to supplement what I pump during the day, the stash would last me about six weeks. Funny enough, he turns 6 months in just under 6 weeks (when we plan to start solid food). My goal was to continue breastmilk as his main source of food up until 1 year, but not if I'm not making enough. I don't want to force solids on him too early, and I REALLY REALLY don't want to supplement with formula.  (I know I shouldn't judge, but in my mind, formula = not real food. Sort of like Slim Fast . . . lots of vitamins and minerals, the calories one needs, but it's not food). I started to get really upset about it, but Chris, bless 'im, talked me down with a very logical "We'll just have to cross that bridge when we get to it".

Cut to this morning, when I dropped baby off at daycare. The teacher mentioned that I might need to start sending MORE milk each day (I send him with three 3.5oz bottles), and that they've gone through THEIR freezer stash (I gave them three frozen bags just in case). Oy. So forget the 6 weeks, since I have to fork over more frozen bags PLUS maybe send him with more than three bottles in a day. 

Guess I know what I'm doing this weekend . . .

Looks fun, doesn't it?! I mean, she's even got a cocktail!!

Monday September 5 . . . "Labor" of Love

Happy Labor Day! A day when we celebrate . . . working? by not working? I'm never sure.

This weekend we packed up and headed north to see the family. Friday night we drove up, and baby was good for about half of the three-hour the trip. Because we don't have a car, he's not used to staying in his car seat for that long, and is not the type to just fall asleep when the car starts moving.

Saturday we headed to Chris's parents to watch the first game of the Notre Dame football season! WooHoo!!!

We met up with our friends Lisa and Kerri, and met baby Michael, who was born only a few weeks after Rowan.

Gramma and Grampa C and the whole family got some baby time, and he was SO good the whole time!!!

Sunday we drove out to eastern Massachusetts to see my extended family.

Four Generations!

Everyone loved the sling


And the hat!!!

Trying to figure out what to do with watermellon

Again, he was SO good all day. But, again, he was only content for about half of the three-hour car ride each way. I really don't know how people regularly drive around with infants.

We spent the mornings with my parents, exploring the garden and learning to "walk".

The trip home was similar to the trip up, asleep or content for about half of it. We purposely left when he was tired and cranky, hoping the car would sooth him and he'd sleep for most of it.

at 2:25pm . . .

. . . and 9 minutes later.

So the first half of the trip was lovely. The second half . . . not so much.

We treated ourselves to takeout when we got home.