Daddy’s Thoughts January 21, 2008

Kara stole most of the cool things that have recently happened but I felt I ought to blog and write about munchkin.  He has started to become quite serious this week.  He is starting to get content sometimes to just sit and stare at things.  Today for example he was just looking at my face like it was the most interesting thing in the world, normally he just laughs when he looks at my face!!  He is still addicted to TV.  Especially any football which is great news for me as I’ve got a good excuse to watch it!! 🙂

I like to teach him to be tough and typically give him little or no sympathy when he fusses but I must admit with all his teething this week I have really felt for him.  You can see his little toother that has come through and see there are two or three more pushing through and really hurting him!  Poor little fella!!  He still loves bath time though!! and that’s my time!!  He can be really moody – but get him the bath and everything changes to happiness!! 😀

Hayden is Googled

I proud to say that I recently did a search on Hayden on Google and he came up as the top link!!! What a 21st century boy!
Also I did a secondary check on our beloved and missed Jude Monkey and he has apparently left a legacy behind as he is also top of his pile – hopefully that has something to do with Maz and Helen going to his pages all the time!!! 🙂

I’m not sure how the rankings worked because some days he seems to drop down (like the day I’m writing this), but keep visiting him and hopefully he will remain at the top!!! 🙂

Swimming

Friday was our first Aquababes class, which is the baby/parent swimming class we signed up for.  It was so fun!  The water was really warm, so it was really nice not to have to worry about him being too cold, particularly as he was in and out of the water a bit.  I was quite surprised because I had thought the babies would always have some sort of flotation device like floaties on or something, and I thought we would try to keep them from going under.  They actually encourage us to get our babies underwater quite a bit.  There is a reflex that babies have until they are 2 years old where when their face hits the water their throat automatically closes.  But the face has to hit the water quickly; if you are too slow in getting them underwater then the reflex doesn’t kick in.  So there were different exercises around this, like first we sat the babies on this bar on the side of the pool that was just below the surface of the water.  We counted to three and then let them fall forward into the water.  Hayden was really good about it.  It obviously caught him by surprise but he didn’t cry or anything.  (It was all at the parent’s discretion – if the parent wasn’t comfortable then they didn’t have to have the baby go underwater.  But I trusted that it was ok and of course it was.)  Then we did a bit of ‘swimming,’ holding baby under the arms to our side with him on his belly and walking him to the other side of the pool; then having his head on my shoulder with him on his back and ‘backstroking’ to the other side.  We sat them up on the side of the pool and had them fall forward into the water, similar to the first exercise but they were completely out of the pool.  Then there were a few other games and activities.  It was really fun and we did a lot!  He was exhausted by the end.  He hadn’t had a great morning nap – what a surprise since we have such napping troubles in general!  So I was glad he was in such a good mood for the whole hour, and then at the very end when he started getting tired I was not surprised.  He was still good and didn’t really cry until he was separated from me for a short time for one of the exercises.  He just cuddled against me at the end and made lots of mumbly noises like he does when he’s really tired.

Oh yeah, and one of his buddies from day care is in his class!  We were in the locker room getting ready for the class, and I turned around and there was Oliver and his mom!  So that was really nice.  And I talked to several of the other moms during the class and they were all really nice.  There were 8 parent/baby pairs.  For half of us it was the first time we had taken the class, so I liked that we weren’t the only new ones.

It’s been a nice but COLD weekend here.  We have a fire going today but it’s still quite cold in the family room.  We didn’t go out at all today, but yesterday we went out briefly to get groceries and lunch.  We were outside for about 3 minutes, just going from the car to Target and the restaurant, but Hayden’s poor little face got chapped from the cold.  It’s pretty much back to normal now, but it was red and rough yesterday and most of today.  He has also been suffering with his teething this weekend.  He still just has that one tooth that has broken through.  There is at least one more trying to push its way through at the moment.

Tooth! January 17, 2008

Hayden cut his first tooth yesterday! He’s really been suffering with his teething the last couple/few weeks. Yesterday his bottom right one finally pushed on through! You can see a little bit of white there, but you can feel it easier than you can see anything. Hopefully he will be a little more comfortable for a while now. He’s just growing so fast! I can’t believe what a big boy his already, with teeth and everything. He’ll be voting soon.

Where is our hair going? January 15, 2008

Hayden and I are both losing our hair at the moment.  Many people told me when he was born with all that hair that he would lose it, and he had so much I thought even if he lost some we wouldn’t really notice.  Well, he has lost a lot of hair, particularly right at the back of his head where his head touches the mattress while he sleeps.  He has this little bald patch back there, bless him!  Apart from that, his hair has really thinned out all over and gotten a lot lighter than it was when he was born.  My neighbor has a theory that even though they say babies lose their hair, she thinks it is just that their heads get bigger and roughly the same amount of hair is still there but it is covering a bigger surface.  This does make sense, since I never really find any baby hair around where he has shed.  He also has some really dry areas around his scalp, which could be a minor case of cradle cap.  I think Faith had a suggestion on that I’ll have to ask her about.

So, Hayden and I are in the same boat on the hair loss issue.  I am shedding like crazy!  Apparently during pregnancy hair typically gets a lot fuller, and I didn’t particularly notice that during my pregnancy, but I did notice that I wasn’t really losing any hair anymore.  (Before I was pregnant I would always find a few loose hairs after washing it.)  It is also pretty common knowledge that after pregnancy women lose a lot of hair.  I guess the breast feeding must have delayed this response because it has only been within the last week or two that I have started to seriously shed.  My hair is everywhere!  It’s on the floor all over the house, I’m constantly picking hairs off mine and Hayden’s clothes, it ends up in my food a lot (nice), and especially right after I have washed it and am combing it out I end up with fistfuls of loose hair.  Thank goodness for the Dyson, hey!

Catching some zzz’s January 9, 2008

I am happy to report that Hayden’s sleep is starting to come together!  I have been able to put him down for naps the last couple of days, and even when he is put down awake but sleepy he seems to fall asleep.  It’s really nice to not have him crying when he’s put down and to know he is getting his rest.

He’s still jabbering away which is quite funny.  Yesterday he started doing this really high pitched, loud jabbering.  Sort of like squealing but a little different.  It was really funny.  He was doing it with me when I brought him home from day care, then he was doing it again later with John.  It sounds like he’s starting to fuss, but then you realize he’s vocalizing.

Last night he had bananas for the first time.  He wasn’t a huge fan.  He kept pushing it out of his mouth, and we couldn’t decide if it was because he didn’t like it or if it was just the result of it being a lot runnier than the avacado and sweet potato were.  John doesn’t like bananas, so maybe he takes after his daddy there!

Sitting up January 6, 2008

Hayden started sitting up on his own a couple of days ago!  He can sit for a few seconds before he slowly starts to fall over. 🙂  He also holds his bottles!  He is given a little bit of water after his solid food, and he just grabs the bottle and holds it himself.  Apparently when other people give him milk in a bottle he does it then, too.

We are deep into sleep training.  He is doing really well at night.  We’ve had to let him cry it out a little over night when we know he can’t be hungry, and (touch wood) he seems to be catching on.  Naps are taking a bit more work at this point, but that is natural (according to my book).  We are implementing ‘cry it out’ during nap time too, and he is somewhat coming along but he seems awfully stubborn at times!  I think it is slowly coming together, but it will just take some time.  And if ever it does come together, he’ll go off to day care for three days in a row and everything might come undone! 😉  Right, I guess that means I need to give up work!!! 😛 (It’s worth a try, hey?!)

Hayden had to go to the doctor on Thurs because his skin was struggling a bit.  We found out he has eczema at his last well child visit last month, and the doctor gave us some things to try to heal it up.  It has been up and down since that visit, and on Wednesday he developed a rash all along his back so we decided it was time to be seen again.  He has a medium case of eczema, with rashes on all of the creases of his skin (legs, arms, armpits, neck).  He’s on an antibiotic and a medium steroid cream.  It is looking a lot better already.  They weighed him with his clothes on and he was 19 lbs 8 oz!!!!  I suppose that would equate to somewhere around 19 lbs without clothes.  There’s no stopping his growth!

I’m really excited because we signed up today for Aquababes, which is a parent/baby swimming class.  I have been on the waiting list for only a couple of days, but I didn’t think we would be able to be in the class until March.  They said he has to be 6 months, and he isn’t 6 months until Feb 3.  The class starts in two weeks.  They must not be that strict about the age, because they took his birthdate so they know he is a couple of weeks shy of 6 mos.  John and I decided if we could just get him signed up somehow they would never question him being old enough once they saw him.  He certainly looks older than 6 mos!  So anyway, I ordered him a swimsuit online today.  There aren’t any in the shops at the moment.  Next I need to find some swimming diapers.  Hopefully there will be some at Target even though it’s out of season.  Otherwise, I might need to implement the help of my Floridian friends!  It’s always swimming season in Florida!

Oh how he changes! January 5, 2008

John captured a lot of the latest stuff with Hayden that we hadn’t had a chance yet to post.  All of his recent developments have been so fun and exciting!  We try all the time now to get him to do his belly laughs.  As John mentioned, we think he is teething at the moment as he is really fussy and drooly.  He has had a couple of rough days and it’s hard to even get him to smile, so there haven’t been any laughs from him lately. 😦

We have started him on solid food!  The Friday before Christmas we fed him some infant rice cereal.  He pulled the funniest faces, as though he didn’t like it.  He ate it like a champ, though.  The first couple of times he ate a few bites and was done, but after that he has having seconds!  He ate only cereal once per day until yesterday when we started him on avocado.  He really likes avocado.  I am making his baby food instead of buying the commercial baby food, which I think I will really quite enjoy.  Next will be sweet potatoes and then bananas.  He has to eat only the new food for 4 – 7 days before trying a new food to make sure he doesn’t have an allergy to it.

We have had a lovely week and a half off for Christmas.  It was so great having Michelle and Stuart here over the holidays.  Tomorrow we have to go back to work. 😦  Fortunately for me I only have to work tomorrow and then get my normal Thurs and Fri off.  My mom is going to watch Hayden tomorrow so he doesn’t have to go to day care.  If he doesn’t go at all in a week they only charge half, but if he goes for even one day it’s regular price.  So Grandma is going to take care of him while I work!

Development January 2, 2008

This has been a big development month for Hayden.  I think we’ve seen the most development in the last three weeks versus any other time in his short life.   He has really starting to use his hands.  He can hold things now and pulls on things.  He can recognise and react to mine and Kara’s voices.  He has started to laugh and he smiles just all the time.  He is a really happy baby! (well normally – I think he is just starting to teethe so that is probably challenging for him!).  He is also starting to master the roll over – of course this type of development means we have to keep more of an eye on him as he can get up to more mischief!!!!

Auntie Michelle

Hayden finally got to meet Auntie Michelle!!! He loved that she came to visit with her boyfriend Stuart.  Hayden seemed to like both of them very much!  He smiled lots around Michelle and even fell asleep in her arms a couple of times and he hates falling asleep as he is always worried he is missing out on something!!

We didn’t do too much crazy stuff while they were here, more about spending time in chilling and getting Michelle and Hayden acquainted.  We made sure we got a good quality steak in while Grandpaman and Grandma G babysat.  Made sure we went in the hottub and drank champagne.  Did some retail therapy when they got to make the most of the weak $!!!  Had a wine party, chili night!  I guess we did quite a bit after all when you mix in Christmas and presents in all that!!!

It was really nice to have them here, they’ve got off to Vancouver for a week now before they head back to the UK.  Hopefully they’ll come back again soon 🙂