By the foot

Did you know the most fascinating thing to babies is not the ridiculous amount of toys you buy for them or the staggering number of books in their personal library or even the parents who feed and care for them?

Oh, but no.

The single most fascinating thing by far are their feet.

Jack discovered his feet for the first time about two weeks ago. One day when I had him sitting up on my lap, he looked down and noticed these little moving appendages. He didn't quite know what to make of them, but since he could not reach them, he spent a great deal of time grunting at them.

Then, last week, he learned that if he was lying on his back and bent at the waist, his legs would raise over his head, thus allowing him an unobstructed view of the feet! The feet! And oh the grunting that followed that discovery, as he still could only see and not touch.

Well two days ago, he developed enough coordination to grab a foot with each hand. Two-fisting it! And there was joy in Mudville. The screeching and the babbling to the feet commenced.

Now, he grabs his feet all the time. He is getting thisclose to being able to shove those precious little toes in his mouth. So he spends all day trying to eat his entire leg.

I predict that by the end of the week, he will have mastered the skill of bringing the toes to his mouth.

It's crazy how much of a leap this kid made in the last two weeks. His neck and back are ridiculously stronger now, which obviously helped with the rolling over. Which helped with the tummy time no longer being an instrument of torture. Which allowed him to learn to reach for toys next to him and roll if he is not close enough.

And don't even get me started on the sitting and standing. He's no longer content to lie around on the floor. Now we have to help him sit and stand up so he can see what's going on around him.

And if there was any doubt this kid belonged to me, it was erased when he started vocalizing. He now has some sort of sound emanating from his mouth from the time he wakes up until the time he finally goes to sleep. He sings, he grunts, he coos, he screeches and he is even starting to put sounds together (like ah-goo).

That's my boy. Daddy will never get a moment's peace ever again!

Progress on several fronts

Jesusgay, what a weekend. Busy, busy, BUSY.

But first and foremost, Happy Birthday Josh! He turned 31 on Saturday. He's old now, so we had to wait for him and his walker to catch up to us during our day o' fun.

Not so fun? Taking a 4 1/2 month old to a restaurant. Guess who spent half the meal in the foyer and sitting on the floor of a public restroom nursing? I will give you one guess, and it rhymes with "samey."

(Did you know the handicap restroom at Carnivale has a very clean tile floor?
Well, now you do.)

Among other highlights of the weekend, Jack learned to roll from his back to his tummy. And then he rolled right over again, for a complete 180. Hide the silver, he's somewhat mobile now. So I guess I can no longer leave him on the floor on a blanket when I go to the corner liquor store for cigarettes. Damn it.

I also noticed today, after a week of Jackson jamming his fist into his mouth every chance he got, that HI, maybe he's teething. In addition to the clue of the biting everything in sight, there was also the gallon of drool he deposits on his outfit each day and the constant thrusting of his tongue in and out of his mouth.
I am a bright one, no?

Since these signs appeared, I have periodically been running my finger along his bottom gums to check for bumps. Because, ya know, that's where baby teeth are supposed to develop first.

I say supposed to because, in keeping with nothing in my life with this child being normal, he seems to have a little white spot on his UPPER gums. Seriously. It's clearly not a tooth yet, but it sure looks like what will become one.

Which will most definitely undo all the hard work I put in today with his sleeping. Let me shout this one from the rooftops: JACK TOOK TWO NAPS OF SUBSTANTIAL LENGTH IN HIS CRIB TODAY. There was no crying, no gnashing of the teeth and no need to stuff cotton in your ears.

This, my friends, is progress. Up until today, he was a swinger. The naps? They were taken in the swing only and God help us all if we tried to put him down in his crib. I could have drugged him and he would have risen from the depths of sleeping to scream his displeasure at this indignity.

But once those teeth start coming in, all bets are off. The sleep? I hear Vegas is running with 100-1 odds that he'll keep napping in the crib. Place your wagers now my friends, this is easy money.

But, how can you bet against this face?

Amusing himself

Things Jack Did In His Swing This Afternoon Instead of Falling Asleep:

1. Looked out the window
2. Sang*
3. Stared at the fish on his swing
4. Talked to the fish on his swing
5. Banged the tray of the swing
6. Stared at his hand as if he had never seen it before**
7. Whined
8. Sucked his thumb
9. Sucked his hand
10. Sucked both hands at once
11. Cried
12. Laughed
13. Read "War and Peace"
14. Knitted an afghan
15. Memorized the first 514 numbers in Pi
16. Wailed plaintively
17. Climbed out and made himself a martini***


* His singing sounds like some sort of whale call, but is very cute nevertheless.
** This happens about three times a day now. He sticks his arm out, sees his hand and looks startled like "What the HELL is that? And WHOA! There are two of them!"
*** Shaken, not stirred

Down one eyeball

I am now blind in one eye. Because I poked my own eyeball out with a butter knife. Which is what I said I would do if today's naps were like yesterdays.

Today? We have had one 20-minute stint and a whopping 26-minute extravaganza this afternoon.

And last night? Seemed like a perfectly great idea to wake up at 1:30 a.m. for no reason. And then fuss for an hour. I mean, really, this is groundbreaking material for the little man.

I keep a sleep chart and let me tell you, it ain't pretty. Pattern? What pattern? This kid's chart looks like a patchwork quilt, not a nice, pretty linear look at things.

Giving him the benefit of the doubt, however, he is learning some new tricks (rolling over, both ways) and hitting a pretty major developmental milestone next week. And "they" say that both of those things contribute to less napping.

And it's really hard to be mad, when I go get him from the nap and he lays a huge toothless grin on me. But I try to be serious for a second and impress upon him the need to take naps.

And then he farts.

So we can see what he thinks of my authority at the ripe old age of 4 1/2 months.

Happy Father's Day

Please take a nap. Please. PLEASE. PUH-LEAZE.

This was the mantra at my house the last two days.

Grandma is here. Even she can't get him to JUST TAKE A DAMN NAP ALREADY CHILD.

Sorry, where was I? Oh yes.

Yesterday, one 30-minute nap. Today? One 30-minute nap.

I might just poke my eyeball out with a butter knife if this continues tomorrow.

Now, on to Father's Day. (Did you like that? No segue there. I am not even trying. I am just moving right on to a totally unrelated topic. Am not clever, not creative today.)

We spent our first Father's Day doing a bevy of things Josh enjoys. We ate barbecue, we played video games, we ate Italian ice, we went to Menards.

We went to Menards in our new car! Shiny! New! Gas-sucking SUV! More greenhouse gasses, now brought to you courtesy of us!

I wanted to make sure the day was filled with things Josh wanted to do. He works so hard the rest of the time taking caring of us and building patios and installing surround sound and paying the bills and changing diapers and making excel spreadsheets of our budget. So on his first Father's Day, there was none of that.

He said he enjoyed it. I have a picture of him and Jack, but alas, it is on my sister-in-law's camera and I don't have the cord. So you know, check back in a few days if you want to see it.

In the meantime, Happy Father's Day to the best dad Jack could ask for. We love you -- and your inability to listen to a word I am saying unless it involves the phrases "I came in under budget this month honey" or "I see Pearl Jam is releasing new tour dates."

Dear Schmoopies

Dear Couple Who Sat In Front of Me at the Radiohead Concert Last Night:

I am sure that you love each other. I am sure you love Radiohead. I however, do not love you loving each other during the Radiohead concert.

I think the fact you could not separate yourselves even an inch apart is cute. But for the love of GOD, it was 172 degrees in the balcony. I would have pushed Nick Lachey himself away in the heat.

I really hope there was some ecstasy involved in your pre-concert activities. Because if it wasn't, then you are even more schmoopie than I originally believed.

Dude, your Nine Inch Nails shirt was so hot. With your wispy mustache. And Girl, seriously, why would you let someone lick your face? Is that some new foreplay all the kids are doing now?

I was so distracted by your antics -- hi, your heads were right in front of me the whole two hours -- that I have the shape of your combined heads burned into my memory. And just in case I ever forget, I took a picture of you for my scrapbook.



Smooches,
Me

(I had never seen Radiohead before and love love love their music. I even listened to it while in labor. It now ranks as the top concert I have ever seen. Worth every e-bayed penny.)

Ahhhh...

There is nothing -- NOTHING -- better than kicking back on the deck with a cold Miller Lite after the sun goes down on one of the hottest days of the year.*

This is why I live in Chicago, people.

* With portable baby monitor as our constant companion.

The siege has ended

All hostages were returned safely and a truce was reached.

The poop has returned and everyone in the house is happy again.

I had to resort to the thermometer trick. For those of you not in the know, that is a little trick they teach you at the pediatrician's office. You take an infant thermometer, coat it in vaseline and then try to take the temperature. You know, rectally.

It stimulates them to poop apparently. Last night, not so much. This morning, worked like a charm.

And there was a lot.

Oh, and we didn't feed him rice cereal last night. Further proving my suspicions that it was constipating him. So we're moving on to oatmeal, with the blessing of my pediatrician.

Nothing like a little whole grain and oats to get things moving.

Poop Watch 2006

So Poop Watch 2006 continues in our house.

The poop? There is no sign of it. It has left us and gone away. Poor Jack. He just gets all red in the face and grunts and then nothing. Some smelly gas has made it's way out occasionally, but that's about it.

I think I am moving on from the rice cereal. He doesn't like it and it's been seven days. They say you have to wait five days before introducing something new, so maybe we will move on.

Or maybe, he's just not ready. The AAP says you should exclusively breastfeed for the first six months, and it even says that on my pediatrician's website. This is the same pediatrician who told me we could start solids and even wrote down what we should do.

Clearly, this advice is all as inconsistent as my son's bowels.

So if anyone needs anything, we'll just be being over here being constipated.

Weekend at Amy's

I cannot even begin to explain the funk that this child was in all weekend.

Of course, we are building a patio outside and I needed him to be content. OH BUT NO.

My mother-in-law was watching Jack on both Saturday and Sunday while we worked outside. I would stop working and go in to feed him and then go back out.

Saturday, he decided to start out eating every two hours in the morning. Then he went to every 90 minutes by early afternoon, then around 4 p.m. he decided that every hour was about right. Since he eats for 20-30 minutes at a time, that meant I was only getting a half-hour break between feeds.

At one point I told Josh, "This child is sucking the life out of me. Literally."

When he wasn't eating, he was so fussy it was insane. I could hear him screaming his little head off outside through the closed windows. He would play nicely for a few minutes and then all hell would break loose.

Sunday was much of the same, although he was back to only eating every two hours again (only ... I say that like it is progress or something) and generally acting like a little stinker because he knew I was not around to play with him. Add that to only napping 10-15 min at a time and we again had a delightful day.

Both nights he also decided that it would be a grand idea to wake up at 2 a.m. to eat.

Today? Great naps, less frantic eating. But a bedtime that consisted of him screaming in the car, us pulling over to breastfeed him, him waking up when we got home and needing to be rocked back to sleep by Daddy for a half hour.

And for the record, he's now constipated by the tasty rice cereal he started eating last week. Or should I say that he started taking in his mouth and spitting out last week. So he cries while he eats it and he can't poop. Wow, this feeding him solids is going just super.

Bitter? Who's bitter? Not me! Motherhood is great! All flowers and sunshine up your ass all the time!

Four months

Dear Jack,

Today you turned four months old and I literally can not believe it's been 1/3 of a year that you have been with us.

The last few weeks have been so much fun. I never thought I would have such a good time hanging out with someone who can't speak in sentences or use a toilet, but there is no one I would rather spend time with.



You discovered that your voice has more than one level this month, so now you spend all of your time shrieking. You scream in delight and you scream when you are sad and you even scream when you laugh. You noticed that this yelling at the top of your lungs business really gets our attention, so I think you are continuing it in the hopes we will give you the keys to the car and let you stay out past curfew.

You've really grown a lot this month. At your doctor appointment, you were up to 13 pounds 4 ounces and you're now 24.5 inches long. But it's the growth of your hair that got most of our attention this month. You've got a little mohawk going and it could not be cuter. When your hair is freshly washed and dried after a bath, it's so fine that it just sticks straight up. I wish it would stay like this forever.

You got so big in month four that you pretty much rendered your swaddle blanket obsolete. You Houdini-ed out of it every night anyway, so we decided you were big enough to sleep without it. The first night was rough -- it took us 30 minutes to get you to calm down, but once you did, you were back to sleeping through the night. First the swaddle blanket, next thing you know, you'll be sleeping in a big-boy bed.

You've also become quite the little flirt. You smile and laugh at strangers, and it's not difficult to coax a good smirk out of you either. You are a very happy baby. Most of the time.



But then comes late afternoon and all hell breaks loose. More days than not, you would rather just spend the afternoon on the boob, coming up for air and diaper changes every once in a while. From 4-7 p.m., I pretty much give you the go-ahead at the all-you-can-eat milk buffet and things calm down.

The last few days you have been very out of sorts. You got your four-month shots on Sunday and you were not pleased with this development. For three days you mostly screamed. Sure, there were times you were happy and smiley, but it was a rough three days.

It kills me to see you in pain. Especially when I have no idea what is causing your unhappiness. Your Daddy said he hoped it would get better when you could talk, because at least then you can tell us what's wrong and we can fix it.



And believe me, I would give anything to fix it. I would give anything to make you happy and bring a smile to your face. Your smiles light up the room. Your laughter fills my heart. The best moment of my day is the one each morning where I open the door to your room and you look up at me from your crib.

You smile at me and start to squirm because you know I am going to pick you up. I can see your entire body light up when you recognize it is me. If I could bottle that feeling, I would be a gazillionaire. Because I have never been so swept off my feet by anything before.

My love for you is so fierce it has taken me by surprise. I never knew a love like this before. You are the best parts of Daddy and me all rolled into one, but you are your own little person, too. I look at you sometimes and I can't believe you were the baby I carried inside me for nine months. It doesn't seem possible that a year ago tomorrow, I found out I was pregnant with you.

The last year has changed me in ways I can not even explain. I have become more patient, more loving and more thoughtful. I want to be the best person I can be to set a good example for you. I want you to grow up thinking your Mom and Dad are good people.

Every month, we have seen more and more of your personality emerge. I almost feel like I am rushing you to grow up because I can't wait to see more. To see you crawl. To hear you babble. To chase you as you walk.

But I want you to stay my baby, too. I was so torn about starting rice cereal this month because I didn't know how it would affect your breastfeeding. I know that cereal is the first step to you moving on to other sources of food, and eventually to growing up and doing everything on your own, and I am not ready for that yet. I just want to keep you this little forever.

Love,
Mommy

He likes it! He likes it!

Yesterday we took Jack for his four-month doctor's appointment.

He stripped down and stepped on the scale and we were pleasantly surprised to see the Atkins Diet was doing wonders for him. He was using the little known, but quite popular "all breastmilk" portion of the plan and it was apparently working well.

Our little 10-percenter doubled his birth weight and now tips the scales at a plump 13 pounds 4 ounces. That puts him in the 25th percentile. I knew sticking with a shake for breakfast, a shake for lunch and a sensible dinner of, well another shake, with several shakes in between -- all of the boob variety -- would pay off in the end.

He's also in the 50th percentile for length and noggin circumference. So he's really quite average when it comes to that stuff. Thank goodness, because a pumpkinhead is not so attractive to the ladies, ya know?

But Jack's boobmilk-only days have come to a close. He will now refine his palate with the oh-so-tasty cereal once a day. It smells like wet cardboard and I am sure tastes about as good.

Our pediatrician said to start him on rice cereal, and since I am a stickler for following doctor's orders, start him we did. We bought a nice organic version from Whole Foods and mixed in a little mommy milk and away we went.

Josh and I (OK, really it was me) were very excited and got out the camera and the video camera to mark the occasion. Jack? He could not have been less impressed by the lumpy breastmilk. More came out of his mouth than went in, but all in all, it went well for his first try.

I present to you, photographic evidence of the still and moving forms.






Yes, I have been reduced to posting videos of my child eating on the Internet. God help us all when he learns to use the potty.

Just chillin'

My mom is too busy to blog. But not too busy to dress me cute. In little baby sandals. With my hat kicked to the side.