Hardest week since the 4th Trimester

The month started great. He's getting much better at crawling. He's taking more initiative too. I left him to play by the mirror while I did some stuff in the kitchen and for the first time he just crawled into the kitchen to be with me. It was amazing! He's got 8 teeth now and can use them. He's eating more difficult solids like steamed broccoli and roast beef. Yes, roast beef. His current favorite vegetable is brussel sprouts but that might change next week when I offer him something new. Overall, we're having a blast. 

But he got sick this week. Very sick. I wrote last time about his food allergies, and they come with pretty bad eczema. We have to put moisturizers on him 3-5 times a day and he's still had a couple of skin breaks. Well this time the skin got infected with bacteria, likely staph. Monday he had a fever at school and was sent home. I didn't think anything of it, but Tuesday he woke up with a scary rash on his face, legs, and ankles. I included pictures of what he looked on Tuesday morning. I took him into the doc who diagnosed the staph and did a culture just in case. We started antibiotics but the rash kept getting worse. A lot worse. By Wednesday evening he was over half covered in puss-oozing sores. His sleep on Monday and Tuesday nights was terrible. We gave him all the pain killers he was allowed, doubling up on Tylenol and Ibuprofen. His skin seemed to hurt so much Monday night that anytime we transferred him into his bed it rubbed something and he woke up and cried. After 1.5 hours of this torture (for all) we had to just let him cry himself to sleep. I was very scared and heart broken. I bawled as much as he did, but he was so tired he was out in less than 5 minutes. The docs said that if he didn't improve substantially by this morning (Thurs) we needed to bring him into the ER.

But it's Thursday and he's showing many signs of improvement. He's eating better, he's taking a good long nap now and slept well last night. He's not showing signs he needs pain meds yet today. It's a huge relief. He can't go back to daycare until Monday at the earliest. He's still a health risk and he's oozing staph everywhere. Despite all the pain, I also included some pics of him smiling with sores on his face and body. He's an amazing kid and wants to play no matter what. I love him so much. Mom feelings are so...big. 

Is this thing working?

Hey party people! Pip here. 

I was just looking through some of the metrics for this blog/email-list, and its unclear if this is a good use of our time, or the right mechanism to keep everyone up to date.

There are like buttons, and comment boxes, but they've basically never been used. 

I'm on the email list, so when we write a blog post, I can tell it went out, (to me at least).

So yeah, does anyone find this valuable? Should we continue? Any other thoughts/comments/suggestions, please let us know.

Moriarty's cryptonite

There is no joy in Mudville. Moriarty now officially has a weakness, well, 2 weaknesses. While feeding him solids and exploring more foods I noticed facial redness, swelling, and itchiness (he scratched) after eating eggs and peanuts. We went to the allergist today and did the scratch test. He is indeed allergic to both, as well as starting to show some reaction to cats. Some kids outgrow these allergies, but we have to be very vigilant going forward. We got 4 epi pens so he'll have them at home and school and wherever he goes. We already expected to be making most of his food, but as he gets older we'll have to forego the classroom sweets. In some ways that'll be kinda nice (less sugar) but it could also make him the weird, pain-in-the-ass, kid. 

In happier news, I went on a business trip to DC and left the boys alone for 4 days - everyone survived. The less happy part was that Moriarty picked up ANOTHER virus from school and left him and Pip vomitous masses for the whole 4 days I was gone. I'm told there was some bed pooping (by Moriarty) which led to an exciting bathtub-in-the-sink bath.

For actual milestones, he's taken quite a liking to eating the foam floor tiles we put down in his play area. He loves them. And now he can crawl over to them and eat them. He's mostly doing an army crawl still, but he's covering distance, and when I leave the room inevitably the floor tiles are his first target. We even pulled out an extra for him to chew on since I wasn't having any luck distracting him from the ones functioning as his floor (mostly minimizing bonk pain when he falls).

Much more adorably, he's learned to clap. He likes to clap with us, and by himself. He has started waving but that's more inconsistent. He's also started trying to pull up, mostly on the wooden bar we built him. The first time it happened I had gone in the kitchen and came back to him half pulled up, looking up at me stuck and confused. He's fallen a few times as he practices, but we're getting better at staying close. Things are changing fast. I have to baby-proof the living room soon but it's a daunting task.

Daycare is a cesspool of disease

Moriarty has been sick much of the last month. Technically it wasn't exclusively from daycare, he also got another tooth (number 7!) but otherwise he has had several fevers, some vomiting, and a scary rash that looked a lot like Fifths and cleared up quickly. He managed to get me sick several times, the worst of which landed me in the ER from extreme dehydration. I got a few liters of IV fluids and was out of commission for a while. The daycare is cheaper than a nanny and he has friends, but the sicknesses are getting ridiculous. I did get a great video of him dancing while we were at the doctor's office. I'm wearing a mask because I was still sick... Moriarty also had his first dentist appointment. He had so many teeth so early I wanted to have him looked at to make sure everything was health, and it was. Now we brush twice a day and he's pretty cooperative. 

Other things are going better. He's eating a lot more solids. I've put up a video of him making a huge mess with some broccoli and another with him exploring pureed chicken. At first we were only doing baby led weaning, where we make soft but large pieces of the foods for him to eat himself, with his hands. The pediatrician said we should add some pureed foods because he wasn't swallowing much the other way. Now we do both. I think it's important for him to get his hands involved so he can explore the textures of foods, and control what's going in his mouth. That has led to some impressive messes with the purees. Now I'm doing more with the spoon since he's enthusiastic about that.  Food is fun.  

He's getting a lot more verbal. He is into mama and baba sounds but they're not connected to anything specific. He's just figuring it out. We mimic the sounds but also talk normally most of the time. When he's not sick he's still very smiley and giggly. Blowing on his face or belly usually elicits a giggle and big smile (with 7 teeth!). Every time his daycare teachers are alone with us they go on and on about how charming and easy he is. How he only cries when he needs something and then goes back to being happy.  

He's trying to get more mobile but is having a lot of failure to launch challenges. He wants to crawl, I think, and he'll get his knees under him, and then flop back down instead of propelling himself forward. I'm trying to spend tummy time on the floor with him most nights to make sure he's using the muscles. He's gotten much better at sitting up and is now quite stable. 

We took our first trip as a family. For the long Labor Day weekend we took a birthday trip to Olympia. We stayed at an Air B&B that abutted the Tolmie National Park. It's a rain forest with old growth trees and it was amazing. Moriarty did pretty well given a strange house, strange room, etc. When going on vacation it's inevitable you'll forget something, but I managed to forget formula. Completely. I had all the bottles and bottle cleaning supplies, just no milk. :-) Oops. The baby and I were also both kinda sick (we caught a sinus infection on the heels of the thing that caused all the vomiting!) so that was a bit of a downer, but we hiked and made a fire pit and it was a nice little family vacation. 

Kissing Cousins

Moriarty got to meet his cousins for the first time this weekend. Pip's sister, Elizabeth, has 3 kids. Sofia is almost 4, and twin boys Ethan and Noah who are 5 weeks younger than Moriarty. They were living in Brazil until last week and now live in a suburb of Seattle. OMG COUSINS. Sofia was very very loving toward Moriarty and wanted to give him lots of hugs and kisses. He's also learning to kiss. He'll put his open mouth against our cheeks and make a kissy-like noise. It's incredibly cute. He also likes to kiss the baby in the mirror, who is him, but he doesn't know it yet. He's also very into his tongue right now. He seems to have discovered it in the last week. He likes to make raspberry sounds and stick it out. When we roll our tongue at him he'll roll his back. With his newfound tongue discovery he's also being more verbal. Tongues are fun.

We've done a lot more baby led weaning. He's had banana, avacado, green beans, turkey, broccoli...yeah I'm probably forgetting a few. He enthusiastically tries new foods. He's still not really swallowing anything, but he's definitely exploring textures and starting to show preferences. He doesn't love bananas. He'll eat them. But he gets bored pretty fast. Broccoli, on the other hand, is like crack. I tried to end dinner last night and he fussed and picked the broccoli out of his giant capture bib so he could mouth it some more. It is so much fun to place this new exciting world in front of him and watch him just go nuts. He also had his first substantial serving of grass. We were sitting at the park near the farmer's market and I let him suck on a stick and eat grass. I'm helping him build his immune system!

Until this week I hadn't notice him actually rattle any of his rattly toys, but this week I offered him some bells and he got really excited. He shook them up and down and they spend more time being shaken than in his mouth. That's saying something! I've been sick and haven't had any (or much) voice for about a week and a half which has really cut into our music making time. I miss it and it seems like he does too. 

Baby's First Cold (and super cute scooting)

Quick update (no new pics posted). Moriarty got his first cold. It sucked, but it could have been worse. He probably picked it up at daycare. It started with a mild cough and then Friday he spiked a fever of 102.2. The fever came and went over the weekend and needed Tylenol to keep it in check. He was very fussy. He slept horribly. Today his fever is down around 99.5 (yay!) but we discovered he's cutting another tooth and is still being a fussy pants. Tomorrow he'll go back to school.

On a happier note he is doing this really cute inch worm scoot. He'll pull his knees up under himself and then scoot forward a little bit. In his bed he'll scoot across it until he bonks his head, then seems content. *shrug* I'm encouraging him to use his new locomotion to get toys and things just out of reach, but he's been less motivated with the fever/tooth. 

We're still exploring solids (we added avacado and carrots) but so far nothing seems to actually be going down. That's OK. We're having fun. 

Sitting and Solids

Given the choice of all the foods in the world, Moriarty's first solid food was bacon. Let me back up. The recommendations for when to start solids include a pincer grasp (pointer to thumb), sitting mostly unassisted, interest in food, and losing the tongue thrust reflex. As our pictures and videos will attest, he is mostly able to sit! For 5 whole seconds at a time, occasionally even longer. He can't get himself into this position yet, but we're making progress. So now that he can sit, it's time for SOLIDS! 

We had a mostly free day today so we planned to have our solids adventure at lunch. Pip made some delicious bacon. We also had organic heirloom watermelon from our Farmer's Market. 2 perfect starter foods.  I was very apprehensive about bacon as a first food. It has sharp edges that might get stuck or scratch his throat. I was OK with the ceremonial idea of bacon as a first food, but very cautious about how we let him handle it. If you have some time to spare, there's a 9 minute video of the First Solids event. We started a little rough but he got the hang of it by the end. We'll have some more watermelon tomorrow.

We also got some good video of Moriarty practicing sitting up, and practicing falling down. 

He's going through an extreme brain development phase, likely due to the rapid progress in sitting and other stuff. His sleep is less stable. He has a harder time going down and wakes more frequently. He was actually crying in his sleep today when I came to pick him up so I just let him sleep on me for another hour. At home I can give him that kind of attention but he can't get it at school. Having him in daycare is still hard for me. I know he's getting his needs met, but he's not getting as much attention as he was before or by me. We'll stick with it for now but it gives me mommy angst. Honestly...lots of things give me mommy angst. I guess that's how it'll be forever!

Family Visits

It's been a busy few weeks for Monster Pants (AKA Moriarty). We had a visit from Pip's parents. They were only here a short time on their way to Brazil to help Pip's sister and family prep for moving to the area. Moriarty will have 3 cousins moving to town, including 2 boy cousins 5 weeks younger than him. We went hiking with Pam and Kent and Moriarty did great. He was fascinated by the trees and smells and all the people we saw fawned over him. Then last week my family was in town for a nice long visit. We went on walks, to the aquarium (that he slept through), and played and read and had a lovely visit. Then Monday he started daycare. SO many changes. He has 2 very nice teachers and 5 classmates.  I was worried about how he'd adjust but things seem fine. He's napping OK. He can mostly put himself to sleep at this point but I think the nursery is more loud and interesting than he's used to so he's only sleeping for about 30 minutes per nap. I hope he'll get better at connecting his sleep cycles with time. They read books and sing songs and he seems to be having fun. The first day an older baby (~8 months) crawled over his head so I was worried he'd be traumatized, but he'll be crawling over heads soon enough. In fact, in just the last couple days he's started getting his knees under him. He's doing full superman style arm/leg action and sometimes props up on 2 elbows and a knee for a few seconds. He's getting so strong. It's so exciting to watch. The last big adventure of the month was taking the ferry out to Seabeck to visit our friends Frank and Marcella (and their girls). Thus far we haven't found any outdoor activities that Moriarty doesn't like.

I am getting confident that Moriarty is allergic to cats and dogs, and possibly some pollen. We took him to hang out with Ben and Kim and their 3 dogs. Gizmo, my first dog, has bladder cancer so I wanted to spend some time with him and introduce Moriarty. The puppies were very curious about the baby, and he was curious about them. There are some great pics of them trying to figure each other out. But his face got very red after some time near the dogs and the same thing happened when he was near cat hair. We'll be talking to his pediatrician about it at our next visit. 

Now either he's extremely brilliant, or I read a little into the situation (or both), but I think he did his first baby sign. We've been using the signs for 'milk', 'all done', and 'diaper' pretty consistently. We'll add 'more' and a couple others once he starts solids. He was playing in his bouncy chair and looked down at his diaper and moved his hand in a way that is sort of the sign for 'diaper'. I'm convinced he's a baby sign prodigy, though he hasn't repeated it yet so maybe I'm just being that mom. :-)

Giggles and Gas

The last couple weeks have been hard on Moriarty. He had another round of vaccinations. He is getting his second tooth even though average is one a month starting around 6 months.  The teething makes him fussy from pain and very very drooly. His sleep is somewhat off because he's going through 4 month sleep regression. Simply put, his brain is learning how to sleep with adult sleep cycle patterns instead of baby ones. This seems like poor timing to me because he is still a baby and they already kind of suck at sleeping! He's gotten too fat, I mean beautifully plump and baby-shaped, for his bassinet so he's graduated to the flat crib of the pack-n-play. That transition was easily, thankfully.

The last big mark against him has been his formula. We were buying super ultra mega healthy British formula with no corn or soy sugars. But the website that was selling it to us in the US went down about a month ago and we ran out. There were a couple other sites but they all charged twice as much. We put him on the fanciest American formula and it gives him this frightening blueish poop that looks like drywall mud and smells like a corpse. His belly hurts, he has more painful gas, he arches his back when he eats. It's been really hard on him (and our noses). I decided it was worth the cash for him to feel and smell good again so I've ordered more of the good stuff, and e-mailed the original company. Moriarty's belly is worth it. 

We've been doing a lot of hacking for baby stuff. He got his first trip to Home Depot, the epicenter of all that is good in the world. We made him a mirror wall with a baby-sized railing to support himself. We're also playing around with mobiles and using our new 3D printer to make stuff. I made him a Calderesque mobile with platonic solids as the decorations. I still need to add the low RPM motor and build it a housing, then I'll hang it over the changing table. 

The high points are his increasing giggliness, enjoyment of facing forward when we walk around the neighborhood, and power over tummy time. The giggles are so precious. We'll try to get some new videos. He giggles when I kiss his belly, or blow on his butt while I change his diaper, or blow raspberries in his face. As he's gotten older he's just gotten happier and gigglier overall. We are going to the Farmer's Market every Sunday and Moriarty is getting to know the booth operators, and the staff at our local coffee shop. I think his favorite part of the last couple of weeks is his increased rolling skills. He has never been a fan of tummy time, but now when I put him on his tummy (for his own good!) he can just roll himself over. The mommy thwarting has begun! I couldn't be prouder.

Finding his footing

Moriarty has been a busy boy. Of course our highlight has been him rolling over. So far he can only go back-to-front toward his right. But he's done it several times and is getting a bit more comfortable. He's also improving his fine and gross motor skills. He set a new sleep record of 6 hours 45 minutes! It's not consistent, but he sort of put himself on a rough schedule. Bed around 7 pm. Sometimes a feeding around 10 pm, but usually he'll sleep until closer to 1 or 2. (all Pip's job up to this point. Everything after is my job) Then maybe a feeding around 3:30 but not often this week, and he's up between 5:30 and 6. I got to sleep through the night 3 days last week!

A big milestone for babies is learning to grab (other than fingers and hair because that seems to be hardwired for survival). There are a lot of layers to grabbing. Raking vs. claw grabbing. Grabbing things offered vs. initiating picking up something nearby. Passing objects from hand-to-hand, etc. I'm sure there are many more layers we haven't discovered yet, but in the last couple weeks Moriarty has been doing all of these things (except the advanced claw grab). He's going nuts. If I leave a toy in his lap while he's playing semi-independently, he'll start picking it up and looking closely or shoving it in his mouth. 

The milestone that is hard to understand for my grown-up brain that he hit this week was discovering his feet. How can he use his feet, and stand on them, and kick me with them, without knowing they're there? But, he has found them and is marveling at them. He is complete. He has all his limbs.

He has been really into standing, even before the critical foot discovery. His legs are strong enough that he is standing with just enough assistance to keep his balance (that part is pretty pathetic still). He'll hold my fingers and stand up and be happy. He and I also play the game where he lays on his back and I pull his arms up to sitting. Now that his legs are stronger and he likes standing so much we keep going and I help him up to standing. We're heading to the hardware store today to buy parts to make a hand-rail and unbreakable mirrors to build him a spot to practice pulling himself up and enjoying his reflection. 

He still hates the car. He's still very opinionated about what position he's in (laying, sitting, standing, etc). His finger cut infection got worse and he ended up needing a 10 day course of oral antibiotics so his belly hurt a lot. He pooped on average 3x a day from the diarrhea. But he's off them now and doing better. His finger won't have to be amputated so he gets to keep all those cool body parts he discovered!

He Rolled Over!

Unscheduled update. Moriarty rolled over this morning. He's been doing this cute thing for a while where he'll ball up his legs and either rock back and forth or rock to his side. I had a late meeting off campus this morning so I was home and he was getting so close! I decided to turn on the video camera and see if I happened to get a shot. Within a minute he'd rolled over for the first time. OMG OMG. [note: Archibald is his duck rattle]  He did it twice more today and is now clearly unstoppable. 

We haven't put up new pics yet. We'll do a regular post this weekend. 

Week 14

We have good milestones and bad milestones this week. Good milestone, he's learned to grasp onto and hold things (other than my finger)! Bad milestone, his first trip to urgent care.

For weeks now I've been trying to hand the baby things by placing them in his open hand, and theoretically he was supposed to just magically grab them, someday. Today was that day! He has this adorable soft duck that rattles and he grasped and moved around his duck. He's a quick study and started grasping the USB cable I was using to put pics up online for this blog. This evening he had both hands on his Sophie (the giraffe teething toy) and shoved her in his mouth. Here we go. Baby proofing is coming...we're all doomed.

Mid week when his nails were being cut his cuticle got snipped and there was a tiny drop of blood. No big deal. We soaked it a lot, but he shoves his fingers in his dirty baby mouth so, not surprisingly, it got infected. I took him into the doctor on Friday and we were told to try to avoid antibiotics, if possible, but give him an oral round on Tuesday if it's not better. Then Saturday his eye was wet and gloopy and leaking yellow and green pus. I assumed he'd stuck his infected fingers into his eye. He was extra fussy and had a hard time going down for naps so we went to Urgent Care.  Baby's first trip to the ER was pretty uneventful. He fell asleep in the waiting room (FINALLY) and was diagnosed with pink eye. They think we picked it up on Friday at the main clinic. They sent us home with some erythromycin ointment to squirt into his eye (just like when he was born). Taking the baby to the doctor is as unsafe as staying home. While there they weighed him in at 14 lb 4 oz and 25" long. I truly hate the British weight units of stone (because who can multiply by 14 in their head?) but he is now 1 stone!

Over the last weeks Moriarty has learned more singing, cooing, and sound play. This week he directed all this sound play effort into shrieking at the top of his lungs. Happy sounds. Sad sounds. Hungry sounds. Bored sounds. It all comes at decibel level OMG CHILD!!! There's a cute pic of him wearing baby hearing protection while "we" built a shelf (while I used the hammer and driver). Pip and I have joked we need to start wearing our grown up hearing protection so Moriarty doesn't give us hearing loss in our 30s.

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I might step back to 2x/month on the updates. He's not making as many dramatic leaps as often. If something really cool happens I'll definitely update! Otherwise, catch you in a couple weeks.

Week 13

Moriarty discovered his hands weeks ago but now has the dexterity to control putting just his thumb or his pointer and index fingers in his mouth. Yay! Dexterity! But now he's gagging himself several times a day. He appears to be attempting baby bulemia. Possibly because he's concerned about his weight, which is understandable since he is gigantic now. The majority of the pics this week are in two outfits because they're the only long-sleeve long-legged clothes we have that fit. I ordered more nearly a week ago but they're not here yet and the house is a bit cold for short-legged onesies. *shrug* He's cute as a monkey pirate!

He no longer needs the infant insert in his carrier and that allows him to see while we walk around. We took a couple walks this week where he was wide awake. We looked at all the plants and flowers and I'd pull them close to his face so he could see, or flowers near his nose so he could smell. He's so visually engaged.

I have been hoping he'd start rolling over for weeks, but alas, he is making me wait. He was making progress on the front-to-back rolling, then out of the blue he started getting motivated toward back-to-front rolling. He'll curl his legs up and reach his arms across his body to try to roll. He'll get about halfway there but lack the momentum to fully roll over. It's adorable. Sometimes I help him and then he looks startled. He's on his own developmental schedule and it's fun to watch him learn every little thing required for these skills.

He's getting more vocal and singing and cooing at us a lot more. Sometimes he sounds like a cat or a raptor. We do a lot of talking and taking turns. When he gets distracted he moves his head from side to side in a swirly figure eight pattern like Stevie Wonder. Couldn't be cuter.

Week 12

Babies are hard. This week we had a major growth spurt. Definitely body, probably brain. His usual eating patterns are 3-4 oz every 3-4 hours. Last Sunday he started eating 4 oz every 2 hours, and kept that up for a couple days. The couple days afterward he was the hardest he's been. Very fussy, hardly happy, screaming when he was being fed. He refused to eat while we were in the chair. He'd just scream at the top of his lungs. We figured out he'd eat on the bouncy ball (which is so painful to the back and shoulder) and he'd sort of eat in his bouncy chair (also hard on the back). He didn't want to go to sleep. He'd just scream. It basically took all the strength and patience Pip and I had together to get through those couple of days. Then he sprouted a couple inches, his clothes stopped fitting, and he's a great baby again. He mostly jumped from a size 3 month to 9 month in things with legs. 

Since that recent harrowing experience, he's gotten more giggly. He's getting ticklish. He's playing giggly games. I was happy if I got 15 minutes of happy baby time a week or two ago. Now I get LOTS of happy baby time. He's more playful. He's also getting better at putting himself to sleep. A larger fraction of the time I put him down sleepy but awake and he puts himself to sleep. This is GREAT for us! We tried to start a daily schedule to help him get used to a routine, but we're not very good at routines and it's hard to get it to stick.

He's started noticing how people eat and mimicking it. Our nanny was eating apple slices and Moriarty would copy her by bringing his hands to his mouth then moving his jaw around! He intently watches me eat bites of oatmeal and moves his mouth around. 

And the obvious topic for the week, it's Mother's Day. Mother's Day is complicated. Thinking about the fact that my own mom isn't here is obviously sad. But even the idea that I am a mother now is taking some time to sink in. When I got my PhD and people started calling me "Doctor Lafleur" in professional settings I laughed out loud for the first several times. I'm me. I'm not this new label you see. I am very mom-like toward Moriarty but I am still settling into the idea that I'm part of the larger contingent of "Mom". 

Week 11

New parents tend to attribute characteristics in the baby to one or the other parent. As scientists we know this is rarely reality, but entertains me greatly. For example, Moriarty has explosive feelings. Big, strong, OMG the world is ending feelings. We'll be playing with him on my lap and he's giggling then he decides he wants to look out the window and screams until I turn him around. We're playing on the floor and he gets a wet diaper and screams like I'm torturing him. Obviously, he gets that from me. This week he successfully put his foot in his mouth. He also gets that from me! However, he has an inordinately small butt. I know I've said this before, but there's something quite disproportionate about it. The diapers that fit him are for newborns under 10 pounds. He's over 13. We also tried the next size up in his regular diapers, and another brand, that both go up to 13 pounds but they're HUGE on him. Evidence in the gallery. Not to imply my husband is proportioned like a dough-boy infant, but the baby clearly gets this from Pip not me.

Moriarty has started helping his pacifier stay in. I was hoping he'd get good at sucking his fingers/thumb and not need pacifiers anymore, but not yet. Instead he uses his hands and arm to hold the pacifier in, and re-insert it when it's partly out. So cool. He's sometimes doing this with a grabbing fist which is also cool because he won't really grab anything else on his own. If I put a rattle or toy in his hand he'll grip it for a minute, then get bored.

We bought him a bouncy chair to mitigate the hours of yoga ball bouncing we've been doing. It has a base and angled seat part that can bob up and down, but no motors. We bounce it with our hands or foot. The neat part is that he's learning to bounce it with his legs/body. The first day he didn't seem motivated to initiate any movement. Then we attached the "toy bar" thing where stuff hangs in his face and he seemed to connect the movement of the toys with the movement of the chair. In his motorized swing he'll kick his feet to make the mobile (unmotorized) move. This is the same idea, he just had to figure it out. It's so cool to watch his little brain work. The bouncy chair we picked is a lovely brown with butterflies. The other ones looked, as Pip said, 'like a clown threw up on them'. If conservatives are worried you can turn a kid gay we're well on our way. I'm not worried.

Moriarty Week 10

I've been telling everyone at work that Thursday was Baby Stabbing Day! It reminded me of Happy Decanting Day from Brave New World. *shrug*. My co-workers weren't as enthusiastic about the term or visual for Baby Stabbing Day, but never-the-less, Moriarty was stabbed 3 times in the leg and got one oral delivery. He's now gotten his first dose for: diptheria, tetanus, pertussis, haemophilus influenzae type b, pneumococcal disease, totavirus, and polio, and his second dose for hepatitis B. He's making TONS of antibodies. The vaccines also left his leg sore and he has been fussy for a couple days. We've given him infant tylenol, which he hates, but it helps him feel better.

The doctor also told us he's still gaining, but not as quickly as before. He's dropped from the ~80th percentile down to the 50th for weight. He's 24" long and 13 lb. She said his head is "perfectly round" so that's great! All those hours in the carrier, on my lap, and doing begrudging tummy time seem to be helping. 

In terms of development, he did a full baby superman today during tummy time. That's where he lifts his arms and legs off the ground using his chest and core muscles. This is a step on the way to rolling over...which eventually leads to climbing furniture and scaring us to death. 

The current plan is to have our nanny come 4 days a week and both stay home on Wednesdays. I'll take at least half officially off work and we'll see if we can get stuff done in tag team the other days. We both have such flexible jobs it'll probably be fine. This will be until he starts daycare full time hopefully in July. Pip sent me this video one day he stayed home while I was at work. 

Hacking Our Graco Pack 'n Play

Our Graco Pack 'n Play came with a little vibrating motor unit (a scaled up version of what wiggles your smart phone) that provides some movement and some white-noise to help Moriarty sleep. The problem is, the silly thing runs on D-batteries, and turns off after 30 minutes. So after many instances of Moriarty sleeping peacefully for 30 minutes, then waking up when the viberation shut itself off, we decided to hack it.
We got an AC power adaptor to replace the D battery, and we decided to add a simple on/off switch to control the thing.
I'll spare you the details of the voltages, and soldering hassles. Long story short: it works now. We turn it on, put Moriarty in, and it helps him sleep until he's hungry, or needs a diaper pit-stop.
Here is the hacked version: 

Moriarty Week 9

I worked almost a full week this week. My team was finalizing the next major demo (for the DC trip I didn't attend this time) and my intentions of working only 2 days this week didn't happen. I did take Friday off so Moriarty and I could walk around Greenlake in the bright sunlight. I intended to go on a mom date with a woman I met at a new mom's group, but she had to cancel. So Moriarty and I had a lovely time. The other 4 days he spent with the nanny. Our original plan for childcare was to start full time daycare at a center near Pip's office when Moriarty was around 6-8 weeks old. They ended up having families with children already attending request spots in the infant room pushing our start date back. Our current estimate is July 20 and hopefully we'll have a contract in the next week or so to finalize that. Until then, Moriarty is hanging with the nanny.

He's growing and growing. I know that's normal for babies, but he's not growing very proportionately. He's still wearing newborn diapers despite being in 3, or sometimes 6, month clothes. His butt is really little and his belly is rotund and he's very tall (and if you're into that sort of thing his toes are absurdly long). I think he kinda looks like a strange photoshop experiment...but in a cute way! He's also getting stronger and is starting to bear his weight on his feet. He still curls his toes up when he does this so it's not very stable.

I had my own form of body distortion since having the baby. Babies have cute little tiny round heads. Grown ups don't. So after spending approximately 700 hours staring at my cute tiny little round headed baby I started seeing Pip's head as incredibly long and huge. I thought this must be a fleeting thing, but then once I started work again many of my co-workers had giant long heads. Does this happen to other people?

The second best part of this week was that I got a lot more sleep. We've figured out the routine to get him to sleep more soundly in his bassinet and for longer. We are diligently swaddling and we hacked the vibrator function of the bassinet to go all night and with stronger vibration. Pip made another post to tell you all about it. I have been able to more or less keep up at work!

The first best part of the week was this video. It took a while for me to figure out how to get him to respond, then he did!

Aside: Before he was born I didn't have a strong opinion about people using Mal vs. Moriarty. I knew Pip and I planned to call him Moriarty but otherwise didn't think it mattered. I'm realizing now that he's here that I really like Moriarty as a name (obviously), and I don't want to encourage people to use nicknames. While I'm not going to be a heinous bitch about this, I've realized I'd prefer if people all called him Moriarty.

Moriarty Week 8

Moriarty has gotten even more focused and curious this week. He seems to be discovering his hands. At the moment that looks like sucking on them a LOT. Drooling on them. Trying to shove his fist into his mouth. Basically beginning the baby past time of putting new toys into their mouths. Toy #1 = hands.

Since he's gotten more focused and aware, he was awake and alert for the first time in the Ergo on a walk this week. He got to actually see some plants, the coffee shop, and the grocery store. The greeting card aisle was a favorite. When we're in the living room he likes to stare at the walls. If I'm in a high-backed chair and he can't see the wall he gets fussy until I seat him higher. He loves when we put him facing out so he can look around. I'm not sure what he can see and how far away, but he's fascinated. 

We also spent some time communing with nature, to nurture his inner hippie. We had tummy time in the park (little grass spot across from the apartment). We also worked on bonsai trees in the backyard. 

This was also a week of grown up firsts. I had him alone for the first time all day while Pip was at work. We had a great time and I even got to shower and do some cleaning. I'm getting better at keeping him down for daytime naps. (night time is another story). Since Pip and I both started working part time again this week, Moriarty had his first day with the nanny. It went great. I missed him. We'll learn to find special time in the mornings and evenings.

Note: These posts will be migrating to a weekend release cycle, so don't expect any posts until 4/18 or 4/19 (email subscribers will get any posts at the following 4:00 am pacific time).

Moriarty Week 7

My dad came to town for a visit this week. We mostly sat around while Moriarty slept on Phil's chest, or I fed Moriarty while Phil and I chatted, or we all played on the floor. We also took a visit to the park in Seattle (Ravenna Park) where I scattered some of my mother's ashes after she died. It's a very special place to me and this was Moriarty's first visit. 

The next big highlight of the week was the smiling. There's been lots of smiling. Big enthusiastic smiles. Open mouthed smiles. Strange closed lip smiles. He's getting so social. He's also starting to make cooing and giggle-like noises. They're not well coordinated yet but they're really cute. We're still capturing it on video.

We started reading books this week. My first pick was The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Moriarty didn't look at the book once, he only looked at my face. That's pretty age appropriate. We also did our first round of Goodnight Moon. We have the board book and some of the pages are illustrated in black & white. I'm not sure about the more traditional paper version, but this was great for Moriarty. He is still very intruiged by strong contrast.

Lastly, sleep is hard. He can sleep very well, but not usually when he's in a swing or basinnet. I think he gets lonely and he is much more thrashy, grunty, flaily, screamy (in his sleep), and basically looks like he's having a fit for minutes at a time. My super mother senses make it impossible to sleep near this, when we're using a co-sleeper, or even listen over a baby monitor. What I think we figured out last night is that he really really really just wants to sleep on us. He slept a solid (quiet and minimally flaily) 4.5 hours on my chest in the recliner yesterday. Now we need to figure out the safest way to sleep in contact with him all night.