still itty bitty

We got it! A picture of the smile!!!

We had our two month check up today, and Nate is doing really well. He's now a whopping 9 lbs 11 oz, placing him in the 10th percentile. His head is also in the 10th percentile now, and his height is in the 25th. He seems to be growing at a perfectly normal pace, which is good to hear. He got a round of immunizations today, and seems to be pulling through those well too (although I'm probably jinxing myself saying that!) The doctor said that most babies are either really cranky or really tired after immunizations, and so far we seem to be the latter option. My fingers are crossed that it stays that way!

A brief update on The Rash... nothing is particularly new. The dermatologist did a couple of swabs and they came back positive for staph bacteria, which we are now treating with antibiotics. She seems to think that will make an impact, although we're not holding our breath. Her theory is that The Rash is now mostly inflamation, exacerbated by Nate's poop. At some point in the next couple months he will stop pooping so frequently, but for now our job is to try to keep him as poop-free as possible. The good news (mostly for me and Thad) is that we don't need to air him out quite as often. That unfortunately means we probably won't get to use these:

blow outs

This is almost too easy, yet I find it necessary to make an analogy between two recent blowouts: the OSU game last night and Nate's diaper incident this morning. Both began innocently enough, and quite happily. OSU opened last night's game with a 93 yard kick return for a touchdown. And Nate was quite bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when he awoke. In fact, he was in the best mood we've seen him in over the past couple of weeks. Hooray for OSU and Nate! But that's when things went awry. As many of you probably know, OSU stunk up the BCS Championship big time, losing 41-14. Ouch. Not such a happy day for the Buckeyes. Nate followed suit this morning by stinking up the living room with a gigantic exploding poo that not only blew out his diaper but exploded all over his legs and through his fleece onsie. The big difference, however, is that Nate's poop was easy to clean up, where OSU's just goes into the annals of history (or, perhaps more appropriately, to quote a collegue, the "anals of history.")

And thanks to Kate, Aaron and Dylan for the new diapers. We clearly need them!

the dark side of the street

Last night was a bit rough, but not mainly because we have a small child. Nate had been "sleeping" in a cradle in our bedroom since we arrived home from the hospital. We decided to move Nate into his own room yesterday. Things started out relatively well - we moved all of his stuff from our bedroom into his and set up the changing and nursing areas so we'd be ready to use them during his nighttime feedings. He went down to sleep after a bit of coaxing, which was not unusual, and he awoke around 3, which was also pretty typical. However, our electricity was out. So I tried to calm down the starving, and therefore crying, baby while Thad ran around looking for a flashlight. He knew exactly where his headlamp was, but the battery had died. Then he found his travel alarm clock, which has a mechanism that illuminates the time if you press it, so he kept pressing the clock and trying to look around for either a flashlight or batteries with the blueish light coming off the clock. Meanwhile, our carbon monoxide detector was beeping to let us know the power was off and it was using it's battery. The beep is SO loud because it's supposed to wake you up. This is great in the case of an emergency but unbelievably annoying when there is no light and a screaming baby. I looked out the window and realized that the lights were only out on our side of the street, which was fabulously inconvenient. Thad finally found a flashlight and he held it up so I could change Nate, and then we positioned it so I had some ambiant light for his feeding. Of course, about 20 minutes into the feeding the power came back on. Sigh!

Now we're getting psyched up for the OSU football game and trying to figure out if we'll even be able to stay awake for it. And we're back to the dermotologist tomorrow for another bum check-up.

mi:s - the saga continues

Last night was half as good as the night before. We started off really well, with the little buddy sleeping in the cradle with minimal finger sucking. However, things weren't quite so peaceful after the early morning feeding. Nate did go to sleep in his cradle again, but seemed to have Thad's hand attached to his mouth for most of his "restful" sleep. This was one of the loudest sleeping incidents to date! Nate grunted and moaned for what was basically his entire time sleeping. According to Thad, the buddy only sucked his finger for an hour ("only" an hour!) but kept psyching out Thad, making him think he was waking up so Thad would get out of bed, only to quiet down as soon as he neared the cradle. I too have experienced this mind game. It is not so much fun, especially at 3 or 4 am. Depsite all the grunting, He did go five hours between feedings, so that seems like a step in the right direction!

Thanks to everyone for their stories of sleepless support and tips. We will keep you posted!

mission impossible: sleep

Our typical nighttime routine is feeding Nate at 9 and attempting to get him to sleep right afterwards. This usually means Thad swaddles him and bounces him for over an hour while Nate stares adorably at him, not at all tired. If Nate does actually doze off, Thad will gently lay him in his cradle and he promptly wakes up within 30 seconds, which means Thad has to start all over with the bouncing. Often, in a fit of mild despiration, we'll put Nate in between us in bed and stick a finger in his mouth to calm him so Thad can at least lie down. Nate actually falls asleep and all will be well for an hour or two, when our sweet boy starts grunting like an 80 year old man (or more accurately, like I did when I was nine months pregnant). We're pretty sure this is caused by gas, and it usually goes on for at least an hour, when he'll finally wake himself up, Meanwhile, I'm lying awake because I find it difficult to sleep when someone is repeatedly grunting in your ear. Then I'll feed Nate around 2, spend time trying to get him to go to sleep. For whatever reason, my attempts are far more fruitless than Thad's and Nate usually ends up more wound up than he was to begin with, at which point Thad either wakes himself up or I wake him because I am baffled as to how to calm this teeny little guy. Anyway, after more bouncing and finger sucking, Nate finally falls to sleep, and we repeat the hour or two of rest followed by grunting until we're all awake, bright eyed and bushy tailed.

Apparently, Nate's still to young to learn anything from "crying it out" but we can play with his eating scheudle; so, last night we decided to mix up our "sleep" routine to see if Thad and I could actually get some rest. The results were bizzare. I went to bed at 9 while Thad stayed up and played with Nate until 11, when they woke me for a feeding. Thad hopped in bed and Nate ate for a few minutes and then fell asleep. I don't think I've ever seen the kid so tired! I kept trying to wake him to eat for about a half hour so he wasn't starving, but didn't have much luck. Then I put him in his cradle and voila! Sleep! He did wake at 3am to eat, which wasn't a big shock since he hadn't eaten much earlier, but he again (with a little prodding from Dad) slept in his cradle. If I hadn't been so tired I might have done a little jig. Anyway, we are happy to have had one promising night, and are going to try to figure out how to keep this cradle stuff going!

I'd like to buy a vowel

Nate has started making vowel sounds. He's still grunting up a storm, but now he's also being more "conversational" with "ahs" and an occasional "eh." It's really interesting to see how he's learning to talk. Now he can express not only displeasure through crying but also some positive emotions by vocalizing vowels, smiling, looking at something, etc. We're certain that he'll be able to do at least 75% of the "O-H-I-O" football chant by the big game on Monday. And who knows, maybe he'll be able to do an "h" by then too!

Here are a few shots our friend Sol took on New Years.

the bum chronicles continue

Arrgh - we went to see the dermotologist again this morning and she wants us to keep doing the same butt routine as the past week, although applying the topical meds three times a day instead of twice. We're frustrated that things aren't healing faster and really didn't see much improvement since last week, so we're not really sure how much better things will be in another week. And poor Nate is pretty cranky, we assume because his bum is uncomfortable. The good news is that they don't think there's anything seriously wrong with him, like a staph infection or something systemic - it's just an inflamed bum.