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Six Weeks With Daddy – Day 15-18 – He’s Growing Up!

// May 12th, 2010 // No Comments » // Baby

This past weekend we took a long weekend trip to visit Grandma. It was baby’s first big road trip and I must say that he did excellent! On the way up to Grandma’s we fed him right before we left and he slept the entire four hour trip! On the way back we had to stop for dinner so we woke him up to feed him but he went right back to sleep. This boy loves being in the car. The one thing he doesn’t like is red lights. If the light stays red too long he starts to get fussy but as soon as it turns green and we are going again he calms right back down. This sounds promising in a few years when I rent us a big RV and we take a family vacation across country.

Over the weekend the baby had several more of his firsts:

First road trip

First time Grandma babysat him

First time in an arcade

First time he met one of his Grandpas

First time in a Dairy Queen

It’s fun to take note when you are doing something for the first time with your new baby. You always get to say, “This is the first time he’s….” or “This is his first….”. I’ve been mentally tracking these but just the other day Mommy informed me that his baby book has a section for all of his firsts. Now I have to go back and try to remember them all.

He turned three months old over the weekend and with it has had a few new milestones.

He’s very close to laughing now. I can tickle his belly and make funny noises and he smiles from ear to ear and shakes his head. The only thing missing is his laugh but you can tell it’s coming soon.

He has discovered that things other than his fist can go in his mouth. While in his tummy time gym he grabbed a hold of a little butterfly that hangs and plays music and the next thing I knew he had the butterfly’s foot in his mouth. I also gave him a sock to hold while I was changing his diaper and he stuck that in his mouth (it was a clean baby sock). He did not like the flavor of the cloth though as he made a very amusing “This is disgusting!” face.

He’s moved up a size in his clothes. There are several outfits that we have been waiting to put him in but he just didn’t fit into them but now he does. The flip side of that means he is outgrowing some of his old clothes that we have grown accustomed to seeing him in. Like his little green alligator sleeper. He looked so cute in that but if he stretches in it I fear his feet will pop out of the bottom.

It’s exciting to watch your baby grow up but at the same time it’s sad because you know you will never get to see some of the things again. Kind of like my six weeks with him. It’s only half over but I am already thinking about going back to work and dreading it because I realize now how much I am going to be missing during the day.

Six Weeks With Daddy – Day #16 – Worst Spit Up Ever!

// May 4th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Baby

Does it count as sleeping through the night if your baby goes to bed at 8pm and doesn’t wake up until 5am? I think it does. Those night don’t happen very often. He usually needs to eat at least once in the night.

Now while you may think that him sleeping through the night was a good thing, it happened to coincide with the same night I decided to stay up until midnight. So by him sleeping through the night it caused him to wake up about 2 hours earlier than normal and since he was fully rested, he had no desire to go back to sleep after his 5am bottle. You know the old saying, “If the baby ain’t sleeping, nobody is sleeping.” Except for my wife. Since she fell asleep at 9am and the baby didn’t wake up during the night, she too got a full nights rest.

Which brings us to 9am this morning where I was greeted with the worst spit up to date. Not because of the quantity of spit up but because of the after effects. You see, as I was burping him he had his head buried in my shoulder. At the same time he decided he projectile vomit. My shoulder and the burp cloth absorbed plenty but the majority of it bounced back into his face. He was covered in spit up from his forehead to his chin. It was in his eyes, nose and mouth. I would have taken a picture had I not had to clean him up so quickly. Just imagine your kid dunking his head into a bowl of milk. Now triple it.

Now that he is cleaned up and calmed down he is currently fighting his nap. Has he really reached the age where he doesn’t want to nap? He’s only three months old! He’s been playing this game for the last few days. He eventually will nap but not without a fight. I’m trying to teach him to nap where ever I lay him down without me intervening very much. He’s getting better at it and very few times do I have to go and pick him up.

We aren’t the type of parents that can let their kid “cry it out”. There are ways to console a crying baby without “spoiling” him and without just leaving him by himself to cry himself to sleep. Besides, as fast as they grow up and change, we feel like we are missing out on things if he just cries it out.

Like today for instance, during his little fussy bits I got to sit with him by his swing and bounce the swing up and down. I get to console him and be close but he also has to work things out for himself. But in between his fussy spells he would just stare at me and I would smile at him and he would give me a coy little smile in return. I would have never got to see that if I had left him alone in his room. You can’t get those moments back so why set yourself up to miss them?

During his nap I’m working on cleaning out the laundry room. We are getting our new washer and dryer tomorrow so I’m doing the last load of laundry today so I can take the old washer and dryer out. I never thought I would be this excited about laundry!

Call me Mr. Mom! Except I still suck at cooking. I’m getting pretty decent at laundry and cleaning though.

Six Weeks With Daddy – Day #9 and #10 – It’s Payback Time!

// April 30th, 2010 // No Comments » // Baby

Mr. Mom was on TV today. I mention this because when I took off work to stay home with the baby I had thought to myself that I wanted to watch Mr. Mom since I would be just that for six weeks. Seeing it on TV today made me think that I should have thought of something better to happen than just a movie coming on TV. If it were going to come true I would much rather it be a winning lottery ticket or something.

Any who, Day #8 was a little off yesterday morning. It all started with the 6am feeding when I thought we were finished and all of the sudden I have almost the entire bottle spit up on me. I cleaned up the mess, wrapped the little one back up and continued on with the day. The next feeding brought the same thing but this time more volume.

It didn’t dawn on me until my wife asked me later that night, “Did you give him his acid reflux medicine today?” DOH I totally forgot to give him his medicine before bedtime the night before and the next morning. No wonder he kept spitting up on me!

That brings us to today, Day #9, where I have given him his medicine and he hasn’t spit up once today. I’ve been giving him this medicine twice a day for the last 3 weeks. I can’t believe I forgot when we’re almost at the end of the bottle!

He’s also made three poopie diapers today and that’s just down right mean. I think it’s payback for forgetting his medicine. By the time I heard the grunting and farting for the 3rd one I had to comment outloud, “Seriously?!”. He likes to smile when he knows he’s got the best of me.

There is a quick and easy summarization of the last two days. Spit up and poop. Oh and I got a root canal in between.

Two weeks down, four to go! I really don’t want it to end!

Six Weeks with Daddy – Day #5

// April 23rd, 2010 // No Comments » // Marriage

::630am:: It was a day like any other….and then the whole thing blew up. We started off as normal. When the baby woke up we played and talked for a little bit, changed a peepee diaper and then had our bottle. Then everything started to fall apart.

::800am:: As I’m getting dressed, I hear grunting coming from the living room. As powerful as a Daddy may be, you cannot control when your child is going to poop. (Despite my best efforts to change his poop time to the evening after Mommy gets home.) Alright, let’s change the poopy diaper. Nothing much out of the ordinary until I thought I had everything cleaned up and I realized that the poop went halfway down his back, skipped a little bit and then continued on up towards his neck. Even though I got everything cleaned with a mountain of wet wipes I felt this was a good time for him to have a bath. So we took a quick bath to wash off the poop residue….or resi-doodoo if you will.

::830am:: A clean, dressed baby = a happy baby, right? Wrong. I realized I still had a poopy diaper folded up and sitting on the counter. Today is trash day so I decided to take it outside and put in an old trash bag so I stop stinking up the house. (Yesterday I put two poopy diapers in the kitchen trash can and the house STILL smells like poop.) Mind you I’m still in my underwear at this point.

::9am:: I managed to squeeze in a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios (ironic since no one was “cheery” this morning) and getting dressed somewhere in between fits and we were off to pick up my sister so we could go visit my aunt. He was alright in the car until we stopped for gas. He doesn’t like stopping.

::930am:: He drank a bottle on the road and by the time we got to my aunt’s house he was still wide awake butt at least happy now. He was excellent during our visit. He smiled and talked the whole time.

::1015am:: Time to head back home. Today seems to be the day of little cat naps. 20 minutes here, 20 minutes there. What happened to the baby that slept for 2-3 hours every 2-3 hours all week??

::11am:: We met Grandpa for lunch at Burger King. He was excellent until I got about halfway through my double cheeseburger. Then he decided it was time to go home. I thought he had pooped so we headed for the house since we live just down the street. Turns out it was just a smelly fart. Drank another bottle and then down for a nap. Just kidding. No nap!

::1230pm:: Finally drifted off to sleep in the swing so it was time to mop the floor! I actually managed to kitchen the entire kitchen and entry way swept and mopped while he slept. My socks are wet now though because I kept forgetting the proper way to mop and end up mopping myself into a corner. Then I have to step on the wet floor to get out.

::130pm:: After a couple of close calls of waking up he dozed off again and is currently sleeping. I’m going to enter in some Pampers Gifts to Grow rewards points and then take a nap myself!

Six Weeks with Daddy – Day #3

// April 21st, 2010 // No Comments » // Baby

::530am:: It’s nice to have six weeks off work to stay home with the baby but it was stupid of me to think that I would get to sleep in. Hello 5:30am, let’s start our day shall we?

::745am:: Vanilla Milkshake pop tarts are the best! Not part of a nutritious breakfast I’m sure but when you’re up at 5:30am, who cares.

Baby played a nice little trick on me. He was crying in the swing so I picked him up to play with him. He kept right on crying and after a while I decided to go ahead and make a bottle for him. So I laid him on the couch to go get the bottle and he’s just been laying here playing for the last 20 minutes. No bottle necessary. There is something about laying flat on his back on the couch cushion that he likes. I’m wondering how long it will be before he spits up on the cushion. I should probably put a burp cloth under his head shouldn’t I?

::807am:: Note to self: Before feeding baby, if you need to go to bathroom go beforehand. Only one of you is wearing and diaper and the baby is in no mood to wait for you to do your duty.

::9am:: It’s funny how 9am feels very similar to bed time to me. Good thing I still have my PJ’s on. I’m going to turn this couch into a bed now.

::1005am:: Like father like son. After spending some time fussing/crying in the swing I picked him up to console him. My traditional methods weren’t working so I broke out the iPhone for some music. He loves music. Today Boyce Avenue was very effective at calming him down. He just blankly stares off while he’s listening. It’s like he’s really taking it in. Here are some of his fav’s from Boyce Avenue.

::1110am:: He’s a little late on his morning nap today. It might be because for the last two days we have been outside of the house in and out of the car. He loves riding in the car. At times when we stop at red lights for too long he gets a little cranky but he’s fine as soon as the light turns green and we take off again. I think he has his Daddy’s need for speed built in. During Mommy’s break at work we sent her some live video of baby playing on the couch and talking with our Knocking Live Video app on our iPhones. She sent me live video everyday while I was at work so now I get to return the favor. It’s great to see your baby even while you’re working! If you don’t have this app you need to download it and use it!

Now that he’s napping I’m not sure what to do. I could eat lunch. I could get dressed. I should probably do both.

::1247pm:: While baby was napping I managed to get in a nap myself. I think it was only about 20 mins but I feel refreshed nonetheless!

::1005pm:: Whoops! Totally forgot to update at the end of the day. Today was the first day in 4 or 5 days that we didn’t leave the house all day. The baby celebrated by sleeping most of the day and Daddy went stir crazy. So we made a trip to Target when Mommy got home and bought a couple of outfits for baby. One I Love My Daddy and one Future Rocket Scientist. I was told not to get the Future Rocket Scientist one because “orange doesn’t look good on him” but I got it anyway. Anything looks good on our baby!

See ya tomorrow!