Miracle baby learns to walk, crawl in same day

Sure time flies, but not quite as fast as it did in the dream I had Wednesday night. Lil a was in the bassinet of his pack and play sleeping. I looked away and he lifted himself out of the pack and play and fell on the floor. As I ran over to him, yelling to eno about his fall, he looked back at me with a glisten in his eye and started crawling away. After crawling for a while, he got up and started running.

See -- he is a genius.

Solid, Solid as a Rock

On the Healthy children blog at webmd, Dr. P talks about when to start solid foods. This is a topic that we've been talking about lately since lil a is getting up there now (4 months already!). In all honestly, I'm not really looking forward to starting solid foods. Sure, it will be loads of fun (and loads of laundry!), but I'm loving the convenience of breastfeeding. Lil a and I can be up and outta here in minutes flat and if I forget something, at least as long as he's with me he always has food!

Since I plan on breastfeeding for the first year, I totally feel like lagging on this one. I think at 6 months we'll start introducing some foods and take it from there. I'm really interested in finding recipes so I can make some of his first foods and not have to buy a bunch of baby food from the grocery store. Any good book recommendations out there?

I guess I'm going to be one of those mothers that laments each passing developmental stage. Surprise, Surprise.

Road Trip - Update

Well, we made it. We drove to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, making only one stop during the 6 hour drive. Yes, go ahead. Bask in our amazingness.

Ok. Now that we're done with that, here are some tips/tricks I've discovered:

• Have a bottle ready, just in case. lil a is exclusively breastfed, but right after the trip got started and he fell asleep, I pumped some and stored it in a cooler. We used it when lil a got fussy and we were no where near an appropriate place to stop (like all of Eastern Washington).
  
  
• Choose clothes wisely. Pick comfortable clothes for baby that make changing the diaper in cramped quarters easier. I had to change lil a on my lap -- unfortunately there isn't anything that could make that easier, unless you have some Vapoorize. Also, make sure the outfit isn't too warm. You'll keep the car's temperature warm, so you won't need to have him all bundled up while inside it. (We learned this the hard way...)
  
  
• Pack the night before. We got the car mostly all packed up the night before we left. (3 humans and 2 dogs requires lots of stuff, apparently.) This made for a calm morning the next day. It still took us an hour to get out the door, but at least we weren't rushing.
  
  

All in all it was a very successful trip. The wedding was beautiful and lil a got to meet lots of his extended family for the first time. As you can see, he was happy about that:

Stop - Nanny Time!

It's been a busy few weeks here at the baby-makes-three household. One of the biggest developments has been that we hired a nanny to come to the house once a week and help with lil a. She currently works with a friend of ours two days a week and was willing to take up one more day a week to help us out.

As I've described before, I work at home full time. The idea is that the nanny will come the same day each week. This way, I can tell work that Tuesday is the day that I'm available to come in at a whim.

So, she starts tomorrow. Of course, it turns out that literally all my scheduled work appointments are on days other than Tuesdays. Now I'm wondering if this arrangement really makes sense.

Also, everyone keeps telling me that I need to do a background check. I was looking into mybackgroundcheck.com as an option. Basically, she can login and fill out all her information and it will email her the results. Otherwise I'll have to collect all the pertinent information from her and get her to sign a release so I can perform the check. It seems kind of complicated.

I guess we'll just play it by ear for right now. I plan on being home with her for the first few weeks to see how she interacts with lil a. I've even considered rigging up a nanny cam when I'm gone for the first time.

lil a just pooped on my hand

Well, not directly on my hand. *That* would be gross. But, you might be impressed to know that my little one has the such skill that he can poop through is diaper, a onesie and a pair of fleece pants. My hand was on top of the pants (bad luck). He got the boppy too.

He gives a whole new meaning to Thunder from Down Under.

Now he can see color!

Since lil a was born, eno has been obsessed with how far and with what detail lil a can see things. I don't think that he exactly remembers the actual milestones though, because I swear he's always saying "He can see in color now!" and "I think he can see me from here." It's so cute.

It's even better when it's two new dads talking about it over dinner. While the new mom and I are discussing breastfeeding, our ginormous boobs and the corresponding issues we face when trying to run on the treadmill, they are like "Do you think he can see me?" and "Yeah, he can totally see in color now."

Ah, the things you can ponder when your boobs aren't the size of watermelons.

Road Trip

Thursday, the whole clan is driving to Idaho for my brother's wedding. That's right...all of us, baby and dogs included, are going on a 7-hour trip across the Northwest. I say 7 hours now, but we're really thinking 12. That way, if it actually takes 12 because we have to stop for the dogs to pee, then five minutes later for the baby to eat, (repeat), we'll be ready.

The car is going to be completely full. I hope there's room for me to sit. I'll be squeezed in the back next to lil A, with dogs breathing down my neck for most of the trip.

Fun.

Snow Haiku

It's snowing again.
In Portland. It's March. Correct?
Will summer come soon?

Strollerphobia, take two

My mom bought lil a a stroller to celebrate his blessing. Yes, people, that's right. A stroller. If you've read up on this blog, you know my strong feelings about strollers, however irrational and impractical those feelings may be. In fact, over they weekend, had you been a fly on the wall you may have even overheard me say how strollers "represent everything that is wrong with the world." Ahem.

But.

I have to admit something.

I don't hate it. I might actually like it.

She bought the stroller frame that goes with our car seat. So it's not very big and cumbersome. We can only use it as long as lil a is in his infant car seat, which might only be a few more months, but by that time, we will be able to figure what features we are looking for in a new one.

Now, I still stand by my guns that some strollers represent all that is evil in the world. Just not this one.

Blessing

This past Saturday, we had a blessing ceremony for lil a and his cousin lil n. We joined in the traditional Cambodian ceremony that was scheduled for lil n. The day was truly wonderful

The blessing started with the saign ceremony, which is the same ritual that is done every year to commomemorate Chinese New Year as well. Basically, everyone pours tea and liquor for the ancestors and prays for the babies and the family.



After the saign, everyone ties perfumed strings around the babies and the parents' wrists, symbolizing the tying together of the family.



A small lock of hair is cut from each baby by the grandparents. This is a sort of cleansing ritual. Later, we will release the hair into the ocean or a river.



Monks came later to bless the babies. After they arrived, the chanted in Sanskrit and blessed the babies with perfumed water.





As a part of the blessing, the babies were present with some serious bling:

More Lippy-isms

Now that the word lippy has become part of our everyday vocabulary, we've come up with a few variations that have been especially useful:

lipify: v. to apply to lippy to the baby, as in "Someone better lipify lil a so he'll stop crying."

lippy duty: n. the job of ensuring the lippy is properly applied when needed, as in "You are on lippy duty tonight. I'm too tired."

lippy overboard!: common expression heard when a lippy is ejected from the mouth of the baby.

Happy Friday

[If the video doesn't work, download it directly from http://megan.cosmicpixel.com/laugh3.WMV]

Moving on up

As you already know, I birthed the The Incredible Growing Baby. As he lives up to his name, we've had to find diapers that will also keep up. He was wearing Huggies size 1-2 (the big box from Costco). So when he started growing out of those, we figured we needed to buy the next size up (3). Uh no. Those are HUGE and just don't fit him at all. (And now we have like 200 of them in the closet.) We ended up switching brands and going with the Pampers Snugglers size 2. Apparently, we're not the only ones with this problem. Jess over at sweetest boy actually did a test of size three diapers and reviewed them all. Great information!

Love the Bumbo!

Our friends Kaddin and Michael got lil a Bumbo baby seat when he was born. At first, I wasn't sure what to make of it. But now that he can reliably hold his head up, I *love* it. It's made out of a soft, sturdy but sort of squishy plastic and it conforms to his body. He really seems to love it too. Last week, we even took it with us to a restaurant and when he got fussy in his car seat (which happens fairly quickly these days), we set him in the Bumbo in between us. He totally sat it and looked around, completely satisfied -- every parent's dream when you are out in public.

Here are some more pics:

What am I, a hot potato?

Sometimes it seems like we are perpetually playing a game of hot potato in this house, except instead of being out if you are caught with the hot potato, you are the hero, rewarded with the opportunity to actually get a little sleep. (I'm so tired right now, I wrote "speel" instead of sleep. Sigh.)

Last night, for example, Lil a woke up at 1 am for no apparent reason. He didn't want to eat, be walked, lay down...nothing. So we took turns trying to figure out what was going on (cue the hot potato music. Set the timer for an hour). Eno walked him around, I tried feeding him, Eno bounced him, I tried feeding him (again, this time sitting up), Eno rocked him, I rocked him. Finally, the little hot potato fell asleep. I won!

I'm convinced that it isn't that I was more skilled at rocking him, or that he just wanted his mom. (God knows he didn't want his mom when she was trying to feed him!) I'm pretty sure it's just luck.

Lippy in the sky with diamonds

Right after lil a was born, my husband coined a new and important word for a pacifier: lippy. He insists it's a more accurate and descriptive than the more commonly used binky, and I agree. He's been very effective with the viral marketing of this word, no less than 3 families now use it (maybe more now!)

That's right. You heard it here first. Let's not have this spiral out of control like that whole "truthiness" debacle.

Lippy. That's today's Wørd.