Four Months

My big boy,

This month, you celebrated your first Christmas. And celebrate you did, even if you weren't aware of what it was you were celebrating. There's a series of car ads out right now, comparing a car to the recipient's best present ever, flashing back to childhood gifts like big wheels and video games. You won't remember it, but the look on your face the first time when you went in your jumperoo reminded me of those ads. Best. Gift. Ever. I loved seeing that look.

That said, it is important to me that you know what Christmas is all about -- that it's not just about presents (or spending time in the car). I don't want you to grow up thinking that Christmas is about gifts and money and material things; it is about something far more precious and wonderful. That is why we all went to church together on Christmas Eve.

Although your dad and I have different beliefs when it comes to religion, including Christmas(and when you're old enough, you can and will decide for yourself what you believe, hopefully with enough exposure to church to make that decision an informed one), we share the same values. Even if you ultimately choose not to believe in the miracle of Christmas, I hope you at least see it as a time to celebrate family and togetherness rather than a time for things. And that's why we spend time in the car. So we can go see the family that can't come to see us, like your Big Papa.

Speaking of that time in the car, you spent a lot of it sleeping. Much of this month was about sleep. You continued sleeping through the night, even when we were in strange houses, and even when we had to put you to sleep in one place then move you to another, neither of which was home, and for that we were very thankful. You fell asleep under the tree at your grandma's house. You even took a nap in the dog's bed. You did have a few days where you woke up in the middle of the night like you did when you were very little, but we got through them. At the end of the month, we even got you sleeping in your crib without the carseat (without any fanfare, I'd like to note). Hoorah! We knew you wouldn't go to college sleeping in a carseat, but that didn't keep me from fearing that you might need to bring it to day care. Or kindergarten.

At the end of the month, you reminded us that you are very unpleasant when you don't take a nap. You reminded us of this by refusing to nap for days, then being Mr. Crankypants. Just so you know, we hadn't forgotten.

You finally napped again while snuggled against me in the wrap. When I was pregnant with you, I assumed I'd spend much of your first few months wearing you in that wrap. But I didn't. At first because I was nervous, and then because you didn't seem to like it. Not just the wrap, but any kind of snuggling or closeness, other than when eating or immediately thereafter. You were a very curious guy, very interested in exploring the world. I felt a little sad at first, but I got over it.

Motherhood hasn't gone the way I expected it to in a lot of different ways, and that has made me a far more flexible person in general. That said, I was thrilled that you wanted to snuggle close to me, that you found me comforting and soothing. And you've wanted to be held a lot more since then. I know it won't last forever, and that's okay. Because I love that you're curious about and engaged with the world. But I'll enjoy these moments for all they're worth as long as they last.

Speaking of your independence, one sign that it will be coming soon is that you started rolling over. You only go in one direction (tummy to back) but you can do it. And have done it daily for the past week or two. Usually right before your bath, when we force you to do naked tummy time. Which is the way you prefer to do tummy time, if crying less can be called a preference.

And you continue to love the bath. You especially love to kick and splash. With the goal of ejecting the hippo from the tub. The other bath toys can stay, but not the hippopotamus. Stupid hippo.

Finally, this month you began to develop a relationship with the dog. You follow him with your eyes and face as he moves around the room (making it hard to take your picture when he's around), touch him when he goes by, kick him when he bothers you. You don't seem to mind the incessant licking. And, man is it incessant. We hope it just means that he wants to protect you. Or wants you to smell like him. Or something positive. Either way, you each seem to see each other as a part of the family.

Our family. Every day I am amazed that you are a part of it. And I can't imagine life without you.

Love,

Mommy

I Think He Reads This Blog

Mr, No Naps took two naps yesterday, the first on me (right after I posted my last post), the second in his swing, for a total of nearly 4 hours of naps. He napped again this morning when I put him in the swing so I could take a shower. (Ah, showers, how little I appreciated them before Harry. I will never take them for granted again). And this is him now:


(That is Harry, asleep in the wrap. Sorry for the quality -- taken with the camera phone, and I was due for my "new every two" two years ago but actually like my phone with its super long battery life.)

I'll take what I can get for naps at this point. He's been so much more pleasant!

Man, I Hope It's Just A Phase

Note: I have a whole bunch of half-finished posts saved as drafts but am hoping that starting a new one will somehow get one finished.

I made the mistake of saying aloud that I feel as though I am fairly comfortable with this whole parenting thing (in fact, there's a half-written post about that topic and how it relates to my job in my drafts folder right now). He must have heard me say that because he has been absolutely impossible all week.

For one, he has been refusing to take naps. The good days, he takes one. The less good days, none, or at least none longer than 20 minutes. And Harry is not a pleasant boy when he gets overtired. He cries and fusses and is generally unpleasant to be around. Thankfully, he is still going down easily at night and is still sleeping through. But getting through the day with an overtired child is hard.

He has also discovered that he can scream. Loudly. When the pediatrician doing rounds first saw him in the hospital, he commented that Harry seemed to like to hear the sound of his own voice. And now I am coming to see how prescient that was. He screams a lot. And not because anything is wrong. Just. Because. He. Can.

Finally, he has gone from being a boy with a lovely disposition who only cries when tired and rarely fussed at all to being one who whines. A lot. He grunts and fusses and heh-heh-hehs all the time. Nothing makes him happy for more than five minutes. Not toys. Not reading. Not listening to music or singing songs. Not the Bumbo. Not the bouncy seat. Not even the Jumperoo. He doesn't seem hungry, but nursing provides a respite from the whining so he has been doing more of it, which makes me feel like a bad parent, attempting to solve my child's non-hunger-related problems with food. And it persists even immediately following a nap, which makes me fear that it's unrelated to the overtired issue.

Of course, he then behaves like a saint when P comes home at night so that I think P thinks I am making it up. I really hope this is a phase. If not, it may make it a bit easier to go back to work in March....

Everybody Else Is Doing It

Everyone else is doing it, so I thought I'd join in. Doing this made me realize how incredibly uninteresting this blog has been on a pretty regular basis. Ugh. Sorry. I also have some thoughts on 2008 as it wraps up but they will have to wait as I am currently pumping.

January: Like many people out there, I harbor some decidedly negative feelings toward 2007.

February: This is the post where it becomes obvious that I am a bit hormonal (and a serious bitch when it comes to nit-picky points of grammar, some of which may be more matters of preference than rule anyway).

March: So our internet connection is finally up and stable again (plus, Com*cast put in a new cable modem and phone line today), so there may be another flurry of posts from me.

April: Some new Sandra Bullock/Ryan Reynolds film was filming across the street from my office late last week and yesterday.

May: But tired and disappointed.

June: The doctor sent me an email today regarding the bloodwork results, saying that while my numbers were low, they were not very low, especially for a pregnant woman.

July: Stuff to Say did this one already.

August: I feel like I have a lot to say, but I don't have a ton of time to say much of anything right now.

September: I'm still here, and it's looking less and less like Lou will be making an early appearance.

October: Because I continue to struggle to find a way to post (Harry has reflux, so he spends quite a lot of time being held, as he spits up almost instantly when laid down flat -- and often does so when held as well), rather than post nothing, I'm going to be okay with short posts.

November: Well, I may end up doing a lot of photo posts, but I'm going to attempt to do Nablopomo again this year, mainly to force myself to post more often.

December: Late last week, P opened the back door to let Buddy out without checking to be sure there were no other dogs out there.

Happy New Year!

Merry Merry

Merry Christmas, everyone! What follows is a not-so-brief recounting of our Christmas so far, parts 1 through 3 (of 5) of Harry's first Christmas.

This year, we decided not to do the whole eight-houses-in-four-days thing. It seemed a bit much to ask of an infant. Sadly, though, my grandfather is too old/frail to travel, so we weren't able to eliminate much driving but were able to spread it out a bit more. So we will do five houses in seven days (four down), which seemed a slight bit more reasonable in the planning, though weather resulted in very poor driving conditions thus far, turning what should have been 8-8.5 hours of driving into 14 hours or pure suckage.

Saturday, we headed to my grandfather's house for Christmas part 1. What is normally a two hour and forty-five minute trip took four hours because of the snow. Harry miraculously slept the whole drive. We cursed the situation anyway, and then felt like we should have been thankful as it took us six hours to get home on Sunday. Seriously, snow? I hate you. We debated stopping forty-five miles from home and getting a hotel room, as it was starting to get ridiculous on the roads. Instead, we stopped when we were 15 miles from home, as the baby was awake and we both had to use the bathroom. I changed and fed Harry at the rest stop and then somehow the roads had cleared up enough that we got home in 25 minutes. It was our Christmas miracle.

It was pretty awesome to see my grandfather with Harry. Papa was often a pretty awesome grandfather -- he read us stories from books and made others up for us, elaborate tales of a mouse called Squeaky. He was an expert hand-washer -- so good that we looked forward to getting scrubbed up by him before meals. And his love for my grandmother, who died twenty-six years ago, has always stood as a example to me of how amazing and powerful love can be. That said, he was also, on occasion, a bit of a bully. Sadly, as the years have gone on, he has become increasingly unwell health-wise, though he has stayed fairly coherent -- no small feat at 92. And with those years has come a tendency to say exactly what he thinks at any given moment, often very loudly due to his increasing deafness, with little regard to the feelings of others, really exacerbating his bullying tendencies. So I wasn't really sure what to expect from him. It turns out, I needn't have been concerned. He was so excited to get to spend time with his great-grandson. He really doted on him, calling him the little prince and kissing his hands over and over. Whenever Harry was out of sight, my grandfather immedietely asked "Where's the baby now?" And Harry seemed as excited as his Big Papa was, all smiles for him. Christmas number one was exhausting, but I am so glad we made the trip.

Christmas part 2 was our annual "family Christmas", which has expanded over the years to include P, my brother's wife, and my dad's wife. (We hit traffic for this one too, though it was just traffic and not weather.) It was pretty low key. And that was fine with me. But we hit enough traffic on the way home that we only had time to run into the house, change Harry's diaper, change our own clothes, and run back out the door for what seemed like the longest Christmas service ever at church. P went (reluctantly) because I asked him too, and I'm now afraid that he'll never come again, which sucks since Christmas is such a nice service even if you don't think of it as anything more than the celebration of the birth of some baby two millenia ago. I love the music and the candles and the quiet beauty of it. Without it, Christmas feels so rushed and so commercial and so hollow. After Harry went to bed, we had dinner, then put together his main present from us, a jumperoo.

This morning, otherwise known as Christmas part 3, I put out the new stockings I got for us with our names embroidered on them, including one for Buddy (there's actually a great story about Buddy's stocking that I'll save for another day). We opened presents (almost all of which were for Harry -- mostly clothes, some books, and some small toys, much coming from the BabyCenter store clearance sale). Harry most enjoyed the gift bag that I had put a tie for P into. He loved to hold onto the handle and shake it. Ah, the simple things.

As you can see, though, he also loved the jumperoo. He's still a bit small for it -- we put the biggest phone book we have beneath it for him to jump on. But he doesn't know the difference.

So, it's time to make the sweet potato casserole and green beans for Christmas part 4 at Ps mom's house this evening, then home to sleep and get ready for Christmas part 5. My mom is coming here, which means more work but less driving and something that more resembles a routine for Harry.

I hope you and yours have had a good one.

Christmas Eve

Seventeen years ago today, my mom left. She sat us down in the dining room and told us that when we returned from celebrating Christmas with our grandparents, she would be gone and wouldn't be coming back. She meant in the living-in-the-same-house sense, and in that sense she was wrong -- she did come back for a few weeks in the spring, making a half-hearted attempt to work things out.

But in the more meaningful sense she was right. She never really did come back. Without my father, brother and me to keep her in check, she descended deeper into an alcoholic haze, one she seems to be in even when sober now. And there's been a distance in her eyes ever since then. Or maybe it was there before and I just didn't notice it. But I definitely experienced that moment as a turning point, for me for sure, even if not really for her.

And, sadly, this continues to be what I think of when Christmas Eve rolls around. Merry frickin' Christmas, mom.

On a more positive note, tomorrow I will wake up in my own house on Christmas morning for the first time in twenty years. Hooray!

BabyCenter Store

In case anyone doesn't know, the BabyCenter Store is closing shop in January. Most/all of their inventory is seriously marked down. And free shipping if you spend $49 using the code FREESHIP49. I went on a bit of a spree. If you need something for yourself or for a friend, you might want to check it out.

An Exciting Evening of Tummy Time

In addition to holding his head up for over a minute, taking in his surroundings, Harry rolled from his front to his back tonight! (He then tried to do it again but no luck.)

Three Months

Dear Harry,

Happy three monthiversary! To celebrate the quarter-year anniversary of your birth, your dad and I are going out without you for the first time -- a truly momentous occasion. Don't worry, Grandma is coming over to take care of you -- we aren't ready to give Buddy that much responsibility. She came over for a dry run a few days ago and did a fine job. And we'll only be gone for four hours; what's the worst that can happen? You're still awake when we get home? I suspect we have many years of permissive grandma nights ahead of us, so we might as well start practicing now.

At the beginning of this month, you had your two month appointment with Dr. E. While you were naked after being weighed, she had you do some tummy time, and we saw that you were a much bigger fan of tummy time when naked than when clothed. So all month, you've been doing naked tummy time every night before your bath. It's still not your favorite thing, but you will usually go for 10-15 minutes at a time instead of 5-6. And last night you figured out that tummy time could even be fun -- you looked up and saw your duck and hippo bath toys in front of you and smiled!

For your dad and I, one of the best things that happened this month was that you decided that the bouncy seat, rather than being the root of all evil, might in fact be fun. What made this so awesome? The fact that it has allowed your dad and I to eat dinner together again. And for that we are very thankful.

Another thing we are thankful for: sleeping through the night, which you have been doing since shortly before Thanksgiving. Yippee! I love getting a full night's sleep. You seem to as well.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, you celebrated your first one this month! Apparently crying the minute we sat down to dinner and not letting up until I gave up and took you upstairs to nurse you is your idea of a celebration. Don't worry, I promise I'll always love you, even if I have to miss a thousand Thansgiving dinners. On this trip, we were reminded that your sunny disposition is somewhat dependent on getting one or two good naps in each day. We own the DVD of The Happiest Baby On The Block but never got around to watching it since you already ARE the happiest guy around, but a napless you made us wish we'd brought it along, though I'm not sure what it would have told us other than GET THIS KID TO NAP!

Thanksgiving was also your first trip out of state, involving a three-hour car ride to your great-aunt's vacation house, and your first two nights spent away from home. I hope you took it all in this time, because we don't get invited to her place very often. You also met some new relatives, including one of your great-grandpas, and spent time with some old ones, like your cousin C.



Speaking of cousin C, know now that your dad and I will not be allowing you to eat ice cream for breakfast. Or straight from the carton. And we definitely won't let you do that, then have eighteen cookies for lunch, then five bowls of popcorn before dinner, even if we are on vacation. Cousin C learned what happens when you do that, and no one likes to throw up at dinner.

An exciting thing happened this month -- you made your first real choice (I don't think choose which toy to bat counts, since I think most of the time your choice was more accident than design). Apparently, given a choice between a wood rattle, a stuffed ladybug, and a bunch of links that are meant to attach your toys to your carseat, you'll choose the links (you're totally going to be that kid who prefers the packaging to the toy inside). They fit nicely in your hand, have a bunch of colors, make a cool sound when you shake them, and taste just yummy. Just know that you have a lifetime of choices in front of you. And most of the time, the options will not be all good ones that I have preselected for you.

I hope you always make great choices, and that any less than great ones you make have non-horrendous consequences and that you learn what you should from them. You learned from that first choice that you can always choose again. And sometimes you can choose two things at once. Like a bunch of links AND a ladybug.

We're really looking forward to celebrating your first Christmas and New Year's Eve with you this month! You don't know it yet, but you're getting a Rainforest Jumperoo for Christmas from your dad and I. You tried one out at your friend Js house the other day and had an awesome time, even if you couldn't quite reach the ground or figure out how to manipulate the toys -- having a cool view was enough. And hooray for that.

These past three months have been amazing, watching you learn and grow. I love you sooo much and am so excited to see what the future brings.

Love,

Mommy

Dog Bites Dog

Late last week, P opened the back door to let Buddy out without checking to be sure there were no other dogs out there. There were two (much bigger) dogs on leash in front of the house, and Buddy left the yard to bark in their faces. P heard the barking and called for Buddy. He came running right away. P went to apologize to the woman walking the dogs and make sure she was okay. She said she was and walked away. She failed to mention that her dogs had bit Buddy several times.

Clearly this was our fault, since even aggressive dogs have to go for walks and our dog should either have been on a leash or should have stayed in our yard (which he usually does when we tell him to, but we don't generally tell him to unless we see an unfamiliar dog coming, which P didn't as he didn't check). But the owner could have said something. As it was, the wounds didn't bleed right away, and he didn't stiffen up for a few hours, so it was a while before we knew something was wrong.

When I took Buddy to the vet, the vet shaved Buddy's shoulder and found what he described as a severe dog bite, along with several superficial ones. The big one was down to the muscle and required three staples to close (and will require general anesthesia and stitches if the staples don't work but we all wanted to avoid the risks of putting him under). He can't run or go for real walks or play until the staples come out next week. And he's on antibiotics and pain killers. Finally, because we don't have the other dogs' rabies vaccination numbers (which we would have gotten had the owner mentioned that they BIT OUR DOG), the vet has to assume the dog was rabid, so Buddy had to get another rabies shot even though he wasn't due for one for two years. He also can't be off-leash or interact with another dog for 45 days.

Our poor boy. He looks so sad. And we can't exactly explain why he can't do stuff. Looks like we're going to have to find the money to fence the yard, since keeping our very active dog on-leash isn't really a sustainable option long-term.