Daddy’s Home April 25, 2008

It’s never fun to go to work – lets be honest! Unless you are a pro sportsman of some type I can’t imagine why anyone would want to go to work! However getting home recently has been a whole lot of fun. Hayden gets so excited when he sees me. He has the biggest smile and his legs bounce up and down and up and down and….. It is very cool. 🙂

Upside Down Boy!

I am wondering if Hayden is some sort of Harry Potter baby because recently we’ve been putting him in his crib one way and when we go and get him in the morning he is completely upside down!!! 🙂 I have no idea how he does it, he can’t even fit sideways because he is so tall. It must be MAGIC!!!

I’m Only Sleeping April 24, 2008

I’m very happy indeed to report that Hayden is finally sleeping through the night!!  About three weeks ago we decided to stop going to him in the middle of the night to see if we could do without that feeding once he got used to it.  He woke the first two nights and we let him cry it out (took about 1/2 hour I think), then he has slept through fine since then!  But we had been waking him for a feed right before we went to bed.  Last night he took about 7 oz right before his bedtime, so we took a risk and decided not to wake him for a feed before we went to sleep to see if he would still sleep through.  And friends, I am glad to report that he did! 🙂  Nearly nine months old and our baby is finally sleeping through the night.  Is this what they mean by ‘baby steps?’

We always look forward to getting Hayden in the morning to see where he has ended up in his crib.  Several times we have gotten him in the morning and he is upside down!  His head is where his feet were when he was put down and vise versa.  It is soooo funny!  We aren’t sure what he gets up to to get him to that point.  Last night I went to check on him after his motion sensor alarm went off, and he was on his side sucking his thumb (his very favorite sleeping position) down in the corner of his crib.  That was why the sensor couldn’t pick up on his breathing.  He has also been shifting himself onto his belly while he sleeps lately – that is new.  Like all parents, we don’t care how he sleeps as long as he sleeps! 🙂

Macy April 14, 2008

So Lucy’s best friend Macy came to stay for a week while her family was on spring break. We had sooooo much fun with her! She actually stayed in our house, and we were wondering how it would go since she is a good 70 lbs so if she would be stubborn she would not be as easy to show who is boss as Lucy is. But she was a perfect lady. She had to obey the same rules as Lucy, so she had to be trained to stay off the couch, not jump up on us, and sit and stay before being fed. She learned things pretty quickly (although I would not go so far as to say she mastered any of these things 🙂 ). She was also very good around Hayden, which was a relief because she had not spent much time around babies before. She was very gentle with him (you have to love labs!), and he cracked up whenever she would come near him.

Of course, Lucy had a ball with her being here! They played and even laid in Lucy’s bed together once. It was interesting though because it only took a day or so before the novelty wore off for them and they did their own thing in the evening. Lucy is pretty much a free spirit, and she is not terribly attached to me and John considering she is a dog. She will often disappear in the evenings into the office to sleep on her own, and even with Macy hanging out in the lounge with us she would still go off on her own. Macy is very much a ‘people dog,’ and she loved nothing more than sleeping at our feet in the evenings. Actually, she would have loved nothing more than to be on the couch with us, but being at our feet was second best! She spoiled us with affection!

She did get a little confused at times and would sometimes go over to her yard and start barking at the back door to be let in. I think about three days into her stay she also got a little homesick I think. That day she seemed to really want to be let into her house. But she was good about coming back to ours when we called for her, and once she got a couple of treats she seemed to be happy again!

We loved having her and miss her now that she has gone home again. I asked her family if they were sure they hadn’t developed some sort of animal allergy while they were away, just in case they needed us to take her for good. They said they didn’t, so John and I are developing a way to steal her. I think I might make some trousers with really big pockets to try to sneak her in!

Skin problems

I had to take Hayden to the doctor last week because he got another bad rash on his face, neck, and torso.  I think it’s to do with his sunscreen because he had some painful blotches in Florida after a couple of days wearing sunscreen, then he had the same thing before I took him to the doctor and daycare had put sunscreen on him 2 days in a row so he could go outside for a while.  The doctor wants him to see a pediatric dermatologist, so we have that appointment next week.  In the meantime, he put us back on the prescription cream for his trouble areas, hydrocortisone ointment on his face and neck (where he is not supposed to have the prescription cream applied), and he advised us not to give him eggs, nuts, or fish/shellfish until he is 2 years old since he seems to be sensitive to allergens.  Also, he wanted us to switch to a hypoallergenic formula as that can sometimes help.  Hayden looks completely better now, and surprisingly he took the formula without fuss.  It smells different from his regular formula, and the doctor said that he might not want to take it because of its taste.  But he was fantastic with it, which surprised us because he is never a hugely eager bottle drinker in general.  But I think I might start giving it to him 80% of the time and give him his regular organic formula the rest of the time, because I don’t like that the hypoallergenic stuff isn’t organic (it’s miles from organic!) and it’s super expensive as well.  Plus, I have stocked up on his old stuff because it went on sale.  Luckily that stuff keeps well, but he is only on formula for another 3 1/2 months so there isn’t all that much more time for him to use it.

Food

Hayden is growing up so fast, as babies do I suppose!  One of the indications of how much he is changing is all the foods he eats.  He has two meals and a snack every day.  The first meal is yogurt with some fruit and/or veg mixed in, dinner is porridge with fruit and/or veg mixed in, and the snack is fruit, veg, or tofu diced up or a teething biscuit, plus diluted juice.  The idea of the snack is for him to have finger foods that he can feed himself, even if very little goes in his mouth.  But so far he doesn’t really mess with the food, he just lets it sit on his high chair tray and waits for me to pop it into his mouth.  I am usually doing something like loading or unloading the dishwasher during snack time, so he just waits a while until I come by to feed him.  I know it won’t be long before he digs in himself!

Off the top of my head, he is already eating sweet potato, carrots, winter squash, green beans, snap peas, asparagus, mango, banana, peaches, kiwi (just tried today), cantaloupe, broccoli, tofu, yogurt, cereal (brown rice, millet, and/or rolled oats), cottage cheese.  He seems to love everything apart from banana, and even that he has days when he likes it just as much as anything else.  That’s lots of stuff!  I think John is worried that his food is taking over the freezer, but it’s the most important stuff in there (frozen pizza is a close second) because I love that we can give him homemade stuff that only takes a couple of minutes to throw together when it’s time for him to eat!

Eye April 1, 2008

Ok, I’ve had a few requests for photos of my black eye, so here you go.  This is 6 days after the accident, and it is already getting better (phew!).   I feel like a really classy mom when I take Hayden out in public with my shiner.  John’s nickname for me at the moment is Bruiser.  Don’t encourage him!