Monday, July 22, 2013

6 months



nicknames: dax, monkey, munchkin, and tyke. matt's been calling him daxy-poo, too, which is kind of ridiculous but it's adorable that he's so cute with him.

likes: playing peek-a-boo.  yelling, squealing, and screaming.  rolling over.  splashing in the bath or baby pool.  trying to grab padfoot.

dislikes: being hungry.  getting out of the bath.

milestones: we are officially mobile - daxon is completely rolling over now.  he's been rolling front to back for several weeks, but pretty much could not care less about rolling back to front.  but just within the past week, he started completely rolling.  he is really good at lifting up his head, and recently started kind of pushing up his butt.  he really found his voice this month - yells, squeals, screams, and talks.  and he is sitting on his own for longer and longer periods of time.  but the biggest milestone is that we've started solids!  more on that below. 

clothing size: all 3-6 month or 6 month.  and a pair of old navy jean shorts that are 6-12 month.  

sleep: sleep has been weird this month.  all of a sudden he is having mid-night wakeups.  he doesn't need to eat, but he wakes up and fusses, so i go down and give him his paci and his lovey, and usually within a few minutes he falls back to sleep.  he is also waking up much earlier than usual - like 5-5:30, when it used to be that i had to wake him up at 6.  he is also a bit more difficult to put down at night, which may because of adding solids to his nighttime routine.  and really, he's not difficult, per se, but he's not falling asleep nursing consistently like he had been.  several times i've had to put him in the crib awake.  but usually i just give him his lovey and after fussing/playing for a couple minutes, he falls asleep.  once or twice we've had to go give him his paci.

naps: i am trying to be more consistent with his naptime, especially his big afternoon nap (1-3).  daycare marks that he naps from 1-3 every day, and though i doubt that he's actually sleeping that whole time, i'm sure he is at least getting quiet time, so i am making more of an effort to do the same thing.  i take him upstairs, close his blinds, turn on the white noise machine (sometimes i'll play music instead of the white noise), and close the door.  again, sometimes he'll lie awake and play for up to 20 minutes, but eventually he'll fall sleep, and then he'll pretty consistently sleep for at least an hour, and very rarely he'll go close to 2 hours.  i usually try to get him down in the mornings, too, around 10, which is what they mark that he does at daycare.  sometimes he'll also take a quick catnap after our evening nursing session (like 15-20 minutes).

eating: we started solids, you guys!  so far, he's only getting about an ounce once a day.  i'm waiting to send something to daycare until after we see the ped to really figure out exactly how to schedule adding solids to his routine.  at exactly 5.5 months, we started off with egg yolk, based on this information. i hadn't really intended to start when we did, but he was sitting at the table with me one evening when matt was working late, and he was so interested in what i was doing, so i took a hard-boiled egg, scooped out the yolk, and mushed it with some breastmilk.  it went well, so our next step was bananas, and only because we ran out of eggs and happened to have some bananas.  he didn't like the bananas so much at first, but we tried again, and he took to them on the 2nd night.  after that was sweet potatoes, then avocado.  we also tried green beans, but they didn't puree very well - the hulls didn't break down, so it was kind of chunky, and he didn't like the texture.  after doing it, i read that using frozen green beans is actually better than fresh, so we'll have to give that another try.  we try each food 3 times to monitor for reactions.  for the bananas, i just mushed them with a spoon/fork in a little ramekin.  for the avocado, i put it in the food processor.  and for the sweet potatoes and green beans, i used my baby brezza, which steams and purees all in the same bowl, which i love cuz it's less mess.  i am basically following this guideline on when to introduce what foods, minus the grains.  i'm still not sure what i'm going to do about grains and wheat.  from what i've read, a baby's guts lack the enzyme to properly break down grains until they're much older.  however, i am concerned that putting it off puts him at higher risk for developing a wheat/gluten allergy.

so our feeding schedule looks like this: i nurse him first thing in the morning (usually around 6-ish).  during the week, he is then up for the day.  he gets 3 6-oz bottles at daycare (and i pump 3 times at work).  i nurse him when we get home (right around 6).  he eats dinner with us around 7.  and then at 7:45, it's bedtime and he nurses to sleep.  i sometimes worry that he's eating too much, but then i have to remember that he's not getting a whole lot of nutrition yet from the solids - "food before 1 is just for fun!"  my plan is to start sending an ounce or so to daycare and having them give it to him before his afternoon nap.  he gets a bottle at noon and then goes down for nap from 1-3. 

we are having so much fun with him.  his little personality is definitely starting to show through.  so far, we know that he loves to smile, rarely cries (unless he's hungry...like daddy), and can entertain himself just fine.  he likes to sit back and watch what's happening around him (again, like daddy), but if you get him chatting he will talk your ear off (like mama).  he's pretty outgoing, and will flash his big smile to pretty much anyone.

mmmm....sweet potatoes

look, ma, no hands!

crazy hair day at daycare

petting mama while nursing

milk coma

playing on mama and daddy's bed

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

rsvp rage

why do people not respond to invitations that specifically ask for a respone?  there is a reason people ask for a response, so what is your reason for not doing that?  i'm not asking you whether you're coming so that i can feel more popular.  i'm asking so that i can make sure that i have enough food for you.  i hate nothing more than people who never respond but then show up and eat.  or who never respond, but i go ahead and assume they're coming, and then they don't, and i've wasted a shit-ton of money on food that won't get eaten. 

not responding to invitations is so rude.  i can't.fucking.stand.it.  we sent out an evite, so literally all you have to do is click your mouse like 3 times - once to open the email, once to choose your response, and once to close the email.   it is not hard.  it does not take up more than 15 seconds of your time. 

i seriously want to send out an email to everyone who hasn't responded and say, "since you have not responded to our multiple requests for an answer, we are going to assume you're not coming.  there will not be food for you.  please do not show up and expect to eat."  is that rude?  yep.  but so is not clicking a little box. 

sometimes, i really hate people.

Friday, July 5, 2013

survivor guilt - mommy edition

i read enough to know that at some point from the moment i saw the word "pregnant" float up on that pee stick until inifinity, i was going to experience feelings of mommy guilt.  you know, i'm-not-spending-enough-time-with-my-baby....i-should-be-at-home-and-not-at-work...why-did-i-lose-my-patience...  all that good stuff.  i expected all of that and therefore have been able to contain it and reason myself out of it when it surfaces. 

what i didn't expect were these feelings of survivor guilt.  at almost 6 months in, i really have nothing to complain about regarding motherhood or parenting or newborns.  dax was an easy baby.  aside from cluster feeding, i really had very few issues during his super-young newborn period.  he is a happy baby.  we can take him anywhere and he adapts quickly and easily.  he can entertain himself.  when he's fussy, it's for a reason, usually because he's hungry, so it can easily be resolved by sticking a bottle or my boob in his face.  i am - we are - insanely lucky.  i am well aware of this fact.  i count my blessings every single day.  many many mothers before me struggled - with breastfeeding, with babies who don't sleep, with colicky babies.  i truly think it is not something that we are doing "right."  i think we just have an easy baby.  matt and i were both easy babies, and we are both laid-back humans.  i think daxon just has those traits from us. 

so when i see my sister struggling with quinn, i feel guilty.  quinn is a biter, so their breastfeeding relationship has been difficult.  he has terrible reflux (far worse than daxon ever did).  the medication he's on for the reflux makes him gassy.  he fusses a lot.  it is hard to be around for more than a few hours.  i don't know how callie does it for days/weeks on end.  especially because anthony travels for work, so there have been times when she's been alone with quinn for days.  they have tons of family around, but i get the impression that she doesn't reach out for help all that often.  so i feel guilty that i'm not closer by to help. 

and then beth, matt's cousin.  liam is now almost 10 weeks old (almost 36 weeks gestation).  he is still in the nicu, and still on the vent.  they have trialed removal of the vent several times, and each time he fails and needs to be reintubated.  apparently the doctors are now saying there is a chance he may never come off the vent.  he still has a pda (a hole in the pulmonary artery and the aorta that hasn't closed, so blood is not getting oxygen from the lungs).  they tried the medication given for pda, but he had a bad reaction to it, so they are basically just bidign their time to see if it closes.  my heart aches for them.  i feel guilty that i have this healthy, happy, full-term little baby, while they are struggling so much in the nicu.  

when daxon was fussing yesterday (because he was hungry) while i was trying to get one more thing done for dinner before taking him up to eat, i got frustrated and snipped at him.  then i thought about beth and how she probably wishes liam could fuss and express his needs so that she can attend to them.  and i felt terrible.  terrible that i yelled at dax, terrible that i didn't appreciate that he's healthy enough to have the lung capacity to yell for his needs, terrible that i'm not appreciating all of that.

i know that none of this can be helped.  i am doing nothing right anymore than they are doing anything wrong.  this is simply the way the cards fell.  babies are different and that's that.  there's nothing that i can do about it.  it is what it is.  i know it's silly to feel this way, but there it is. 

Friday, June 28, 2013

don't forget!

in case you haven't heard, google reader is set to disappear from the world on monday.  i migrated all my current google reader subscriptions over to bloglovin, and i am happy with it.  the app is great (i do most of my blog reading while i'm nursing and/or pumping).  it makes is super easy to follow new blogs.  and, if you sign up before google reader goes away, it will automatically migrate everything for you.  easy-peasy, lemon squeezy! 

follow me over at bloglovin!

Monday, June 24, 2013

in vino veritas

on saturday, my sister and anthony and quinn came for a visit.  it was quinn's first time traveling, and the little guy did pretty well!  saturday night after the kidlets were in bed, the 4 of us sat out back on the patio and had some drinks and talked about parenthood and all that comes with it.  we swapped delivery stories (my labor and subsequent vaginal delivery and callie's scheduled c-section, since quinn was breech).  and then the boys started talking about the first time they saw their sons.  and, you guys, it was the sweetest thing.  i'll keep their words to myself, because it was private emotional things that were said in the sanctity of our back porch, but i nearly cried listening to matt talk about those first few moments.  i could cry now just thinking about it. 

watching matt be a daddy - playing with daxon, trying to make him laugh, feeding him a bottle, giving him a bath - is my greatest joy in life.  on saturday night, when we were in bed, i told him as much.  i told him how much i love watching him be a daddy.  i told him how proud i am of him.  i told him how my heart swells at the way daxon looks at him.

we said things that night that we simply hadn't gotten around to saying to each other yet.

in vino veritas...

Thursday, June 20, 2013

playtime

daxon and i got some quality playtime in this evening.  i could not possible love this kid more.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

5 months




nicknames: dax, d, bubbers, munchkin, and tyke.  uncle dan calls him d-man.
likes: putting everything in sight into his mouth.  talking and yelling.  kicking his legs like he's training for a marathon.  playing peek-a-boo.

dislikes: being burped in the middle of eating.  getting into his car seat.

milestones: he is really starting to talk now.  he mostly talks with his mouth closed, using his tongue to make "sounds" inside his mouth.  it's kind of hard to explain, but it's hysterical.  he loves to shriek and yell.  he is laughing a lot more.  and of course we had our first hospital visit, which was a milestone i could have done without.  he's able to roll over back to front and front to back, but he struggles with it.  i kind of think he just doesn't care enough.  he can sit assisted, and can tripod sit for a few seconds if he's really concentrating on it.  and he's doing better with tummy time.  he loves to pull his blanket or burp cloth over his face, then pull it down - playing peek-a-boo!  he is using his exersaucer a lot, now, too.

clothing size: mostly into his 3-6 month or 6 month stuff.  we just gave a big bag of 3 month stuff to cousin quinn.  we also graduated to medium size sleep sacks.  

sleep: we are still feeding to sleep, and i kind of don't care anymore.  we attempted to change up the routine, and it didn't go so well.  the first night it actually went great, but the second night was an enormous disaster.  he started to fuss and we let him go for 3 minutes.  i went up, gave him his paci, and stayed with him till he calmed down.  a couple minutes later, he started to fuss again.  we let him go 5 minutes until matt went up.  he would not calm down.  after another 5 minutes of matt trying to comfort him, i finally gave in and nursed him to sleep.  we talked about it, and since he doesn't need to nurse (ie, he doesn't need me), we're ok with him eating to sleep (boob or bottle).  occasionally he wakes up in the night, but we just give him his paci and he's right back down.

naps: still napping pretty regularly.  if we miss a naptime, or if the schedule gets thrown off on the weekend, he doesn't meltdown.  it means we can be pretty flexible, which is really great.

eating: right before his 5-month birthday, i started increasing his bottles to 6oz.  he was finishing every bottle during the day, and sometimes on the weekends we thought he seemed hungry after finishing a 5oz bottle.  so he now gets 18oz in bottles, plus 3 nursing sessions. 


i know i keep saying this, but we really are lucky with him.  he is so good, so happy.  we are having so much fun with him.  he definitely has a little personality and we love seeing that develop. here are a few pictures from our 5-month photo shoot...






and a few other random shots from the month...

he loves to pull that blanket down over his head

saturday morning naps with daddy are the best!

exersaucer time!

first time in the pool!

piggies!

first father's day