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!