Snow!!

Victor's first snow!! It's sticking on the grass, at least, and it's supposed to get colder so probably soon on the ground as well. He takes it as well as he does everything else--interested, not upset or super excited. I keep forgetting how new everything is to him, he's such a smart little boy! Well, I think so, anyways :) And cuter every day!! Hair is getting much thicker, belly is getting rounder (as much as he eats his bellybutton may turn from an innie to an outie!), body getting taller, cheeks are getting chubbier, if that is even possible... so adorable!! His days are full of rounds of "what can I get into over here." I have several drawers in the kitchen for him, so I pull them open and let him throw everything out. He helps me with the dishes, he opens the lazy susan for me, he hits my few remaining boxes with toys to remind me about them, he pulls stuff out of a couple of open boxes I have, he's opening cabinet doors now... such a busy boy!! He's a lot better about standing up and moving around. He's very cautious when he's getting somewhere, like if I'm sitting near some boxes and he wants to go from a stand at the boxes over to me, he gropes around and makes sure he has a good handhold on me before he lets go of the boxes. Yay for fewer headbonks! He still slips, but that's mostly a function of slippery floors plus socks, and he doesn't do it as much as he used to--I think he's compensating for it now so it doesn't take him by surprise as much.

Oh my god, he eats like a teenager, though!! I'm looking forward to his 9-month checkup next week to talk to the doctor about eating patterns. Hopefully they won't give me grief about weaning him already. We're down to twice a day nursings, morning and night, and I'm holding it there until I talk to the doctor, just in case. I'm worried because he hates formula, and there's no way I'm pumping, so it he getting enough vitamins, etc. But hey, my mom weaned me when I was 6 months and I'm fine so what can there be to worry about, right? Well, there's always something, I think it comes with the job :)

Thanksgiving was a blast, Victor loved all the food and attention!! He was a trooper--it was a long day and he didn't have much of a chance to crawl around and get some energy out, but he did really well. He's been sleeping much better lately, hopefully this pattern will continue. He sleeps longer stretches at night (though sometimes we have to get up and go put his blanket back on him or something when he makes little squeaky noises in the middle of the night) and is starting to take fewer but longer naps during the day--usually a short morning one then a long afternoon one. I like that pattern much better, he usually is much happier during the day and gets tired at the right time in the evening. However, I have just jinxed myself about it, so we shall see what happens next ;)

Changes

So we moved in to our new house a couple of weeks ago, and it's been great--but a lot of work! Winterization, cleaning, painting, and some contractor work has been taking up a lot of time. We got Victor's room set up first, of course :) His is almost done--all that's left is getting a room darkening blind up, and then I'll take pictures of how gorgeous it is! We painted the walls a fantastic, glowing blue with white trim and wainscoting. His curtains are blue with little planets and spaceships on them, and there's a dark brown rug covering the hardwood floor. Love it!! We had to disassemble the crib to move it, and when we reassembled it we put the mattress on the lowest setting because he had been sitting up and rolling over an awful lot. As it turns out, it's a good thing we did because the very first day in his new room he used the bars of his crib to pull himself to a stand!! Ever since then he's been standing at every opportunity, and he's been getting better and better at it every day. He no longer bonks his head as much as he did at first--he can sit himself down pretty well now. I do get nervous on the hardwood floors because they're pretty slippery, but he doesn't bonk himself too hard most of the time. He has to learn sometime, after all! I'm able to block the kitchen and the sunroom off using a sliding door, so I try to keep those rooms as babyproofed as possible so that I don't have to follow him around all the time. It doesn't help when people put bins full of glass bottles or small trashcans with sharp things in them around the kitchen, *ahem* cough *Damian* cough, so I still have to pay attention. We finally got the bookcases bolted down, so once I get the bottom shelf bolted in I'll be able to start putting books away, yay! :) In the meantime, I have the boxes of books set up as a little maze for Victor to practice walking with. Bad idea? Probably, but what else am I going to do with them?? ;)

Finally he's sleeping through the night again. we had a few miserable weeks once we moved in where he would wake up at 4 a.m. and just scream for 2 or 3 hours. Not sure what was wrong other than new place, stress from moving & working, refusal of nighttime feedings (that one was my bad), and I read that babies sometimes ahve trouble sleeping after learning new motor skills, such as pulling themselves up to a stand. Blargh. That was a miserable couple of weeks. He's doing much better now, sleeping through the night again, so hurrah!

The other major happening is that I am finally weaning Victor. He's ready for it. During daytime feedings he often gets impatient, tries to sit up while feeding, doesn't take too much from me. He LOOOOOVES food, oh my goodness. He is so Damian's child (but without the food allergies). If he sees people eating, he has to eat too. He will try anything, usually more than once. He loves feeding himself. He has no shutoff valve (and this worries me): babies are supposed to stop eating when they are full, but Victor will keep eating as long as he is given food and as long as he sees other people eating. This makes for tricky mealtimes, as I have to gauge how much he's eaten vs. how much I need to eat! If he doesn't get enough, he will scream if I try to take him out of his high chair, but he won't give any signals that he's had enough (other than not screaming). Usually I will feed him his fruits and veggies first, then I will let him entertain himself with finger foods like crusts of bread, cheerios, rice krispies, rice, pieces of melon or other things he can pick up but not choke on. I try to eat during the feed himself phase. Works for lunch, trickier around dinner, because we usually eat later, but we still want to feed him table food. I want to start making more baby foods but it's been crazy with the house, so that will most likely mostly wait until after Thanksgiving. I'm down to three nursings a day, and I have mixed feelings about finishing completely. However, the other day Victor helpfully bit me hard enough to draw blood so I'm starting to get over it ;)

King of the Crib

So Victor growls now (yes, actual growls you can feel rumbling in his chest) and it's adorable. He growls when he's happy, growls when he's zooming around with his little army crawl, growls to say hello--so cute! Especially when he's pacing back and forth in his crib like he's a lion in a cage ;) He now has his fourth tooth popped out on top. Six teeth in two months, yeesh! Still doing his army crawl, always the same way-pushes with his left foot and pulls with his right arm so he goes in a straight line. Right now we're working on getting him up and down stairs. My parents have a single step down from the kitchen to the family room and another single step from the family room to the sun room, so it's good practice for him without being dangerous. He has had a few face plants, but he's also spun himself around and gone down backwords. Up still takes some work--he can raise himself so his torso is on the top and he's standing with his feet on the bottom, but he can't quite manage to get his feet up the step yet. He has also discovered the wonders of my mother's tupperware cabinet and lazy susan. Oh the fun!! He has to sit there won't move until he has pulled everything out. I may need to start reading about how to dismantle lazy susans as preparation for the day when he manages to crawl in there and get stuck. Silly baby! :)

Loco-motion

So I've been slacking on the blogging lately, sorry! I think I've been discombobulated by the move--not really comfortable in our apartment as it is. Hopefully we will be moving into a house soon. Things are moving pretty well on that front; small hiccup with a few termites but that will be taken care of before we get in. Closing date right now is Oct. 20, cross your fingers! :)

The other thing that's moving really well is my little wiggler, Victor! He has perfected his army crawl and can zoom pretty well across the floor (Hopefully there will be a video if it stops giving me errors when I try to upload). He wants do get up on his knees and go, but he can't quite manage it. He'll get up on his knees and kind of rock back and forth, but before he can go anywhere he'll slide or fall over. He's determined, though, and he'll probably be crawling before we move! My mom's cat Lucy is a big help--when he sees her, he gets a big smile on his face and tries to catch her. She's still faster than he is, but not for long!

We finally went to the doctor for his 6 month shots, almost in time for his 7 month birthday. He did very well again, but his percentages were a bit down--only 25th percentile for weight instead of 30th (meh, not a big change), and only 50th percentile for height instead of 80th. 26.5 inches and 15 lb, 12 oz! No wonder the 6-9 month clothes still aren't fitting properly!

He's really been enjoying trying new foods. Anything is fair game, but some of it he likes more than others. Right now he's really going to town on some musk melon--just hand him a slice and get out of the way! It's sweet, cold, soft enough to gnaw on with his little teeth but it won't make him gag when he actually gets a piece of it in his mouth. He's eaten a bunch of baby foods but also big people's food--sucks on apples, watermelon, squash, potatoes, lemons, tomatoes--it's all good! :) He doesn't like sucking on pacifiers or fingers any more, but he will chew on them (and anything else you put in his mouth). Another new fun game is dropping stuff on the floor to see what will happen. Yay! Fun times :)

He's getting a lot better at sitting up on his own, he can stay for a while now if he tries. Most of the time he'd prefer to get moving, though. I think the crawling and the sitting are helping his tummy, too. We took him off the tummy medicine a few weeks ago, and although he gets some stuff in his mouth every once in a while, I think he's a lot better off than he was when he started the medicine. We'll keep an eye on him, but hopefully he's off for good!

He likes to make happy noises, but he also cries more. Fortunately, he's back to mostly sleeping through the night after a few difficult nighttime sessions of denial. He's much louder than he used to be, though--another reason to get a house, as I feel so guilty when he cries so loud, especially at night, but sometimes he needs to cry!

Hopefully this video will load, if not, I'll try again when I'm back at the apartment :)

6 months!

Victor was 6 months old yesterday! It's so cliche but so true, they do grow up so fast! He's such a tall, gangly baby now. I really want to get him weighed and measured again, but he's not one of those super fat babies (except for his adorable little squishy fat cheeks!). Long arms, long legs, long body. When I went through the 9 month sizes I almost had to discard some of them because they were clearly meant for fatter, shorter babies (he just wore them early and had room around the tummy). I notice it most when I am feeding him, though--when he was born, he was the perfect size to hold in one arm. His head would rest in the crook of my elbow, and his little buns fit perfectly into my hand. Now I can barely reach his butt with my fingers extended! I wouldn't go back though. He's so much more fun now that you can play with him and make him smile and laugh. I love it when he flaps his arms and legs when he gets excited (which is why we already have the perfect Halloween costume for him, and I intend to take a video and turn it into a youtube sensation ;) ). I would, however, like to go back to the days of him sleeping through the night!! He hasn't slept through the night since before we got to Ohio, and never once in our new apartment!! It's getting old pretty darn quick. Blame it on his cold, blame it on his teething, blame it on his mommy and daddy staying late at grammy's house to watch True Blood, but it's not fun. He's still cute though. His hair is coming in more and looks a lot darker on top (though he still has a little bald patch in the back where he rubs his head). His eyes haven't changed for a while; they're still brown in the center and dark blue on the outside. He's turned into a tummy sleeper. Unless he's waaay out of it, the first thing he does when he lies down is roll onto his side or his tummy. Sometimes I'll roll him onto his tummy when I put him in his crib just to help him decide to go to sleep (and lately even that hasn't been working too well--naptimes are a battle again). He's started fighting when we put him in his carseat. He'll arch his back and slide down and cry; then once he's in he's fine, silly baby. I think we need to get in there and adjust the straps to the higher holes but we've just been too busy, and it's such a hassle to change that out. Hopefully now that Damian will be starting work we'll get back to a regular schedule where we have regular naptimes and bedtimes. I was thinking of trying to teach him sign language, too, since boys are supposed to get verbal later in life (though something tells me Victor won't have too much trouble). The only problem with that plan is that Damian and I would have to learn sign language too! ;) Flash cards, anyone? So many changes! It was fun going through the store again and being able to get all the 6 month toys now for him to play with! Yay! Lucky little baby :) So much fun stuff coming up!!

Relocation, relocation, relocation

We made it! We are now Ohioans. A long trip, but it will be worth it. The moving people came on Friday, August 20 at 7:30 a.m. We originally intended to stay one last night in the apartment and leave on Saturday, but after they left at noon, we just wanted to get the heck out of town. Victor and I managed one last little trip to the ocean in the morning, we had a last lunch in downtown Carlsbad on the way out, and after loading my car up on to the trailer we managed to get out of town by 4--just in time for rush hour! So we only made it as far as Victorville (hee) that first night. It was worth it, though, our nice apartment was too empty and depressing. So we got a good head start on our trip. We bypassed Las Vegas on Saturday and stayed in Cedar City, Utah the next night--I was sooo glad to get out of the desert and the 110 degree weather! Utah was actually a lot cooler, greener, and prettier than I was expecting, so yay (though after the nasty desert pretty much anything would have been). Still, we didn't stray off the beaten path. Sunday night we made it to Grand Junction, Colorado, just across the border from Utah. Colorado is sooo pretty!! Such a gorgeous drive on Monday, all the way to Denver--except for the part where it rained going down the mountain with the trailer fishtailing and the baby crying--because of course Victor surprised us with his first little tooth on Monday morning! We didn't even know he was teething until I felt it in his mouth! It was probably a good thing we were driving so much--he was kind of forced to sleep through most of it. He did have a pretty bad night Sunday night (waking up crying a lot) so at least we figured out why eventually.

Tuesday was an adventuresome day. My mom arrived bright and early at the Denver airport. (Why Denver? There's a direct flight from Akron-Canton Airport on a great airline (Frontier).) Victor was liking his car seat less and less, so it was a good time for me and him to abandon ship and fly to Ohio. Thank goodness it was a direct flight--he cut off my circulation sleeping for the first hour, and then wouldn't stop moving and wiggling for the next two, and of course I was seated next to the disapproving middle-aged man instead of a cooing grandma. At least I had an aisle seat. We survived, though, and Victor ended up with another tooth by Tuesday night! My mom and Damian continued the long boring drive through hundreds of miles of corn. They were able to keep going longer in a day than Victor was, and made it to Akron by Thursday for dinner!

Good timing on their part, because the movers were ready for us bright and early on Friday morning once again! So by Friday the 27th, we had our cars, our stuff, our apartment, and our family back together once again.

At this point we're about as moved in as we're going to get. We have a month-to-month lease in hopes of acquiring a house before too long. That means we still have a bunch of boxes we haven't opened sitting in our new living room. The good news is that we've already found a house we like! Now if only we were making money, maybe we could put an offer in on it... ;)

Damian starts his new job on Tuesday the 7th. In the meantime, we've been enjoying the hospitality of my parents and sister. Unfortunately, we all came down with colds soon after Damian arrived. Victor has been a trooper through it, even staying cheerful and determined to play as hard as usual despite the stuffy nose. I'm finally feeling better, but he still gets congested sometimes, so I'm hoping he just has some lingering symptoms rather than Damian's full blown ragweed allergies.

Victor is supposed to get his 6 month shots next week (6 months on Sunday, can you believe it???) but we're still trying to get some interim health insurance coverage before we go. We have until the end of the month to get them, so hopefully we should be set before then. Damian's full blown health insurance doesn't start until November, of course. I still need to find a pediatrician first!

Well now that we have our internet hooked up I'll hopefully be able to post more often. Should be lots of exciting news coming soon!

Serious disease

Victor has a terrible condition known as "wiggleworminthepantsitis." It causes wild flapping of the arms and legs, and occasionally the blowing of spit bubbles. People around the victims of this disease are often inspired to make silly monkey noises and sympathetic arm flaps of their own; this is normal when witnessing a flare up of wiggleworminthepantsitis. There is no known cure. However, it is hilarious.

Packing

My mom just left yesterday, and thank goodness she was here--she got us off to a great start with our packing, in addition to her usual delightful presence! I was left with Victor today, and it was a lot harder to get things done. He did take a long nap, though, so I got a few boxes packed up. Up to a count of 11 for boxes of books alone! (Not just today's work, today I only got 4 boxes). Mr. Victor seems unfazed by the move for the most part, he just hates the sound of the tape dispenser.

Have I mentioned his "Victor kisses"? He opens his mouth wide and latches onto your chin (or jawbone, or occasionally the nose) then sucks and/or licks and/or bites in a very sloppy kind of way. If you're really lucky, he also grabs onto your hair on either side to keep things steady! So sloppy, and yet so cute ;)

Here's a picture of Victor helping his mommy pack. Good thing he folds up for easy storage!

Back on the beach

Made it back to California after three weeks on the east coast! We had a lot of fun, but it's nice to be back home. For the moment, at least ;) The trip back was a bit harder. Both planes were full, but at least I had my mom to help keep Victor entertained. The first flight to Denver had a lot of screaming babies on it, so poor Victor kept getting woken up and he got fussy himself until they finally settled down about an hour and a half into the flight. This flight started at 7 p.m. eastern. Our second flight was supposed to leave at 10 p.m. Mountain, but got delayed two hours!! Oooooh that was hard. Everyone was tired. At least Victor slept a little on the floor of the airport, and crashed hard on top of my legs for the two hour flight to San Diego, but man. We didn't get back to our apartment until about 5 a.m. eastern time. Thank goodness Damian was there to take care of us! Victor's sleep schedule was all messed up that night, but ever since then he's been crashing hard and sleeping long, so I think he's making up for it now. And maybe having another growth spurt.

He's been changing so much! He's getting more hair on top of his head, finally. He rolls over all the time (mostly back to front) and has actually started sleeping on his side! His right side, actually, which is the side I spend most of my time sleeping on, which is funny. The first time I thought he had started rolling over and fell asleep halfway through, so I rolled him back to his back and he let out this pathetic little cry in his sleep. But later I realized that he's been doing it on purpose, and he does it all the time now. He's getting so big--he no longer looks so tiny in Damian's arms. He definitely missed Damian the last week while we've been gone. When he saw his daddy again, he had a huge smile on his face despite his tiredness! And Damian is the one that can actually get Victor to laugh in a sustained way without resorting to tickling, just making faces at him and playing with him. Other people (including me) can only get one or two "ha's" out of him at a time, usually with tickling. Baby laughs are sooooo wonderful!!

The picture is of Victor playing with his cousin Vito. Fun times! :)

rolling babies gather no moss

So yesterday Victor accomplished the big roll from back to front! He likes that one much better than the front to back roll, even considering that he doesn't like being on his tummy as much as his back. He's been practicing his rolling all yesterday and today and is getting pretty good at it. My dad even caught him going from back to front to back again!

Oh yeah, so we're in Ohio now. Victor and I stayed with Damian's mom Carrie until Friday morning, when we went down to Cicero, NY. (Victor had lots of fun sleeping on top of his grandparents!) He was a great baby all through the rehearsal and the wedding even with all the friends and relatives who wanted to hold him! Friday at the rehearsal dinner it was extremely loud in the restaurant, but Victor managed to fall asleep and we put him down on the dinner table for a brief rest. Saturday he sat on my lap for the outdoor wedding ceremony and was very good--hardly a peep out of him! Then back inside the restaurant he fell asleep again and took a nap first on the table with the seating assignments, then later on top of friend Kristin and Opa Jurgen. He got to meet so many people who all loved him!

Saturday night my parents drove out to the wedding site, and Sunday morning Damian, Victor and I went home with them. We've been in Ohio ever since, seeing people and getting ready for my grandfather's funeral on Saturday. Busy busy times!

Water baby II

He's bending over because he's trying to suck all the water out of the towel around him.

Water baby

At this point we turned him around so he faced the seat so he could suck on that and still remain somewhat upright.

Family fun

So now we're in the North Country in New York instead of North County in San Diego. Victor was a fantastic little traveler, despite a delay that landed us in a hotel in Newark over night. Even other passengers remarked on how quiet he was! One benefit of the delay was that our plane was not full on the leg from San Diego to Newark, so Damian and I got three seats to ourselves and could spread Victor out on the seat between us. Our morning flight to Burlington, VT, was not full either, but we had another delay--an hour and a half of sitting on the tarmac for a 45 minute flight, hooray! It was worth it, though. We've been having a wonderful time with Damian's parents Carrie and Jurgen, enjoying their hospitality and the clean Adirondack environment. With trees!! And grass!! And allergies, I forgot about the allergies. Victor has been enjoying all the attention, and Damian and I have been busy relaxing.

Victor got to spend some time in the pool! Carrie found a little floaty for babies, and even though it's a bit too big for him we've been having fun pushing him around in the water. Victor likes it too! He kicks his little legs around and tries to lick the floaty, the towels holding him upright, and the water, then spits most of it back up. It also tires him out!! I'm going to post some video of him in the pool, but first, a picture of Victor sleeping in the airport :)

Missing Grandpa

My grandfather, Richard Wills, passed away suddenly and unexpectedly last Friday. He was a wonderful man and I am lucky to have had 29 years with him in my life. I wish he could have met Victor, but when he died he was surrounded by his loving family. Calling hours will be on Friday July 23 and the memorial service will be on July 24th.

4 months

Time flies! Victor had his four month checkup today. He gained a pound since the last time the doctor saw him two weeks ago, so he's back to the regular levels of weight gain. I'm pretty sure the slow down was because of going on and off his tummy medicine, poor baby. We're going to keep him on it at least until we're back from our trip.

Vital stats look good: just over 14 pounds (38th percentile), just under 26 inches (78th percentile), and completely average head circumference. I know the tall babies take after my side, I'm not sure what Damian's side was like (though Damian was definitely a long one when he was born at 24 inches!) Once again, the doctor made remarks about how strong he is, which she's done every time she's seen him!

He took his shots like a man! He only had two today plus one oral vaccine. He cried when the needles went in, but quieted down quickly. I already knew he was hungry, so the nurse let us stay in the room and I fed him right away. By the time he was done he was even smiling at the nurses on the way out (he's such a flirt--all the little girl babies better watch out!)! He fell asleep as soon as he got into the car seat, but didn't stay that way for long once we got home. He's just been playing like normal! We're still going to take it easy today, though, just in case. Last time I think I took it worse than he did, but he did have a couple of incidents where he randomly panicked and started crying, so we're going to stay home today just in case.

This time the doctor said they usually don't recommend starting foods until they're 5 1/2 or 6 months old; well, too late! Mr. Victor is a hungry man and he's been eying us when we eat like he wants to know what all the fuss is. So last night I got some rice cereal and mixed it with his favorite drink and he gobbled it down like he's been waiting for it! Well, not really. He took the spoon really well, even opened his mouth when he saw it coming, but had that contemplative look on his face like "it tastes the same but what is this new texture and delivery method, hmmm..." Then he figured out that not only can he grab the spoon but he can also gnaw on it, so he lost interest in eating. He got down about a tablespoon, though! I think we'll bring the cereal along with us and use that once in a while or if he's too hungry for me to keep up with instead of supplementing with formula. We had to do the formula thing a little bit a couple of weeks ago, but I've since caught up. Hungry little man, like I said!

Sleepy day

Yesterday Victor was soooo sleepy! Slept on Damian all day, then crashed early (around 9:30) and without his bedtime ritual, woke up once at 1 a.m. and went straight back to bed after a snack, then slept in until about 9 a.m.! Looks to be similar today, as he went back down for a nap at 11. Not that I can blame him, it's gray and rainy out today, perfect for being lazy! Too bad I have to get ready to be gone for three months or I'd be lazing around, too. Well, unless you count blogging and facebooking as being lazy ;)

Grammy had to leave on the 4th of July, but we'll be seeing her again in two weeks, plus numerous other relatives in less than a week, so it wasn't as hard to see her off this time. Victor noticed, though, he got a bit fussy after she left. We didn't go anywhere to see fireworks, but we had an excellent view of the Legoland fireworks from our deck--with the extra bonus that they were far enough away that we could barely hear the booms! His four month shots will be traumatic enough, we don't need to add firework noises on top of that.

He's been sticking his tongue out more and more. I'm not sure why, but it is kind of hilarious, especially when he smiles at the same time or when he's zeroing in for a snack attack.

Before my mom left we found a perfect place to take family photos--Swami's meditation garden in Encinitas--so we corralled Damian and went there Saturday for some shooting. love love love those pictures! Victor still isn't smiling for pictures but he sure does look adorable.

Lab Rat

Victor has been a good little shopper this week as my mom and I have been checking out all the stores in the area. Hey, it's good cardio! ;) Thursday, though, we did something a little different (and then went shopping afterwards). I signed Victor up for the babylab at UCSD in La Jolla about a month ago, and they finally called us in. They are testing four month olds (I know, he's going to be four months old on Tuesday!!!) for vision preferences. They've already tested adults for how they associate the colors black and white with the shapes x and o, and they found divisions along racial lines. This is most likely learned behavior, so they're testing babies of different races as well. Mr. Victor was a very good test subject, despite his initial reluctance to wake up on time. The grad student in charge, Katie, held Victor up to a TV screen and watched his face on a monitor above him. I got to sit at the keyboard and bring up the next screen for him to see and record his results. The monitor was split into halves, left and right, and different combinations of x's and o's in different colors (black and white on a gray background) were shown on each half. Katie watched his eyes to see which way he looked as soon as a new image popped up. He was a good boy and finished all the testing at a nice pace, and flirted with Katie and her two minions before and after. At the end, Victor earned $5 and a shiny new piggy bank to put it in!

We got Victor's prescription refilled on time this time. No more messing about putting him on and off and back on again, especially with the plane trip coming up! I can't believe we're leaving a week from tomorrow--we're so excited! First, though, Victor has to get his 4 month shots on Wednesday. Poor baby! I hope he takes them as well as he did his 2 month shots, but with his new lung capacity and maximum volume upgrade, somehow I doubt it. In the meantime, I'm going to be making lists and lists of all the stuff we could possibly take, then cut it down depending on what Victor's grandparents have already eagerly stocked up on. :) Can't wait!

Busy times

Busy week so far! On Monday morning Victor managed to scratch his eye before I could catch him. I kept an eye on it, and it kept getting red and puffy, so I called the doctor's office and they recommended that I bring him in. Of course it was fine as soon as I called them. But I brought him in, and they checked it, and there was indeed a little scratch on his poor little eye! That was fun for me to watch--they put a yellow drop into his eye, and then used a black light to check it out. His eye glowed! Nifty! Of course it somehow managed to leak over into his nose and he had orange boogers for a while. But they gave him an antibiotic to put in there just in case, then had me bring him back on Tuesday to get checked. Aaaand he was perfectly fine, no scratch! So that was $70 for peace of mind. Oh well, anything for my baby ;)

The good news there was that Victor's tummy medicine FINALLY seems to have kicked back in again, and he's his usual talkative happy self instead of the crying meltdown baby. Lesson learned! We're keeping him on the medicine at least until we come back alive from our big trip east.

Strangely, though, he only weighed in at 13 lbs, 1 oz, which is rather less than they were expecting, since his weighed 12 lb, 4 oz on May 10, over a month ago. I think it was probably because he was crying so much and not eating as much as he might have, either because his tummy was upset or because I couldn't distinguish his hungry crying from all the other crying he was doing. Since then, though, his appetite has resurged with a vengeance--I haven't been able to keep up!

Wednesday morning my mom flew back into town! Commence the walking and the ice cream and the grammy cuddles, stat. Victor has been showing her all his new tricks, including rolling over, picking up and eating his blankets and toys, pulling his ball down from the velcro strap, and sucking on his first two fingers and his big toes. He has also showered her with affection in the form of spit up. Such a considerate baby! :)

Rolling!

Yes, that's right, Victor rolled over today! Front to back, twice in a row. Quite surprising, considering how little tummy time he's had lately! It's actually been a rough couple of weeks. Victor has been extremely upset about something, most days, which is pretty wearing--and it's not just for a little while, it's all afternoon or something most of the time. But he has had the occasional good day. Today was pretty good. He is definitely a loud talker now though. I used to describe him as a mellow baby, but now he's way too loud for that ;) What I find interesting, though, is the stuff he chooses to talk to. Like in one of our bathrooms, there's a row of lotion bottles on the counter that he just talks and talks to. He loves them so much that I can even use them to snap him out of one of his crying fits sometimes! He loves plants, too, and being outside in general. If I wear him in his little baby carrier outside, he just chills out for hours and hours. Too bad it's usually too sunny to take him out like that very often! But I do fully expect him to write the first baby-to-lotion and baby-to-plant dictionaries, though. Big plans for my big little man! And man is he getting hefty! He must be around 15 pounds or so. Still within the 6 month clothing size right now (which has labels going to 16.5 lbs), but I'm a bit worried about him outgrowing the clothes we got him to wear to his Uncle Matt's wedding! We shall see...

And another!

Different toy, more playing! Notice how he tries to eat this one too, but it's a bit harder to get to. He can hold it up for a bit, though. And when it's off to the side he tries to roll over to get to it. Considering how little tummy time he gets he might end up flipping from back to front before he does the easier front to back move. His latest move, though, just started these past couple of days. When he is semi upright (leaning back a little like in his car seat or in someone's lap) he starts to leaaaaan forward veeeeery slowly.... but I can see attempted headers onto the floor in his near future...

Movie Time!

Victor is so much fun to play with now that he actually plays instead of flailing around randomly! When I put him under the little dangly toy set he'll even smile at his toys when he grabs for them and hears the music some of them play. Here's a movie of Victor playing with one of his toys and trying to eat it--another recent development. Notice how the legs go up--I don't have to hold his legs up when I change his diapers any more, he does it for me. So considerate! The hard part is getting them to go back down when it's time to strap him in... ;)

Note to self

5 hour nap before bedtime is not a good idea. But I can't just go around waking him up in an obvious way, I have to try things to get him to wake up on his own or he just starts screaming until he falls back to sleep--never wake a sleeping baby, indeed. Obviously we need to regulate some naptimes, but he wants to have a different schedule every day. Sometimes he falls back to sleep right after he gets his breakfast. Other times he waits until lunch. Sometimes, like today, he won't have much of a naptime except for the 1/2 hours I'm holding him after feeding him--nice because he isn't trying to wiggle around and escape while I'm holding him upright, but dang it's tiring. I'm going to have the biceps of a professional weightlifter soon. It's not helping anything that we ran out of his medicine (we forgot to bring it on the roadtrip and he was fine, then when we started it up again during the week he repeated his original reaction to it (i.e. crying a lot and spitting up a lot for 3-4 days), and then we ran out with no refills. So we thought we'd see how he does without it, because the sooner we can get him off it the better. So he hasn't been taking it since Monday I think, and already he's doing the painful-spitup-in-my-mouth dance. Guess I have to call the pediatrician's office and see if I can get them to renew the prescription without having to go back in. Though it would be nice to see how much he weighs now, otherwise we'll have to wait until his four month birthday in July. It's not like I have anything better to do, after all. Oh, except wait for the dang kid to go to bed because I'm exhausted and Damian's exhausted, and which one of us just finished staying up late to work on his final project for his class. Bummer for me. Maybe this weekend we can take turns sleeping...

RT: continued again

So Victor is starting to suck his thumb. He's been working up to it--sucking his fist, sucking his fingers, sucking other people's thumbs--but now he seems to have figured out how awesome his own thumbs are for chewing and/or sucking. As a former thumb sucker myself, I can only express pride in his accomplishment.

He's also much more grabby and aware of things now. Just this morning he was trying to grab a hat I have hanging off the back of a chair. In his little jungle gym dangly toy thingy he actually grabs for the toys instead of flailing around randomly hitting them. And I think he's been going through a growth spurt the past few days because he has been sleeping sleeping sleeping and eating. He even feels heavier! I wish I had an accurate digital scale at home because I would totally weigh him every day and make graphs of his progress. Maybe for child # 2.... ;)

Now back, back, back to the roadtrip. Over a week ago. Sheesh. So last Saturday we had an early night, which means Victor got us up even earlier than usual. Which turned out well because we wanted to go see the redwoods! So we drove about an hour north to Big Basin, a park of, you guessed it, redwoods! It was so nice to drive through actual forests on small two lane roads again! Although some of the roads got REALLY small and windy with blind corners for oncoming traffic next to sheer dropoffs.... eeeeeee! But we made it, and it was just gorgeous. We stopped for a bit and went a little ways down one of the trails. Of course, Mr. Victor decided to get hungry so we had to turn around before too long. Which wasn't bad, either, because I wanted to meet up with some of my cousins who live in San Jose. Cara and Alyssa are my second cousins, and Cara lives there with her husband Ben, and Alyssa just happened to be visiting her that weekend--lucky coincidence! We managed to meet up with them (spotty cell service because of giant trees! Who knew!) in a cute little town on the outskirts of San Jose called Los Gatos. Nice little lunch, nice little chat, a little bit of ice cream, what more could you want! It was really hot out, though--in the 90's, easily the hottest we've been since moving out to California. Victor didn't seem to mind too much, though, and he had lots of fun new people to drool on!

After a few hours of catching up Damian and I headed south while Cara, Alyssa, and Ben followed our trail back to the redwoods (oh the joys of no babies to get you up early!). It kind of surprised me that we drove through mile after mile of farmland--I guess this is where California grows all the stuff it is known for growing! The place we stayed in on Saturday night even called itself the "salad bowl of the world." We drove back down the 101 instead of taking 1 again (the winding road up the coast). We stayed Sunday night in a town called Paso Robles, which is known for its wineries--we got there too late for tasting, of course, but there were plenty of liquor stores with souvenirs ;) It was a strange little town--at first we thought it was a cruddy little abandoned place, but we drove around and finally found an adorable city center with nifty restaurants and lots of people.

Monday was our big driving day. We cut east through brown hills of nothing to meet up with the big road, I-5, where, for a change, we drove through miles and miles of orchards--including nut trees, I think. OK, trees on one side, brown nothing on the other. Fairly uneventful trip home, even through LA. We stopped off in the middle of nowhere at one point for feeding and watering because we didn't want to stop in LA. Damian made it through mile 994 of the trip before we had to stop for food and a sequel to the book we had been listening to on tape. They also had a DQ where I was introduced to the buster bar blizzard. If I ever leave Damian for another man, that man will be named Buster Bar Blizzard and we will be very fat and happy together. Fortunately Damian doesn't mind me keeping one small affair, for now ;)

So after 1040 miles, we made it home! hooray! :)

RT continued

Yesterday Victor not only grabbed his toy bird from me (which he has done before) but held on to it and brought it up to his mouth to test out various parts of it! That's the first time he has brought a toy up to his mouth to try and eat it. He wasn't too impressed, but it was something new :) His favorite toys right now are his feet and his reflection. His favorite snacks are still his hands and blankets.

So roadtrip. Friday morning we got a late start because we did most of our packing then. We left around 11, determined to make it through LA as quickly and painlessly as possible. It wasn't too bad, considering. We made it up along the 101 before we stopped in the afternoon. We randomly picked an exit, and it turned out to be a cute little town called Summerville with a small park overlooking the ocean! Picnic time! I thought it looked like there were big pirate ships out in the water, but they turned out to be a series of oil rigs. It was a nice little stop, except a train came by right next to the park and scared poor Victor silly with its loud horn. 20 minutes down the road, we were at our hotel! We stayed in a nice little place with a lagoon in the middle filled with water lillies and turtles swimming around. For dinner we ventured in to downtown Santa Barbara, which was a very nice place with lots of upscale stores all along the street. Damian carried Victor in his baby carrier because we didn't bring the stroller, and it's a good way to keep Victor entertained enough to fall asleep again later (after sleeping all day in the car). Not that Victor didn't fall asleep in the restaurant, but it still kept him pretty amused.

Saturday we got an early start, thanks to the little man. I think this is the first time Damian and I have stayed in a hotel and NOT done the late check out ;) We cut out from the 101 and ventured on to Rt. 1, which is a bumpy little two lane road--trust me, very small after the 10 lanes you get in LA! This is the scenic route up the coast. We passed a few small beach towns, but there's a whole lot of nothing out there--again, nice after the endless suburbia of SoCal and the endlessness in general of LA! One town we stopped at Damian called "spillover from a sleepy little beach town." It made even his hometown look big! But it was a weird little tourist place with a 70's kind of vibe. Further up the road we stopped at a resort with a little rest area. This was kind of getting in to the national park zone. Damian had even checked it out online while we were researching hotels--those rooms went for $1500 a pop, easily. It did have some nice views up and down the coast as it was up on a cliff. Looking at the winding roads was a bit intimidating! We took Damian's truck and took it pretty slow, though, and did all right. Fortunately traffic was light enough that we didn't have to pull over to let other people by very often. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous. The water was blue and sparkling but shallow so you could see all sorts of rocks and things. We were up on a cliff a lot, but the water was pretty shallow--except for these random huge rocks that popped up just off the shore all over the place. Once we got up in to the Big Sur park we actually had some streches of big trees--small redwoods, I think, in some places. I was surprised that there were several homes in these backwoods areas and national parks, but I guess I shouldn't have been since my own in-laws live in the Adirondacks ;) We made it all up the coast to Monterey and stayed in a town just past it. We were too tired to go back there to look at the fancy downtowns, so we got pizza and went to bed early, which was just as nice! :)

To be continued, my little munchkin just woke up with hiccups! Poor baby!

Roadtrippin

We had a lot of fun! We planned out our driving to be about 5 hours a day plus breaks, and I think it worked out really well. Victor slept for most of it, and it seemed about all he needed. He usually falls back to sleep in the morning anyways, so we tried to do most of our driving in the mornings. We made sure to take a break when he woke up--feeding him and walking him around and stuff. We brought stuff for sandwiches so we could feed ourselves, too :) When he was awake, though, we had some annoyances. Lately he has been categorically refusing pacifiers--he's always been picky about when he will accept them, and it seems he no longer wants to accept them at all. So if he would start getting fussy while we were driving, one of us (usually me since Damian was driving) would have to reach around to the back seat and either jiggle his toys around or stick a finger in his mouth. Yes, he still likes the taste of flesh and fabric the best. His favorite part of the trip was a bit odd. In two out of the three hotels we stayed in there was a light switch plate next to a wall mounted hair dryer, and apparently they were HILARIOUS because when we were carrying Victor around and he saw them he would get huge grins on his face and let out these squeals and shrieks that I think are precursors to laughter. He's been doing that more frequently anyways but for some reason these were especially hilarious. The other thing he's been doing more often is grabbing his feet. He used to kick his legs around because he was still figuring out how things worked, now he does it because he wants to grab his toes, especially during diaper changes, of course.

Uh oh, Mr. Fussypants is waking up (he's had a rough couple of days, tummy-wise), I'll have to continue this later...

Iron Baby

Yay, we finally got to see Iron Man 2! And thanks for calling it Parent Movie Morning instead of something non-pc like Mommy & Me Movies or something (you know who you are) because Damian was able to come, too! Poor guy had to get up extra early and probably will have to stay late (and its his class night, too) but it was worth it. Victor enjoyed it, too--he was actually awake for parts of it and sat on Damian's lap contentedly watching away. I'm just annoyed that they promise lower sound levels but I don't think they follow through because dang it was loud! Good movie, though!

This weekend we're going to take our first family road trip! We're going up north in pieces. We won't get as far as San Francisco because we don't really have time to do it justice plus it means looooong days of driving instead of just long days. Should be fun though! We're going to try and meet up with some of my cousins, too. Damian's taking the day off Friday so we'll leave then and be back Monday. We'll take lots of pictures!

Movie Experiment

Victor playing with his little play set this morning. I'm experimenting with the video stuff here, we'll see how well it works! I hope there's sound, too. It's short because I had to stay within the size limit. It's from my camera instead of the video camera because I haven't figured out the fancy one yet :)

Did I mention

How adorable he is in his baby carrier? Here's a hint. Now imagine him with an adorable little tropical print bucket hat and his little pink tongue going in and out and try not to pass out from the cuteness overload.

Just a tip

If you want to seduce an old person, wear a baby in a baby carrier. Just sayin'. I took Victor to the outlet mall today because I needed a particular item, and he was awake so I put him in his little baby carrier (facing out again!) and put his little tropical bucket hat on him, and he was soooo cute! I got smiles and stares from people all over! He makes a great distraction from unbrushed hair and unshaved legs, that's for sure :) He liked it, too, he just chilled out and licked the front of the carrier the whole time. That's his current favorite thing, licking fabric, be it towels, shirts, blankets, or the baby carrier. Oh yes, and his hands, and my arm or hands. Sometimes when I feel liquid running down my arm it's not spitup, it's drool. I still can't get him to lick or chew his toys, of course. Even though we tried to stay in the shade as much as possible, I think all that sunshine wore him out because he's passed out in his car seat still.

I'm pleased to say that Victor seems much happier this week! He hasn't had one of his meltdowns yet, and he's started talking and cooing again and smiling much more than he was last week. And he's been sleeping so well in his crib in his own room that we took the pack 'n play down! It's so funny, I can't get him to take a nap in his crib for longer than 30 minutes during the day (where at the same time he can sleep on me for hours) but as soon as we put him down at night he falls asleep pretty quickly and stays that way for 6-8 hours at a time. Yay Victor! I don't know how long it will last but I'm certainly enjoying it for as long as it does :)

Standing Tall

For those of you who didn't believe me when I said that Victor can stand by himself when I put him up on the front of the futon! He only lasts for a little bit, but we're working on it--we're going to go ahead and skip that whole wimpy crawling phase!

Ups and Downs

Whew! What a week. Definitely the craziest week we have encountered thus far, Victor-wise. So he started his heartburn medicine on Tuesday morning. Tuesday was a pretty normal day; his symptoms were still there, a bit stronger, especially by the time nighttime hit, probably because it takes a while to kick in. Ok, whatever. Wednesday morning I wanted to go to "Parent Movie Morning" at our theater. They were playing Date Night, and we actually managed to get there, showered, fed, and in one piece! Well, OK, I fed Victor as soon as we got there but that was fine. All through the movie I had to go to the bathroom SO BAD but I figured that restrapping him into the car seat and shlubbing him and all our crap upstairs to the restroom would take longer than the actual movie so I gritted my teeth and stuck it out. I tell you this not because I want to gross you out, but because despite that it was still the highlight of my day. Went home, fixed lunch with Victor in his snugli facing OUT for the first time (yay big boy!). Round 1:00 he started fussing, then it quickly became crying, then it became crying like I've never heard out of him before--louder, stronger, so intense sometimes he lost his breath. He was pretty much unconsolable! I could distract him for brief periods of time occasionally, but feeding him was the only dent in his sound levels--changed his diaper, checked him for scratches or booboos, checked his temperature, nothing. Finally he fell asleep for an hour or so. When he woke up he immediately started up again! I eventually managed to get him quiet long enough to put him in his stroller, which has the benefit of always making him fall asleep. Went for a loooooooong walk to keep him asleep. He stayed asleep when we got him home, and finally when he woke up he was fine. WTF!! So he's been having these episodes off and on nearly every day since then. Thursday I was on the lookout for it so I kept him asleep as much as possible in the afternoon every time he tried to start. Friday he was fine in the morning, but started up at night after Damian got home. Bizarrely, he's been managing to sleep well nearly every night. Saturday he slept a long time in the morning, had family cuddle time even, but around noon he started and lasted nearly all day long. Today, however, he was fine pretty much the whole day--one or two false starts. I called the doctor on Thursday (the same "new" one we saw on Monday) and she said it probably wasn't due to the medicine, which still might not have kicked in all the way, and to give it the weekend before coming in. So after today I don't know if we'll go in or not. Hopefully he's about over it, but somehow I don't think we're going to be that lucky. Oh yeah, and the days he doesn't have a crying fit he spits up way more than usual. But I'd still rather have wet shoulders than those heartbreaking crying fits!

On the up side, Victor has moved into his own room and is sleeping through the night there! (And if he isn't we don't know about it! ;) ) We moved the pack 'n play there because he's used to sleeping in it. One of the hard parts of this reflux stuff is keeping him upright for at least half an hour after feeding him, which means he usually falls asleep on my shoulder, which is giving him bad sleeping habits. I didn't want to put him in his crib until he could fall asleep by himself there. In his pack'n play he doesn't cry, even when he's starting to get hungry, he just kind of chills out and makes little "eh eh" noises and wiggles around. In his crib thus far he cries every time he wakes up. HOWEVER, tonight he still wasn't asleep after his bedtime snack and upright time, so we put him in his big boy crib to fall asleep by himself! Cross your fingers that in one of his wakey periods tonight he'll just fall back to sleep as usual instead of crying because he doesn't know where he is!

He's been less smiley this week, unfortunately, but he's still changing (and hopefully growing--between the spitting up and the crying his feeding habits have changed!) His little baby hairs are getting long enough that they look red in the sunlight. We compared his picture to one of me when I was two months old and wow, it's crazy to see the similarities! He's definitely got my hair (including this little section on the front side where the hairs point to the side instead of the front--I have it too!) and eyes (still blue, but the golden part is getting larger in the center--mine were still blue at three months); possibly my lips. He definitely has Damian's little elf ears!! So cute!! Probably the nose too. Jury is still out on the chin, but his head is squarer than mine was so that could be Damian's as well. He's holding his head up really well now, and he loves trying to stand up. Just tonight I let him hold on to the front of the futon and he held himself upright! I'm going to have to get a picture of that, if I can do it while keeping one hand ready to catch him!

Happy Mother's Day!

Notice how these things are always running late. Oh well. I had a lovely first Mother's Day, despite Victor's little tummy troubles. I got homemade breakfast and dinner, massages (both chair and hand), and a big juicy glob of spitup, right down my front! (Guess who gave me what!) We also got to talk to both sets of grandparents over Skype so they could see how big our little man is getting! He stood up to talk to both of them! Those were definitely the highlights of the day. Otherwise we've been dealing with his reflux, which came on rather suddenly on Friday. He just started screaming and swallowing (he's not a big spitter-upper) and basically acting very uncomfortable, especially while lying down flat. We ended up calling the on-call pediatrician on Friday night. She recommended an infant's dose of adult mylanta as a temporary solution. That has seemed to help quite a bit, but we still took him in to see a doctor today. She said that reflux is pretty common for babies his age and gave him a prescription for prilosec, which we only have to give him once a day and can give it long term. Hopefully this helps--he's been having a lot of trouble sleeping! Not sure how we're going to try to keep him elevated at night, though. Car seat and papasan chair are not his favorite things to sleep in for long periods of time (unless the car seat is actually in the car or on the stroller being pushed around). There's a few other things we can try. We'll see how it goes!

Smile time

Victor's recovering well from his shots. On Wednesday he had a couple of screaming incidents and he was a bit clingy, but he also had some smiles and some fun in the afternoon. He didn't even have any swelling or redness where he had his shots, just little pinprick marks where the needles went in. Yesterday, though, his tummy must have been bothering him because he spit up more yesterday than he has any other day of his short life! Most of the time instead of spitting up he will swallow it back down--it almost looks like he's chewing cud sometimes. Occasionally when I lay him down on his back he will jerk his legs around a bit like he's getting the spit up and it wakes him up and bothers him until he can swallow it back down--sometimes that takes a while, poor thing, and it wakes him up all the way! He seems to be doing better today, though. I've been trying to slow down his feeding and keep him upright longer afterwards and I think that helps.

My project right now is to try to get a good picture of one of his beautiful smiles! He's just been smiling more and more and it's so amazing the way his whole face (and sometimes his whole body) just lights up with these big toothless grins. The problem is that the camera distracts him, so I have to position the camera then move my face away from it, then get him to smile at me while holding the camera steady. It doesn't help that there's a red light that flashes beforehand (to get rid of redeye) and sometimes that snaps him out of the smile; I can't figure out how to turn it off, but I'm going to keep trying. Hopefully with practice I'll be able to get a big full on smile, but right now all I've got is sideways-half-smile-half-out-of-the-picture ones; it's a start!

Brave little boy!

Today is Victor's two month birthday, so he had to get his big boy shots today. I couldn't sleep for being nervous about it, but Victor didn't have that problem--I could barely get him to wake up and eat something before going to the doctor! He woke up in the car, though, and had fun going through all the diapers we had in his diaper bag once we got to the doctor's office. The doctor was running late, though, and he fell asleep before she got there then pretty much slept through her entire examination. Once the nurse came in, though, he was in trouble. He got an oral vaccine first, which woke him up a bit, and then he got three shots--one in the left leg, two in the right, bang bang bang. He bled and cried, but quieted down much faster than I was expecting. He still wanted his binky, though. (Have I mentioned this? He doesn't like pacifiers for the most part except for every once in a while when he is a particular type of sleepy fussy or when he needs comforting.) Even the nurse commented about what a "mellow cry" he has and said we were really lucky--yes, I know! ;) Poor baby got three bandaids and blood all over his daddy's shirt, but managed to fall asleep in the car on the way home. I think this was going to be a sleepy day for him anyways, so hopefully he'll sleep any ill effects away. The only problem is that the tylenol we had purchased in anticipation of today was recalled a couple of days ago, and the pharmacy still hasn't replaced it yet. Hopefully if he does get a fever we'll be able to find someplace that has something!

Other than that, though, he's still doing really well. Up to 12 lbs 5 oz, which means that I have begun washing his 6 month sizes because most 3 month sizes say "up to 12.5 lbs." Next checkup is at 4 months!

Gooey

Two diaper blowouts in two days means I'm over BRU generic diapers. I like the Costco ones better, even if they do feature the pot monkey from Super Troopers. Too bad we have about 150 more BRU ones to get through--should only take another day or two, right? ;)

Day One

First day all day by myself with Victor. The new definition of a successful day is being able to take a shower before Damian comes home, and by that definition, the day was successful! More by luck than planning, but apparently that is what motherhood is about, yes? We are starting with a low bar but eventually the bar will be raised. We also managed to go for a walk in the stroller, just down the street to the park for a bit, nothing fancy like driving to the beach or anything. Cleaning went right out the window, but by definition it was still a successful day. Both of us were discombobulated, though. All day Victor has been nursing strangely--falls asleep halfway through the first side, never really gets hungry enough to keep going. I'm having more trouble telling if he's actually hungry or not because when he's around me he tends to think he's hungry even if he's not--one of the downsides of nursing, apparently! Hopefully we'll get used to it sooner rather than later. Tonight we should have a quiet night--Damian has to do his homework tonight, and tomorrow it's my turn to go out and tutor for a bit. Got to go--I think he's actually hungry now that Damian's holding him!

Twinkle Toes

Poor Victor doesn't know it yet, but he's going to have a rough week this week. First (and biggest) Grammy and Grandpa left this morning. Grammy's been here since before he was born, and it has been amazing having her here all this time! Now Victor is going to get unspoiled--no Grammy to play with him and hold him while his mommy does boring stuff like take a shower. Poor Victor, and poor mommy! But she will be back soon! Until then, Victor is going to have to wait to get spoiled again!

Next on Wednesday is Victor's Big Boy visit to the pediatrician (yes he will be two months old already!) where he has to get his big vaccination shot. Poor baby! I don't know yet if it will be harder on him or harder on me, watching him get hurt but knowing it's for the best!

Once he recovers from that we're going to start moving him to sleeping in his crib in the nursery instead of sleeping in his pack 'n play in our room. That one will definitely be harder on me than on him, but we'll get used to it! At least I feel better knowing that he's already gone over 7 hours between feedings (his choice) with no ill effects. Of course, that's not surprising considering how big he's getting!

I think the only thing that hasn't grown very much is his feet. They looked huge when he was born, but now they look so small! Even so, we had to buy him some big boy socks (6-12 month size) because the cute little baby socks are just way too small for him. The heels of the socks came halfway down his feet! The new socks are just a little bit too big, but they already look and fit much better. They aren't as cute, but we did eventually find some with aliens and spaceships on them so that's ok.

Now Victor's daddy is discovering that Victor doesn't like to sleep in his crib. Oh the unspoiling that we will be working on this week.... ;)

Traveling Man

So last weekend we went to LA for an overnight trip! We were visiting my parents' good friends Linda and Steve, who live in the northern side of LA. We left only an hour late, but of course we took the wrong road up there and got stuck in traffic for quite a while, so it was a three hour drive. Victor slept the whole time. Once we finally got there, we had a great time! Victor was the star of the show, of course, but everyone had lots of food and lots of fun. We all stayed at their house, and Damian and Victor and I shared the rec room. Victor had his pack 'n play there and for the most part slept pretty well--only a little bit of crying! We were glad to get back home on Sunday, though, because we were starting to run out of diaper supplies! The LA natives told us the better way to drive through town, so the trip went much faster and much more pleasantly. We didn't have long to rest, though, because some of my dad's clients wanted to meet us, too, and they live down in La Jolla. My parents left early to go see them while I had to tutor for an hour, then Damian and Victor and I met them all in Old Town San Diego for dinner. So basically, we were driving all day! Victor handled it like a champ, but we were all tired by the end of the day!

There have been a couple of other notables this week. I had to give Victor's fingernails a trim! I've been avoiding it, but when Victor woke up with a big scratch on his cute little nose I couldn't put it off any more. I decided to use cuticle scissors because they offer a large amount of control for cutting tiny delicate little nails. It went pretty well, as long as I remember to not point the scissors at his face!

Another happy one for me--guess who slept from midnight to 7 a.m. last night--me! and Damian! and Victor!! Victor slept like the dead until about 7, when I practically started poking him to wake him up (I'm nursing, so my girls were all like "WTF oww!"). He slept longer than I did! And then he went back to sleep a little after 8! So I may take a nap, too, after I make some phone calls. Meanwhile, my parents are sleeping in until 10 every day. Oh how the worm turns!

Support Group

So today, after a month of trying to hit the Friday meetings, we finally made it to the Lactation Support Group run by Scripps Encinitas hospital (where Victor was delivered). Not that I had anything to do with it--my mom reminded me--and not that we're having big problems with nursing, but I wanted to see what it was about, get Victor weighed, and see if I could meet some friends or something. 2 out of 3 aint bad! Mister Victor weighed in at 12 pounds for his 7 week birthday! And tonight we put him in one of his 3-6 month size footie pajamas because he is starting to get too big for some of his 0-3 month pjs! Poor thing was stretching them out, and now that his new favorite activity is standing up, he needs more room! (Have I mentioned that? Victor can hold up his entire weight if he has somebody to help him balance out that big wobbly head of his. Before he would push with his feet and we would make him "jump", and now he holds them straight out and steady when he has someone to help him balance!)

So the group was an interesting mix. There were about 10 or 12 moms there (plus two grandmas), and most of the babies were about 2 weeks old or less--there was even a 5 day old! There was another baby a couple of weeks older than Victor, one that was 3 months old (and I kid you not Victor was bigger than she was!), and a gigantic 4 month old that was sitting up and smiling at everyone. I will have you know that according to two impartial judges (me and my mom), Victor was judged to be the cutest baby there by a long shot! I can't believe how tiny some of those babies were--Victor was never that small, and I'm glad for it--they looked too tiny to be real! Most of the questions there weren't relevant to me, but there was one set of advice about positioning I will try out so that maybe we can prevent some of Victor's hiccups. Sometimes he'll get them five times a day, poor baby, and sometime he won't get them for several days in a row. It's not a big deal, but Victor doesn't enjoy them very much. Between that and the farting, man, I'm surprised we haven't started a band!

Exciting weekend this weekend--Victor's first overnight trip away from home! We're going to go visit some of my parents' friends up in LA and stay with them on Saturday night. Good thing we have a pack 'n play for sleeping--now I just hope we remember to take it, along with everything else we may or may not need! Wish us luck.... :)

The eyes they are a changin'

Auntie Anja and Uncle Jeremy left yesterday, the same day that Grandpa Tom flew back in! What a busy day! We had a few hours after Grandpa arrived and before Anja and Jeremy left, so we all went to the beach together (Victor's first time on the actual sandy part of the beach instead of just in the stroller on the sidewalk--naturally he still slept through it) but we got chased out by clouds, wind, and chilly weather after an hour or so. It even rained that evening! We were all sad to see Anja and Jeremy go, but hopefully we will see them again soon. Victor especially decided to get up at 4 a.m. and cry for a few hours, but he is feeling better today.

Today we kept it lazy because my dad is still recovering from tax season, but we did get out for a walk. Victor gifted my dad with a large spit up stain down the front of his shirt, and he chose to proudly wear it instead of changing into one of Damian's shirts. The last time my dad saw Victor we had just barely made it home from the hospital, over six weeks ago! Victor has changed so much since then! He's now almost too tall for his footie pajamas--when he came home he had a good several inches to spare! His feet especially fill the little footies way out. Some of his socks are already too small for him! His hair is still growing, and he's holding his head up more steadily and for longer periods. He can even stand for a bit, with help of course. We're all keeping an eye on his eyes--they started out a dark gray-blue, then they seemed to get bluer and a little lighter, and now we can just see little hints of golden brown starting to appear around the pupil. We're thinking that he probably won't have his dad's chocolaty-brown eyes, instead he will probably have hazel eyes like me. It remains to be seen what the final colors will be!

Happy PostTax Day!

It's a good thing there's no tax on cute or we'd have to sell all our stuff to pay for Victor! :) He's turning into such a chubby baby! Even his little fingers are getting big now! Today is his 6 week birthday, and we had him weighed last Wednesday--11 pounds, 6 ounces! He was weighed by a nurse visiting our apartment courtesy of a free (to me) Welcome Home Baby program paid for by taxes on cigarettes. She said he looks great! And the eye goopies (which recurred once for a few hours) were probably just blocked tear ducts and we shouldn't worry unless they start turning colors. And I passed my own 6 week check up, but nobody cares about me ;)

Aunt Anja and Uncle Jeremy have been visiting this past week, and Victor adored them from the moment they arrived! Jeremy has even been learning how to change diapers, and Victor helped out by demonstrating some of the liquids that can be produced during such changes. Victor is also enjoying Anja's waist-length hair--finally, something he can grab reliably! We even took them back to the aquarium, but there was no earthquake this time. Maybe next time!

Cross my fingers but Victor has been settling into an excellent bedtime routine this past week--I just hope it lasts! We feed him, bathe him, and read him a story, and he goes to bed with 7 hours between feedings (usually with the second one at 5 a.m.), then back to bed and wakes up around 9 a.m. It's great, even when it takes him a couple of hours to go back to bed! I love getting that long sleeping period in, I hope this lasts, but you never know.... ;)

P. S. There is no pressing reason for Uncle Jeremy to learn how to change diapers right this minute other than spending quality time with his nephew and learning a life skill that may come in handy some time way, way down the line.

Baby's First Goopie

Poor little Victor had a goopie eye yesterday! He was fine most of the day, then in the afternoon I put him up to my shoulder for a minute, and when he came back down there was goopie all over his left eye! There was no redness and only a little bit of swelling of the eyelid, and I think I was more bothered by it than Victor was. The baby book said to keep an eye on it (har) and call the pediatrician if it lasts more than 24 hours. So we kept wiping it, and gave Victor a bath when Damian came home after his class. (Adorable non-naked bathtime pictures to come!) He had some goo at his 5 a.m. feeding, but not as much as I was expecting, and there was only a little bit in each corner of the eye at his 9 a.m. feeding, and now there is pretty much none! Yay! First goopie successfully overcome (so far) and no call to the pediatrician needed, hooray! There is plenty of time for that later, I'm sure!

Baby's First Earthquake/Easter

We had an exciting weekend this weekend! Victor's paternal grandparents, Carrie and Jurgen, drove all the way from upstate New York to visit their new favorite little person! They got here Saturday afternoon and just left this morning, and Jurgen already has that "grandpa magic" that puts babies right to sleep. They brought lots of presents for Victor and for us--mostly all the yummy food that just isn't the same around here! Sunday we all took the scenic route down the pacific highway to La Jolla so we could visit the aquarium. It seemed like an old building but it had lots of nice displays--lots of tropical fishes you don't see in a lot of aquariums, including a kelp forest, tide pool, chambered nautilus, and sea dragons. Victor, of course, slept right through the whole thing. At one point, though, it started to feel like a herd of active children was running rampant through the building, until you suddenly realized it wasn't rumblings in the floor, the whole building was shaking! Everyone ran outside (following the directions of the staff), but by the time you realized what was going on it was pretty much over. It was scarier after the fact when you thought about all the glass around and above you just waiting to shatter on top of the little tiny baby!! We had to wait outside while the staff checked all the displays for damage, but nothing was broken. Of course Victor slept through the whole thing only to wake up hungry right as we were getting ready to leave. I have a new appreciation for Damian's truck with its tinted windows and large back seats for nursing and a nice truck bed in back for diaper changing.

Monday was a nice lazy family day--Damian and Victor took Carrie and Jurgen to the famous Carlsbad Flower Fields while I slept in, and we spent the day talking, hanging out, swimming, and eating. And then suddenly the trip was over! They started back on their long drive after one last visit this morning. Such a short trip! Hopefully we will get a longer time with them this summer when we visit New York for Damian's brother's wedding.

"Like Father Like Son"

Experiment

How do pictures look on here? I call this one, "Post Feeding Stupor"

The Name Game

It's been a quiet week around here this week with no guests visiting. My mom and I took Victor on some walks while Damian went back to work part time. Today we were going to try going to a breastfeeding support group (mostly to see how much Victor weighs now that he's a whole four weeks old) but I forgot that if you wake up a sleeping baby 3-4 hours after he's been fed, he's going to want to eat again... whoops! Maybe next week. Mostly we're just waiting around for tomorrow, because we're expecting Damian's parents to arrive sometime around noon after driving all the way from the north end of New York State! So exciting!! :)

So I thought I'd tell the story of how we came up with Victor's name, since everyone keeps asking. Probably because of all the teasing I did about what names we (and by "we" I mean "Damian") were considering. I forget who brought up the name "Victor" first (but I'm pretty sure it had something to do with the TV show Dollhouse). I did, however, have a very vivid dream in which I knew it was imperative that I tell Damian that Victor would be a really good name. When I woke up, I told him, he agreed, and Victor was actually the front runner for several weeks... until, that is, Damian decided that Victor wasn't good enough, he should be named Victorious. Back to the drawing board! Once February rolled around, though, we figured it would be a good time to get serious, so we made lists of our favorite names and picked the best ones from each other's lists. Victor showed up on mine; Victorious on his; so we compromised. We took the top few names we agreed on and went with my version of the name as the first name if Damian could pick any middle name he wanted from his of the names he came up with and I approved of. Theodon was on the his list and I had marked it as an approved name (I actually thought it was Theodore at the time; Damian's handwriting is atrocious. But it's still a good name. Damian got it from one of his baby name iPhone applications, by the way). Damian paired Theodon with Victor and once our baby was born I picked Victor Theodon as the name set I liked!

I like the name Victor because a) it is a real first name b) people have heard of it before c) it is old fashioned and gothic but not horribly so d) it's not a super-popular name here and now. Damian likes the name Victor because a) it means "conqueror" b) it's full of manly consonants. I am glad we went with the noun instead of the adjective.

Out and About

We've been busy! For the last week some of my relatives from Pennsylvania have been visiting, and boy, do they like to go, go, go! Fortunately we had Grammy here to house them, feed them, and show them around, but we still managed to do a lot with them. Victor went on some outings! Mostly we took him to the beach or other outdoor venues where there weren't too many people too close by. Thanks to Damian's generous coworker, we have a (used) carseat/stroller travel system, so we've been able to keep Victor safely strapped into a carseat and completely covered from the sun and from strangers while we stroll around. He likes his carseats pretty well--he mostly sleeps through all the excitement! Sometimes, though, we use a little baby carrier. This is Damian's favorite way to carry him around, safely strapped to his chest! We've even had some adventures in feeding and changing. I've discovered that feeding the baby is much easier in Damian's giant truck with tinted windows than it is in my nice little Altima, so for some outings I've been bringing along a little bottle of extra milk, just in case we're not in a convenient place when Victor decides that he's hungry. Diaper changing is also more of an adventure when we're out, but the less said about that the better.

Victor is still doing well, getting chubbier every day! His eyelashes are really long now, and his hair has been growing as well--mostly in the back, so we're keeping an eye on it to make sure he doesn't end up with a mullet! He's also been discovering the joys of spitting up. He'd been doing the occasional little tiny spit up all along, but recently he's gotten a few impressive ones in. It's not all the time, and it's not even always right after feeding, so he's still keeping us on our toes! Thank goodness he's started taking showers with his daddy so everyone can get cleaned up at once (unless he waits until after the shower to start the spitting). Oh and his belly button is almost all cleaned out! Definitely an innie! :)

Two week checkup!

Once again, passed with flying colors! He's already weighing in at 9 lbs., 6 oz., and 22 inches! The nurse and the doctor were both impressed with his weight gain and his strength and muscle control as well as his mellow personality--he didn't cry at all! (And he didn't pee on daddy this time--a distinct improvement from last time!) His color looks very good; he does have a few temporary red birth marks in his nose, around his eyes, and on the back of the head, but they are small and should go away before he's a year old. It turns out that the umbilical stump didn't fall all the way out and that's why it still looked gross inside. The doctor got most of it out, but there was a small gooey lump left behind so she put some silver nitrate mixture on it to dry it out and hopefully it will be gone in the next week. Other than that, he's looking good! If all goes well we don't have to see the doctor again until he's two months old! Yay!

Fun new things!

Last night Victor lost his umbilical stump! He then celebrated by pooping, eating, and falling asleep. I had no idea it was still going to be a little bit gross underneath. Oh well. At least it meant that today he could have a real bath/shower with daddy! Victor was a little bit confused and unnerved, but afterward he was a squeaky clean warm little baby.

Today is going to be an exciting day--Great Grandma, Uncle Joel, and Aunt Debbie are coming in from Pennsylvania, and they are going to want to have fun! I hope Victor is ready for them...

Happy belated pi day!

Little Victor didn't get any pie, but his mommy did! You wouldn't be able to tell, though, as fat as his cheeks are getting! It's good to know that the struggle is worth it. He's such a mellow baby, except for around feeding time--he gets agitated before, during, and after. Right now we're trying a new plan wherein I am not allowed to eat beans or dairy, and so far it seems to be helping calm down his after dinner antics. He still goes to sleep right after, except for in the evenings--that's when he wants to play! He's keeping his eyes open longer and longer each day, but he still sleeps most of the time. His favorite place to sleep is on daddy's belly, but really, anyone's arms will do! We're keeping him in his pack 'n play bassinet at night, and it does a pretty good job, except we usually have to make him fall into a deep enough sleep in our arms first and then put him in. That gets annoying late at night, when I'm more likely to fall asleep on the couch while holding him!

Aunt Laura and Raunaq are visiting right now, and they agree that he is the most adorable baby ever. Victor went to the airport to meet both of them because he falls asleep the instant he gets put into his car seat, it was late at night both times so the traffic wasn't bad, and Damian and I got to take turns traveling vs. sleeping. Good deal! Apparently when Victor met Auntie Laura at the airport he greeted her by burping in her face and then letting rip with a nice juicy fart. When I heard the story later I told her, "Hey, that's the biggest compliment he can give (or at least it better be) because that's how he thanks his mommy every time he eats!" I think he's been hanging out with his daddy too much already... :)

Welcome!

This is a blog for our family and friends to hear about what is going on with our little man. He is a week old today, and already we see so many changes in him! His little cone head is much more rounded, his cheeks are getting nice and fat, and even his eyelashes are growing out! He's had a beautiful complexion from the start--no red splotches or rashes on his skin--and right now his eyes are a dark gray-blue (although we don't expect that to last very long!). His little nose is getting bigger, too. I think he has Damian's nose and my eyes so far, but it's really hard to tell! His hair is very short but very soft and a nice dark color. He even has hair on his shoulders and the tips of his ears, but I think it's starting to fall out already. We visited the pediatrician last Tuesday and she said that he looks great--he'd already grown over an inch in length and had gained back most of the weight he lost in the first few days. No surprise there, as we've had our issues with both of us learning how to breastfeed, but he's always been a hearty eater! He even has a little song he likes to sing while he eats--it only has one note and I'm pretty sure the only lyric is "milk milk milk", but he never gets tired of it.

Well, it appears as though he's finally fallen asleep in my lap (although he has tricked me about this before) so I'm going to try to put him to bed so he can be all nice and refreshed for his first visitor--Auntie Laura is flying in tonight just to see him! He's so excited, but he needs his sleep! I'll try to figure out this blogging stuff and let Damian and Grammy post things too, but right now my schedule is as regular as Victor's, which is to say, not at all! Goodnight!