bye bye 2006

We are happy to announce that our internet is working like a champ once again. Thank you to the nice road runner man who spent two hours fixing the "workmanship" of multiple past road runner men and to our personal tech support agent (aka Sol) for speding an hour and a half fixing our router. We can now blog with ease - hooray!

Since we've been out of the technological loop for a little while, here's a brief update on our last couple of weeks, and a plethora of misc recent pictures. Neva's family came to visit before Christmas. We had an early holiday celebration and spent most of their visit airing out Nate's bum. Then Thad's family came for Christmas weekend. We too had a lovely holiday celebration and spent much of our time airing out Nate's bum. Then our friends Anna and Jarrod and their dog Zero came to visit and we (surprise!) aired out Nate's bum.

Our pediatrician dubbed Nate's rash the "most persistant rash [he's] ever seen" and sent us to a dermatologist, who promptly diagnosed it as exactly the same thing as the pediatrician had been treating. She changed our diaper routine by switching us to similar versions of the same medicines we were using already and reassuring us that it would work this time. We are going back to see her Tuesday, when we hope she realizes that, shockingly, not much has changed with her "new" system. However, we do have reasonable hope that she will be able to help us fix up the little guy sometime in 2007. (BTW - Aunt Diane, you were right, the original Desitin is SO much thicker than creamy!)

A couple of nights ago we had one of our worst nights' sleep so far. Our biggest sleeping challenge is Nate. We were sleeping just fine a mere seven weeks ago. Alas, now a good night means six or more hours within a 12 hour period. Seriously, our biggest challenge is that Nate doesn't seem the least bit sleepy from around 9pm through 4am. He's not really that cranky, and we do just fine calming him down, but he just looks around and wants to interact with us. If we put him down, though, he is not such a happy camper. If anyone out there has any suggestions for helping a 7 week old sleep, feel free to share! We are hoping to celebrate the arrival of the new year by sleeping through it. Keep your finger crossed!

Congrats to Thad's cousing Carolyn who had a baby girl earlier this month. She was larger at birth than Nate is now. Also, congrats to our friend Roni on her engagement. Happy 2007 to everyone!

internet woes

Sorry for the sparcity of postings. We are having internet troubles. It makes us all quite annoyed. Whatever did we do before high speed? I have blocked it out, I think. But never fear, the road runner guy is coming to fix things tomorrow, or at least to waste our afternoon pretending to fix things but not really chaning much of anything. Here's to a speedier connection in 2007!

puppy love

Our friends Anna and Jarrod brought this funny looking monkey toy for their dog to play with while they were visiting. It was love at first sight - our dog Saranac spent the whole day wandering around with the monkey and wouldn't let it go. She wasn't even interested in eating, because that required putting down the monkey. The romance ended quickly, however, when late in the evening ("late" in new parent time is around 7pm) Sara disemboweled her new lover. Here's a pic for posterity.

happy holidays!

Merry Christmas, late Happy Hannukah, and early Happy New Year! We had a nice, relaxing Christmas with Gramma and Grampa Carlson and Aunt Holly. Nate enjoyed a delicious meal of milk, while the rest of us filled up on beef, veggies, and lots of cookies.

It may be a little hard to see, but in this picture Nate is sporting his cool Christmas onesie, which he wore for about 45 minutes before pooping all over it. Ah, life with a six week old! :)














And here's another pic of Nate with his new Teddy.

:)

Nate smiled last night! He had smiled in his sleep before, but he smiled for the first (and second) time while awake. It was very exciting and cool. Since this ellusive smile is difficult to capture on film, we have included a reinactment of the events in this picture:

good vs. evil

Thad is a big fan of yeast. It helps in the creation of some of his favorite things: beer, bread... But sometimes good, white-bread yeasts take the wrong path. And that is just what has happened to us - we have spent the last month battling this awful diaper rash, which was caused by some evil yeast floating around in the air that decided to settled down not in a good Belgian ale but in Nate's behind. But that's only where the trouble began, because that bad yeast invited all his other hoodlem yeast friends along for the party. I can tell you, Santa has these yeasts on his "naughty" list because they have wreaked havock on my poor buddy's behind and resulted in what one friend referred to as "the worst diaper rash ever." So poor Nate is understandably fussy and cranky, which in turn has made poor Nate's parents fussy and cranky. We have been awash in a sea of diaper creams, ointments, and anti-fungal medicines. And the one thing that has seemed to make a difference is airing out his bum - a tricky endeavor because little baby boys have a tendency to squirt out of both ends. However, Thad and I are now pros at this, wrapping Nathaniel in a complex series of towels to keep him out in the open while still catching anything that might, um, come flying out. Anyway, we just switched to a new anti-fungal that we really hope makes an impact. In the meantime, we will be hanging out (Nate more literally than his parents) and hoping that we'll soon be able to celebrate the evil yeast's departure with a nice cold beer containing only those well-behaved yeasts.

liar liar

My sweet baby is intent on making a liar of me. After all my complaining about not being able to put him down, my parents came for a visit. The day they arrived, Nathaniel morphed from a baby who wanted to be held 24-7 and wouldn't sleep unless he was being held or sleeping with us to an amazingly calm and contented child willing to sleep virtually anywhere, including in his cradle (hooray!) I'm sure it was all intentional - you know how manipulative and coniving babies are (haha). In all seriousness, perhaps we've turned a corner. Maybe Nate is now a mature baby content to sleep on his own. Or perhaps he was just showing off for his grandparents and he'll revert back to wanting to be held tomorrow morning when Thad leaves for lab and I'm home alone again with only two hands. I've got my fingers crossed (for the time being - I'm assuming I'll need them back to hold Nate soon!)

one month old

Nate is now officially one month old, as of Wednesday. He celebrated by flipping himself over four more times (so the other day was definitely not a fluke). He then welcomed in the new month with an explosive poo that hit not only the changing table, changing pad, and diaper, but also the floor, lamp, bookshelf, a basket, photographs, and a box under the Christmas tree. The kid has range!

rockin' and rollin'

Woah - Nathaniel rolled over for the first (and second) time today. Exciting! This kid is definitely going to keep us on our toes. I can't even imagine what we're in for when he starts crawling and walking, especially if he can roll over already!

hands free devices

Nate is four weeks old today. Time seems like it flew by and at the same time moved ridiculously slowly. Strange.

Nate doesn't particularly like being put down. Anywhere. This is manageable when there are multiple adults in the house, but it makes things tricky when there's just one person. So I embarked on a search for some sort of gadget that would allow me use of my hands. Ideally, this mystery object would let me (gasp!) put Nate down somewhere, but I was willing to settle for having a hand or two free and some mobility so I could do wild and crazy things, like eating or getting a glass of water. So I was wildly excited when Jan, our amazing lactaction consultant, showed us a new way to put Nathaniel in a sling and he actually likes it! The picture is a mom's-eye-view of Nate in his sling. Not only do I have a couple of free hands, but I get a good workout to boot. Also, in a fit of despiration, we purchased a swing and Nate seems like he might like that after he gets used to it. I can hardly contain myself - the fact that we might have two options is almost more than I can handle! And (my best sarcastic voice here) perfect timing too, because Grandma and Grandpop (my parents) are coming to visit for a week and are perfectly capable of holding Nate so I can eat. Sigh. Well, maybe we will all need to do something that requires all of our hands at the same time - then our newfound gadgets will come in handy!

this week's milestones

Nate is starting to be more alert and has started looking around and watching things. This is an exciting change over his somewhat blank staring of the past few weeks. He can focus on objects and faces and even track things if they move slowly. Very cool!

He also is streching out more. He's still mostly in the fetal position and it takes a little work to straighten out his joints, but he's doing this more frequentky on his own. He has reaaly amazing muscle tone, and if you hold him upright he'll sometimes sort of stand up, putting all his weight on his legs. Granted he has no balance whatsoever and is nowhere near sitting up, let alone standing on his own yet, but it's cool to see him practicing and showing off his lanky legs. He has also started working on creeping - if he's on his belly he sometimes digs in his feet and scoots forward a little. I think we're in for a handful when he really starts moving around.

My exciting milestone is that I wore REAL pants for the first time. This is extremely exciting for me. I had no idea how great a button and zipper could be.

Also this week, Nate got his first bath. As you can see from this picture, he thoroughly enjoyed himself.

flashback... two week check-up

Our son has a small head. It is in the 5th percentile. He's in the 50th for length but just 5% for head circumference. He has a nasty diaper rash but is otherwise healthy.

sleeping like a baby?!

Who authored this phrase? It must be the biggest misnomer ever. Unless the original author meant sleeping in odd locations for 1-2 hours in a row and making a whole lot of noise. This morning Thad and I woke up to a lengthy serenade of grunting. At least Nate was sleeping. And in his cradle to boot! I'm not sure how he got there. Magic Daddy somehow got him to sleep in it, at least for part of the night. Hooray!

flashback... week two

If I was in a haze for the first week, I must have been in outer space the second week. I really don't remember much at all! Thad was home from work and our families went home, so we were on our own. It was nice to have some time with just the two of us to try and get a hold on this whole baby thing, but all those extra hands were missed. At some point I think it hit me that we have a baby. And he's sticking around for a while. And as much as you try to prepare yourself before he gets here, you are still unprepared. I will be adding juggling to my resume soon.

We went to our friends' house (thanks Laura and Steve!) for Thanksgiving, which was nice and relaxing, not to mention yummy. It was our first trip to visit someone and Nate did really well. And we attempted our first "public" feeding, which was not at all graceful. Someone should invent some sort of blanket that can attach to mom's shoulder, as it is tricky to feed a baby underneath a draped blanket and then remove him for burping without moving the blanket. We will need to practice this.

Since I don't remember what we did, I will just put a few pictures here. In the first one Nathaniel is sporting his cool Red Sox World Series Champions onesie from Gramma Carlson. It's important to teach your kids right from wrong at an early age.

flashback... the first week

I don't really remember much about Nate's first week, even though it was only a couple of weeks ago. I know that I was awake for most of it, and spent lots of time feeding Nate. We were put on a three hour feeding schedule, meaning there are three hours between the beginning of one feeding and the beginning of the next. Unless Nate was hungry earlier. So if he fed for an hour at noon and was hungry again at 2, then I got a whopping 1 hour break. The benefit of this (aside from a healthy child, of course!) is that now having a three hour break feels amazingly extravagant!


My parents were with us when we left the hospital on Wed, and Thad's parents and sister came to visit for the weekend. They were all great about helping around the house and I remember yummy food being placed in front of me a few times a day. I know we went to the pediatrician a few times, and I think we made a bunch of trips to Babies R Us for supplies we didn't realize we needed - BTW, I would recommend that any parent of a new boy load up on washclothes. We ignorantly thought we had enough until the first day of diaper changing. Our little guy squirts A LOT. We had heard about this phenomenon from friends, but didn't really understand until our first diaper change at home - Other than that, most of the week is a blur. I'm guessing this exhaution-induced haze explains why many people have multiple children. We just don't remember what went on with the previous kids!

When babies are first born they loose some weight in their first few days. It seems that most doctors want them to get back to their birth weight by two weeks of age. We found out that Nathaniel had gained back his birth weight plus a couple of ounces by one week. He's a true Corbo-Hudak/Carlson kid - likes to eat! Other than knowing that he was healthy and growing well, the most exciting part of this news was that we are now allowed to let him sleep a little longer at night. Whoopee!

flashback... the hospital

So, we'll try to do updates on the past few weeks to get you caught up with all the exciting things we've been up to. First up, the delivery. So, I was having what I thought were false labor pains starting around lunchtime on Nov 12. I thought they were quite annoying and I told a number of people about how irritating they were. My astute (and at that time pregnant) friend Courtney said, "are you sure it's not REAL labor?" - that was my first clue.

Anyway, I eventually come to the realization that it was in fact the real deal, and after one false alarm (the contractions got close together but then slowed back down around 3am) we ended up at the hospital. After two unsuccessful attempts at breaking my water, an epidural (quite possibly the best decision I've ever made!), pitosin, and hours of contractions stuck at 3-5 minutes apart, the doctor decided to do a check just to see if anything had progressed at all. So she takes a quick peek and says surprisedly, "I see the head!" What?! Now, anyone who has given birth, I ask in advance for your forgiveness, because I pushed for 15-20 minutes (with my contractions still around 3 minutes apart) and out pops Nathaniel. It was so fast, we were all in a bit of a daze. He was born Nov 13 at 7:25pm and was 6 lbs 10.5 oz, 19.75 inches.

Nate unfortunately had a collapsed lung and needed to go to the special care nursery (kind of like an intermediate level NICU). Also, the amniotic fluid never appeared (which explains the unsuccessful water breaking attempts) so there was concern about possible infection, so they also put Nate on IV antibiotics. To make a long story short, he healed up nicely and was released 48 hours later, so we were all free to head home late on Nov 15.

My sister was actually at the hospital for the birth, and my parents arrived an hour or so after the birth (and were great about bringing food for Thad and cappuccino for me - decaf, of course!)

up and running

Hello! On the suggestion of our friend Sol, we thought it would be a nice idea to start a blog to chronicle our first months with Nathaniel. And since we have much less time to chat on the phone and give people baby updates, this seemed like a good way to tell people how things are going and to share some pictures.

Today's news is that Thad and I are very tired. Nate seems to be tired as well, but not at night. Especially not last night. According to virtually every source I've encountered, newborn babies sleep around 16-18 hours a day. Our son does not seem to know this fact. That being said, we are going to bed soon with the hope that we can get a few hours of rest within a 10-12 hour timespan. My fingers are crossed!