104 posts tagged “baby”
My little boy did the absolutely sweetest, most darling thing this morning. I have to record it here lest I forget.
He awoke at 5:30. My husband got him out of his crib, then brought him into our bed to cuddle with me while he took a shower.
Not long after settling beside me, The Boy grabbed my face with both his hands, held it close to his and quietly said, "Mama."
Tender moments like those simply make my heart melt.
The Boy is becoming much more helpful when I'm trying to dress him in the mornings. Not only is he able to reach into his drawer to pull out a shirt, he puts both arms into the sleeves now before I pull it over his head. (I'm not sure where he learned that, though.)
This morning, I tried to put a brown long-sleeved shirt on him, but the neck hole was too small for his head, and, much to his chagrin (and mine), I had to take it off, set it aside, and get another shirt from his bureau. The next shirt we tried was a white shirt with a basketball silkscreened on the front (he loves this shirt). Once again, the neck hole was too small, and he got stuck. So I set aside that one, too.
Finally, I pulled out a shirt that partially buttoned down the front, knowing this, for sure, would fit over his head. And it did, with no problems. He stood remarkably still as I buttoned his shirt, then gleefully ran out of his room to play with Grandma for a while longer before we needed to leave for daycare.
As for the two shirts that no longer fit him, those are both size 2T and are now in a box of hand-me-downs that I just dropped at my friend Jen's place. I shudder to think how many other shirts he has already outgrown. There are admittedly favorites that I like to use more often than others. And, of course, as these are long-sleeved shirts and we don't (typically) have much weather where long sleeves are required, I can look forward to replacing these with size 3T and 4T shirts for him to use at the end of this year and early next.
He still wears 2T or 24-month bottoms (usually the pants are rolled up a bit) and can still fit into select 18-month shorts and pants (if they're adjustable). I have a feeling I will need to take him back to the shoe store to get resized before the end of this month (maybe next weekend?) - not that his Size 7 shoes are hard to get on, but his feet have almost outgrown his 2T and 24-month footed sleepers. I can't imagine, then, that it will be long before he outgrows this pair of shoes, too.
My baby really is a not-so-little boy, it seems. You think you understand when people tell you that it goes by really fast, but words can't possibly explain how much he's grown and changed in the past (almost) 22 months. And while I know cognitively there is so much more to come, it's still difficult for my brain to process this metamorphosis is only the beginning.
My friend Bekki just had her little boy this afternoon! Baby K is healthy, Bekki is doing well, and her husband Doug is doing just fine, too. All is good.
Chris and I went to the hospital this evening after The Boy had gone to bed. (My mother-in-law is in town, so, no, I did not leave the little one at home alone.) Bekki let me carry Baby K for a while, and Chris kept saying that I would steal him from her. As adorable as he is, I know he's hers - and I'm not the one who endured the 40 weeks (and a few days) of carrying him, not to mention the laboring process.
Her delivery went very well. She progressed quite well and was already 9 cm dilated when they arrived in triage! Needless to say, they weren't in the hospital very long before Baby K was born.
At any rate, it's a very happy day, indeed, and I'm so very excited for both Bekki and Doug. As they said as we left her room this evening, they're now officially part of the club!
Well, for the next three years, anyway (and not counting the flu shot). The Boy had his 18-month checkup yesterday, and he is now finished with his vaccinations. Hooray! It's too bad he's not able to fully comprehend the magnitude of this, but he'll just have to believe me when I say this is a very good thing.
So, he is in the 50th percentile all across the board now. He is 31 inches long with a head circumference of 19 inches. As for weight, well, the scale was off. When the nurse weighed him, the scale said he was 22 pounds, which both Dr W and I knew to be wrong because there's absolutely no way this child could have lost a tenth of his body weight over the past three weeks. After all, it's not like The Boy has been (a) starving himself, (b) suffering from chronic diarrhea, or (c) vomiting constantly.
In all other respects, The Boy is doing just fine. He's healthy, happy, well-socialized, and, well, a perfectly normal toddler.
Mommy is so proud.
I do have a funny anecdote to share about the visit, though. When Dr W entered the room, he greeted The Boy and crouched down to give him a hug. The Boy's face lit up as a broad smile stretched across it, and he ran full-force, arms outstretched, past Dr W and straight to Nurse K at the nurse's station behind the good doctor. It was hilarious. He later, of course, went willingly to Dr W, but it was just a priceless moment.
I so adore this child.
As for his shots, well, he did an awesome job. Since I have to be the bad parent holding him down, I never know what The Boy's real reactions are to the shots. But Chris was with us this time to observe the process, and he said The Boy didn't cry out until the second set of shots (they do two at a time). Even that cry was a cry of discomfort and not really one of pain. It only took a few moments of good, solid cuddle time for him to forget about the shots altogether. I called late in the day to check on him, and Chris said you would never guess that this child even had any shots that morning.
If he's this good with shots, then, it makes me shudder to think how badly it must hurt when he's teething. My poor little guy. And now that we have all four of our canines in, he's starting to work on his 2-year molars!
I'll be so happy when we're all done with teeth...
I found a home for some of my baby gear!
When The Boy was about a month old (and still Baby C), I desperately wanted a carrier to take him for walks around the neighborhood. I had registered for a Baby Bjorn but didn't receive it, so my mother and I went to Target and utilized the 10% registry closing discount and bought, among other things, a black Baby Bjorn.
It was really nice to have, and I loved carrying Baby C in it... until he got really heavy (17 lbs) and my poor back couldn't take it anymore. So I bought a Moby instead, and absolutely loved it. In hindsight, if I had to do it over again, I would have done my research on carriers while still pregnant and opted for the Moby from the beginning instead of the Bjorn. Well, you live and you learn.
Anyway, one of my good friends is having a baby in January, and I noted that she requested an Infantino carrier on her registry. So, I called her and told her about my (extremely gently) used Bjorn and asked if she would mind taking a hand-me-down. Naturally, as she's about 20 times more environmentally conscious than I, she said she would be happy to take it. ("Reuse" is, after all, one of the three Rs.) And I offered a few other things, all of which she was happy to take off my hands (stuff that was useful, after all; I just didn't need all of it), so I am going to pack up a box tonight and ship it off to her tomorrow.
Hooray!
She's also looking into cloth diapering, so I've offered myself as a resource on cloth diapering and other baby issues in general. (She's not getting my diapers, though. I'm not finished with them.) We grew up together (our parents were very good friends) and now live on opposite coasts, but I'm happy to offer help in any way I can, even from a distance. She's like a sister to me, after all.
Baby Rockstar (not the baby's actual name - they're keeping gender a surprise) isn't due until January, so I've still got time to collect some first year necessities to send her way.
Hooray!
...you change your son's diaper in the morning and do an inward happy dance because his poop is solid.
And now back to your regularly scheduled programming without further interruptions.
Several months ago, a former coworker gave The Boy a bear wearing a Who T-shirt. Because of the shirt and the fact that I have no originality, we've named the bear "Tommy Bear".
This is the first stuffed animal he actually cuddled, and he has since taken to cuddling with Tommy Bear (and other stuffed animals) when the mood strikes. It doesn't strike very often (he's much more fond of balloons when he's lucky enough to have them, and of balls, which are his new favorite things to carry, toss, and roll), but when it does, it's quite endearing. The snuggling always includes a number of kisses to Tommy Bear's nose.
Tonight, when I put him down, he seemed to have trouble settling. I'm still letting him wean himself from the breast, but I'm no longer giving him a pacifier at night. This started last week, but it's only been a problem for the past couple of nights. Of course, he could also be perfectly fine without the pacifier; after all, he went to bed after 7:30 last night and tonight, so it could very well be a self-soothing issue. Either way, the past two nights haven't been easy on us.
Anyway, after I put him in his crib and finished our nighttime ritual (complete with Goodnight Moon and a song), I dimmed the lights and left the room. For a few minutes, he was fine. But then the crying began, and I knew it was because he was having trouble soothing himself. I waited a few more minutes, then came back into his room, softly hushing his cries, and offered Tommy Bear before one more goodnight, and I left the room.
The crying continued for another five minutes, then The Boy settled once more. I just went into his room to check on him, and he had turned himself around in the crib - but he was sound asleep and holding Tommy Bear's foot.
What interests me most is what tomorrow morning may bring. The Boy could very well be elated to have a friend in his crib, or he may dismiss Tommy Bear altogether and we'd jump right into our routine without a second glance.
I'm just hoping Tommy Bear will be enough to keep The Boy settled so he can soothe himself back to sleep in the event he awakes at 4:30 again.
The Boy had a mysterious redness around his right eye and on his red cheek this morning when I took him out of the car. Thankfully, his former Infant teachers let me bring him to their classroom and hang out with him for a while to see if the redness cleared (which it did). Lord knows I had no desire to schlep him back home and to the doctor for what would ultimately be no reason.
It's the strangest thing, and this isn't the first time this has happened. He had a healthy breakfast this morning of peaches, milk, and a bit of breastmilk. I didn't even offer any of the blueberry muffins he greedily devoured the previous morning. And when we left the house, he was perfectly fine - no redness, no rashes, nothing. But when I got him out of the car, half his face was just, well, really pink.
Anyway, I dropped him off in his classroom (one of the Directors even saw him and just remarked how adorable he is - no mention of the pinkness, thank God) and no one made any mention of it there, either.
I just don't know what could possibly trigger what is ultimately a temporary reaction.
Well, after my neighbor's glowing review of gDiapers, I was really excited to see one - not in action, but one that I could touch and manipulate, blah blah blah.
If I didn't already invest in BumGenius, I would definitely want to go this route. The whole system is very cool. (Check out Working Title and Anya's Mom for more info - they're gDiaper users and seem to love it!)
Anyway, the lady at the booth (we had a health fair at work today) was so happy to hear that I knew people who used (and liked!) gDiapers, and she let me take a small stack of coupons to pass along to all my eco-conscious Mommy friends. The coupons are for $2 off a starter kit.
I've already posted a offer on Freepeats but wanted to extend it to my fellow Voxers here. PM me if you're interested, and I'll gladly send you one (or three!).
Edit: The coupons are all gone now! I got some speedy responses from a few neighbors and will be dropping those coupons in the mail shortly! Thanks for the interest!
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