food glorious food

Nate had his first "solid food" yesterday, which really wasn't all that solid. If you follow the recipe on the rice cereal box it's actually more the consistency of thick soup or atole than anything an average person would call "solid." So we spooned the drippy stuff into Nate using those great but flat baby spoons that work well for thicker things like applesauce. He was a little baffled by the whole experience but didn't seem all too enthusiastic or upset by it, which I think was a good response for the first attempt. Although, I tried again today and he was none too pleased, despite my fake smiles. He didn't buy my explainations either, "Eating is fun! Aren't you excited? Your cereal is so yummy!" Even with today's cereal debockle, I think things went quite well. Better than our current nursing patterns, for certain. Let's go "solid" foods!
















































And now for something completely different... I got some good-hearted flack about not mentioning the Sox sweek of the Yankees the weekend of the 20th. To be perfectly honest, I was worried that if I said something the Yanks would come back and kick some Red Sox patootie this past weekend. Since that didn't happen, I am now comfortable saying pffffftt! to our lovely but misguided Yankee fan friends and family.

the spitting image

Man, can this kid drool.

We've had a bunch of friends remark how much Nate looks like us. This seems completely resonable, except that everyone adamantly swears he looks "exactly" like either like his mom or his dad, and the camps are divided about which one of us he resembles. So we dug a couple of shots of the two of us for comparason. Here's daddy:















Whoops! My mistake. We all know that Theo had the nerve to go out and get MARRIED (gasp!) The bum... Good thing Nate actually does look like his dad:

gone to the dogs

I think Nate may be spending too much time with his doggie friends...

eating woes

Nate's not eating so well these days. He screams a lot when I'm feeding him, which is why we've been worried that he might not be eating enough. Last week our pediatrician, Dave, suggested supplimenting his feedings with a couple ounces of formula. That's going well so far, but once the bottle is empty he starts screaming again. How much can this kid really need to eat?! Most of the feeding info we've found has said the average is around 4-6 ounces per feeding. One time Nate ate 14! Is this an early sign that he's going to be that kid who throws off the curve in school? Anyway, we're headed back to see Dave again tomorrow to see if Nate's gained weight appropriately since we started the suppliments and to get his input. We don't seem to have any issues with thrush or my milk supply, so we can rule that out. Maybe he's teething and the bottle just feels better on his gums. Maybe he's ready for solid foods (I am! I can't wait to start that with him!) Or perhaps Nate may just be missing Dave, since we saw him once or twice a week during the Bum Chronicles.

Otherwise, Nate's doing really well. He loves getting out and seeing new people and places. He smiles at people and is generally good natured. And he's still the cutest, sweetest baby ever!

the knights who say "nate"

We just had a lovely visit with our friends Alison and Basil and their cutie-patootie son Henry, who's a year and a half. It's mind boggling that Nate will be moving around and talking like Henry in about a year. I am clearly an old fart, as I spent much of the visit complaining about taxes and marveling at how fast kids grow up. But it really is amazing that in the very near future Nate, who doesn't even know that he has a head, will be able to look at my neighbors' lawn ornaments and remark quite astutely that the flowers are going around and around.

This weekend also reminded me of the amazing power of parents to transate for their children. I love seeing how kids who are learning to talk pronounce different words, and I was curious to see what Nate's name would sound like. Turns out it sounds an awful lot like the famous Monty Pyton knights who until so recently said "ni," with the slightest "t" sound at the end. Pretty cool!

anyone in a trench?

Because I could use a tip. Recently, when I'm feeding Nate he has taken to beating me up. He swipes at me and hits me in the face, neck, and chest. He grabs my neck and twists and pinches. And he sticks his hand in my mouth and yanks at it. If I hold his hand, he flails himself backwards every so often. Based on our recent falling incident, I'm rather anxious about him flailing so hard he rolls himself off my lap and back onto his head (and, therefore, back in to the ER). I'd rather sacrifice myself to brace the back of his body, but there must be a way to have my cake and eat it too. Or at least survive the 5-6 daily feedings without too many scratches and bruises. I guess I could put mittens on the little bugger? It seems like this must be an issue for other moms. Anyone have any suggestions?

plumber in training

cutlery

Thad and I just went back to check out the splinter poll results (I won!) and got a kick out of the accompanying ad:















I just realized I haven't posted any pictures of Nate since last week's ER incident. Perhaps you may think he's (in Thad's words) "grossly disfigured," but let me reassure you he's cute as ever. I'd go take a picture now, but he is upstairs "sleeping" (translation: screaming) at the moment and I wouldn't want the flash to disturb his peaceful slumber. I'll get you your baby picture fix tomorrow.

innocence

I am starting to really dislike Mondays. What an awful day yesterday was with the Virginia Tech shootings. I am relieved that Nate is too little to have any idea what happened. I know that some day he will be aware of the world and all it's wonderful and terrible aspects, but for now he is still completely innocent. And I'm quite thankful for that. I'm also thankful that we don't have any direct connection to the events. We have so very many loved ones who are studying or working at colleges - Thad, our siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins, friends, etc. - and the thought that something like this could happen to any of them in their daily lives is horrible. It's unfortunate that sometimes it takes a tragedy to remind us all of what's really important in our lives. So I'd like to just let all of our friends and family know how much we love them - well, how much we love you. Thanks for being fabulous people.

chatting

Beware of baby monitors - you never know who can hear you! Here's an excerpt of Thad's (mostly) one-sided conversation with Nate:

Hello, little squiggly ma dook! Where's your little sock a ma tock? Where's your little sock a ma tock? Oh! There it is! You silly soop a ma gook! A ra ra ra ra ra!

(zerbert sounds)

A goobalee doobalee! Little sook a ma dook!

(crying)

Oh! What's so terrible? What's so terrible? Silly ba dilly!

something lighter

With all this falling stuff, I thought I'd switch gears to something less traumatic. I commonly get mail messing up my name. I've gotten a lot of Neva Hudak, Neva Hudak-Corbo, and stuff dropping my hyphen... One of my high school friends called me Neva Carbohydrate. In college I got something addressed to Mega Corbo-Hudak. How they got the last name right is beyond me!

Anyway, we've gotten a slew of recent name blunders, so in the spirit of the carlbohudaksons, I thought I'd share some. The first was Thaddeus and Neva Carlso-Carbo-Hudak. Followed by Neeva Hudak-Carbo, and Neva Corbo'Huda & Thad Carlson. And most recently, Neva and Carlson Corbo-Hudak. I know my name is unusual, but this is one serious string of mess ups!

hard headed

A huge thank you to everyone for their support. Nate is doing really well. You can't even tell that anything happened. Seriously, there's only a little swelling and a negligible bruise. Thad and I still feel awful, but are not so shell shocked. The kid's got a good head.

he's okay, but...

...we spent over seven hours in the emergency room last night because he fell three or four feet on his head.

I've been paranoid because Nate hasn't been eating very well over the past couple of weeks - he eats for a few minutes and then gets upset and cries. We borrowed a scale that reads in ounces (our bathroom scale's just not detailed enough). So we weighed him before he ate and then afterwards popped him back on the scale, which was on our kitchen counter. He squirmed around a little and the scale tipped over, sending Nate headfirst onto the counter and then through the passthrough onto the dining room floor, which is hardwood. We were both standing on the other side of the counter, so we couldn't reach him, but we both saw everything happen.

We totally freaked out, but he was at least moving around and crying and we were able to semi-calm him after a few minutes and get to the ER pretty quickly. They did a CAT scan and found out that he has a fracture in the back part of his skull, but no signs of bleeding, concussions, etc. Apparently, your head is much like your toe and if you break it you don't do anything, so they sent us home with some children's tylenol and told us to watch him. We ended up getting home around 1am, and needless to say, we are all quite tired today.

If you saw Nate, though, you would have no idea that he had a traumatic evening, forget about a broken bone. I don't know about you, but if I fell off a counter, I'd be pretty ticked off for at least a couple of days. At least Nate will have a good excuse later on in life - "My parents dropped me on my head when I was a baby." He seems completely normal (he was checked out again today by our regular pediatrician who said, "he looks great.") and was laughing and playing. Thad and I, on the other hand, look (and feel) like we were in a war. We both feel like total [insert curse word of your choice here] for not being more careful, cautious, etc. According the ER staff, this kind of stuff happens all the time, but we still feel awful, and pretty shaken up.

He seems to be on the mend and no worse for the wear, but we'll let you know if anything new comes out of this ordeal. Other than the fact that Nate is not allowed off the floor for the rest of his life. Or at least until he's 18.

happy easter

Ah, Easter. A time of spring, bunnies and eggs, floral dresses and bonnets, ham...

This morning we woke up to a couple inches of snow and it's been right around freezing all day. So we stayed inside and painted the bathroom. It is so close to being done, but not quite there. Sigh. Jeannie came over this afternoon and we're celebrating with a traditional Easter meal of egg drop soup, spring rolls, and some moo shi. At least we got the egg part!

Here's another picture from Nate's photo shoot:

catching up

I'm a bit of a delinquent blogger these days. Sorry. Here's a quick recap of the last week(ish):

We saw our friend Braden, who is one day older than Nate, and his parents. It was interesting to see the two boys together and to see how they are both growing. It seems that Nate is quite the eater. When he has a bottle, he drinks somewhere from 8-13 ounces. Braden eats around 4. So I asked my friend Courtney, whose daugher is about a week younger than Nate, and she eats a little more than Braden, but not nearly as much as Nate. Looks like he might be taking after Dad - eats a ton but somehow stays pretty small. At least for now! Anyway, Nate and Braden were really cute and actually seemed interested in each other. At first, they reached out to try and touch one another but since they don't really have the hand-eye coordination down yet, they mostly waved their arms around and swatted each other.
















We've also got a couple of house guests. Jazzmine, Sol's dog, has been visiting since last weekend. It's nice having her around because then our dogs get some exercise. She also has this odd habit of eating all the dog hair floating around the house, so we don't have to worry about vacuuming, which is great! The only trouble with having three dogs is that during the daytime when it's just me and Nate, we are outnumbered. Not only that, but Nate is very little help when trying to herd them outside (or inside, or wherever). I'm not sure he'd make a very good farmboy. Also, Uncle Matt is in town for a couple of days for an interview. He has helped tilt the balance of household power back to the humans.














Nate is still sucking/chewing on everything. He used to hate his pacifier but now he is quite grumpy if he doesn't have it in his mouth. I feel a little like we're moving backward. Since he hated the pacifier when he was little, it was nice thinking that we weren't going to have to go through the diffiuculty of weaning him off of it later on. C'est la vie.

famous last words

Nate has woken up every night since I last blogged. His sleep habits are not as bad as the Sox season opener (thank goodness!) but I am none too pleased. I know he is capable of sleeping through the night, so what's the deal? It's totally my fault. Not only did I write about his fabulous new sleeping habits, but I also told Thad I'd take the night wakenings on weekdays (we had been taking every other day).

I went to the mall the other day (to get Nate out of the house while there were paint fumes in the air) and attempted the acrobatic feat of Feeding-In-Public. I made out relatively well, considering my lack of coordination while doing the simplist of tasks, such as walking. One woman came up to me and said how wonderful breastfeeding was and that she had fed her kid for five years. FIVE YEARS?! I know that for some people, that really works well for them, and I don't want to sound like I'm knocking the decisions other people make in raising their kids. I'm commenting purely on a personal level. As my mom says, "to each his own." For me, there's something creepy about envisioning Nate coming home from nursery school and having a little snack. If he can talk in complete sentences, he's totally cut off. And five years of monitoring your alcohol intake? Yikes! That's worse than being woken up at 3am every day!

opening day

Hooray! Nate is extremely excited that today is Red Sox opening day. He has been waiting a lifetime for this. Go Sox!

In other news, Nate's been sleeping like a champ recently. In fact, last week he slept through the night five days in a row! I was afraid to write about it for fear of bringing on some sort of evil curse, but since he's woken us up for the last two nights, I think I'm safe. Famous last words...