Getting Ready for Christmas

It's that time of year again. However for us, It's Alex's First Christmas!!!

I Love this pose.

It appears that Alex is reaching for Santa with a hello and a 'wait a minute there, buddy' perception.

Momma and Baby

Well we scored a free $10 coupon to Red Lobster thru Discover, but it expired rather quickly. So we decided to have a nice, quick evening out (after work, but before Alex went to bed).

The food was good, but Alex and Amber just look to darn cute at this moment, that I just had to snap a pic. with my camera phone.

First food

Well, we were going to start yesterday, but we were invited to a party at last minute and didn't get home until bedtime (plus I hadn't actually bought the cereal yet).

Today we went up to Babies R Us and I bought a canister of HappyBaby Rice Cereal with DHA and Probiotics. It actually is cheaper than Gerber Rice Cereal with DHA, and I heard good things about HappyBaby from a blog I read, so I figured I'd try it.

Holy crap, did he *LOVE* his cereal. He was so hungry he ate 2 tablespoons of the cereal (thinned with about 3 ounces of breastmilk), so about 8 tablespoons or so of cereal overall.

We filmed his feeding, but it's 15 minutes long. I'll edit it and post a short clip in my next post. In the meantime, enjoy the following pics:

Half Birthday!

Today is Alex's half birthday. I can't believe it's been 6 months already!

Tomorrow he goes to the Pediatrician and we'll see just how much he weighs, how long he is, and how big his head is. Oh, and he'll get some vaccines. That's the not fun part.

Sunday we're going to start solids! I already have the sweet potatoes!
Here are some recent pics:

A big day of firsts!

Today was the church's annual picnic, which was waaaayyyyy out in BFE (aka Fairview). We got up early to be able to get there in time (we were even EARLY! which is a big feat for us).

It was nice. Alex got to experience a "real" playground swing, the teeter-totter, and got lots of attention from everyone there (even Fr Bernie).

Happy 4th of July!

1/3 of a year

My baby is 4 months old. That's one third of a year! Where has the time gone?

Yesterday Alex went for his 4 month visit. He's now 15lbs, 3oz and is 25.75" long. Soon he's going to outgrow his 3-6mo jammies simply because they're not long enough. Uh, I guess I better go shopping for some 6-9month ones... I think I only have 1 or 2 pairs right now. Oh well.

Here are some pics I took the other day:

A Quick Visit to Grandma's

We went to St. Mary's this past weekend, and saw Grandma, and Aunt Pam, and Uncle Bob, and Cousin Steve. We missed out on Uncle Tommy and Aunt Anna, but we just missed them.

We also visited some friends, and had some great weather for traveling.

Here's a pic of the little guy on the bed at the hotel. He's such a little poser!!

Family Day at the Erie Zoo

After a nice Sunday visit to the Erie Zoo, we ended the visit with a train ride around the park.

Piano Time

Amber loves to find deals. And where do you find the greatest deals, you ask? Garage Sales of course!

This thing was picked up for a mere $2. Sure it is missing a couple of wheels, but Alex doesn't care. This thing has lights, music and moving parts. How much cooler can it get?

Dad, this Bike is Too Big For Me...

But he sure is darn cute standing on the seat of it, with Mommy holding him in the background.

Rainforest Play Gym

My Friend Joan's Mother in Law gave me an Ocean play gym, but I think it got packed away in my other friend's attic, so my sister bought this gym for Alex. It matches his mobile, and he likes it a lot. Well, he hates his tummy time, but he played with the toucan on the palm tree for quite a while. Hopefully he will learn to like tummy time more, and can play with the toys on the other end of his mat.

Some pics from this morning

Baby Straightjacket.... uh, I mean, Miracle Blanket

When Justin and I were in the hospital, they had a bunch of videos we could watch. One of them was "Happiest baby on the block," which said that swaddling is a good way to help calm your baby down.


Well, we tried, and tried, and tried, and no matter how we swaddled Alex, he would bust out and startle himself awake. After two weeks, I ordered a Miracle Blanket, and let me tell you, the results were AMAZING. I was able to get 3 hours of sleep! For the past 3 weeks, he has been sleeping through the night, and I attribute most of it to swaddling him in the Miracle Blanket. No matter how hard he struggles, he cannot break out of it.


Yeah, he might look like he's in a baby straightjacket, but he will grow out of the Moro reflex sometime in the next two months or so, and he won't need to be swaddled any more. In the meantime, he will be my little burrito.

(sorry for the poor picture quality - I took this last night with my phone and was trying really hard NOT to wake him up)

Frenulum

When Alex was born, he had a bit of a problem latching on. I had chalked it up to the fact that both he & I were learning together, but on that Monday morning, the nurse noticed he was tongue-tied. Basically, it means they have extra skin connecting their tongue to the bottom of their mouth. Usually its regressed to a normal level by the time they are born, but sometimes they are not. In Alex's case, he had a bit that made it look like he had two spit bubbles below his tongue all the time. They had a resident come up, and he took Alex and clipped it. It didn't cause hi many discomfort, and he fed perfectly right after.

Some say it's not necessary to do, but as I sat with him this morning playing "let's stick our tongues out at each other," I was glad we did.

Sony 900mhz Babycall Monitor

I'm going to start doing reviews of baby items as well. As first time parents, we've had to do a lot of research, and maybe these reviews will help someone else out.

Justin first picked up a Graco iVibe Monitor, but it got terrible reviews regarding the batteries. I had already done some research from the BabyBargains book, and had settled on the Sony 900mhz Babycall Monitor - the only bad thing is that is only available on target.com (at least, it wasn't in our local Target - YMMV). This monitor has 27 channels that it could be set to, but so far we have not had any problems with the default (yellow yellow yellow) setting. The receiver can be set to off, always on, or voice activation. Since we have an aquarium set up in Alex's room with constant white noise, I like to use the voice feature. Even when his mobile is playing, it will cut that noise out and only pick up when he starts to cry. I have heard him sneeze, fart, and grunt all on the voice feature.

The monitor also has a sound meter with 5 red lights that light up depending on how high the noise is. This is helpful if you are drying your hair, cooking, or yelling at barking dogs.

I can't really go outside from the living room with it, but I think part of the problem is I placed the transmitter near a bunch of other electronics (tv, wireless router, etc).

All in all, I'm happy with this monitor.

Wil E Coyote

On Thursday, Alex went in for his two month immunizations shots. It wasn't supposed to be until May 13, but we're going to be on the road that day to go see his godfather's Army graduation ceremony, and I *really* didn't want to have to try to find a hospital somewhere between here and BFE Alabama in the off chance that something went wrong.

Alex now weighs 12lbs 10oz and is still 23.25" long. His head is 39.5cm.

After we talked to the doctor a bit, we got him ready for his shots. He was to receive one oral vaccine (Rotavirus), and 3 shots (DTaP/Hep B/Polio, hib, PCV). The oral vaccine he took just fine, and was smiling at the nurse. She then grabbed a shot, and put it in his leg. I could just see his reaction change from happy to OMG WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME?!?!?!?! I gave him his pacifier to try to calm him down, and once the 3 shots were over (2 in the right leg, one in the left), and he got his band-aids (which were Wil E Coyote), I cuddled with him for a bit, we got him dressed, then I dropped Justin back off at work. We came home and I fed him and put him to sleep in his swing - where he proceeded to sleep for about 5 hours. I eventually turned off his swing (which is guaranteed to wake him up), just so I could feed him again. He was cranky the rest of the day (but I would be too), but by Friday morning he was all smiles again!

He Finally Smiled at the Daddy!!!

Jeeeze!! I have been feeling that this kid doesn't like me, and always screams when I get him. Well I think it turns out that evenings are his crappy time - "I am tired, but I don't wanna Sleep, so I'm going to cry instead."

Well on Weekends, the Daddy gets to see his son in a new light. Here's one gander from Alex at me while I was between garage projects.

Yay!! Happy Guy in Dad's arms. :-)

New blog

So I've decided to start this blog for family & friends to get Alex updates. My old blog will still be for other stuff, but I am pulling all the Alex posts and will try to migrate them over here. Also, this will be a joint blog, in that both Justin and I will be posting updates (hopefully not on the same days). My hope is that once Alex gets older, he can add his own updates (provided blogging is still around then).

So sit back, relax, and watch Alex grow!

Question of the day

What's 11.5 lbs and 23.25" of cute?



This guy:

He had his 1 month well-checkup (at 6 weeks, but whatever). He goes back to the Dr in a month for his first set of immunizations. I'm sooooooooo looking forward to that (not).

Visit at daddy's work!

Today I had my 6 week postnatal appointment, where I was cleared to, *ahem* resume normal activities. On the way home, I had to pass Justin's work, so I called him and asked him if it was a good day to show off Alex... or not. He said that while it was a bad busy day, things had calmed down, and he had some time. So Alex & I visited Justin as work for the first time. All his fellow engineers ooh and aahed (well, as much as men do) and said he needed a tiny hard hat & safety glasses. Well, I already bought Alex some sunglasses, but I bet I could find him a tiny hard hat.

I went to a children's consignment shop, and picked up Alex a cute little overalls & long sleeved onesie outfit, and it's quickly become our favorite outfit. Here he is in it, sitting on the couch:

In other news, we have been giving Alex "tummy time" a few times a week. Today I put him on his tummy on the couch, and he lifted up his upper body on his arms! He is getting to be so strong!

Your face is kinda scratchy!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Today Alex & I went up to my Alma Mater, Penn State, and spent the day showing off my sweet little baby. Of course everyone loved him!

...yes, yes you are.

Sunset on Lake Erie

So tonight we decided to try out Backyard Burgers, but first went and drove around the Peninsula. It wasn't too cold, and the wind was relatively calm, so we got Alex out of the car and enjoyed five minutes or so of the pre-sunset.

If you've never tried Backyard Burgers before, I highly recommend it. It's "fast food," but tastes like a higher quality burger. We will definitely go back.

Surreal

It's been two weeks since Alex was born, and it still doesn't seem real (maybe it's the sleep-deprivation talking).

We're still having some issues - he doesn't sleep consistently yet (but I know it can take up to 6 weeks for him to get in synch). He also sometimes has problems with latching on to feed. Sometimes he will just scream & scream until he gets hysterical. When he does this, I feel so bad for him. He will turn really red & have tears streaming down his face, and sometimes can take twenty minutes to an hour to calm down enough to decide that the boob in his mouth is actually food. Other times he latches on right away. It can be frustrating, and there's nothing I (or Justin) can do but wait it out.

We went on our first walk yesterday. It was chilly but sunny. I got him in his car seat, then hitched up the dogs and took the dogs outside to wait.

I grabbed his stroller frame, and took that downstairs. I then grabbed my camera and Alex and carried him downstairs and put him in his stroller frame. We all waited for Justin to finish messing around with his new tractor, then we went for the walk. It was nice - I just had to make sure I didn't walk too fast (I have a long stride and would trip the bar between the wheels) or hit any lips in the sidewalk (the wheels aren't great and would pitch the whole stroller forward), or run over a slow-moving dog.

Maybe I'm taking too many pictures...