One Small Step for a Little Man

This is a fun game that Eamon invented called "walking." It started the other day when I would hold him up to practice another game called "standing" and he would just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Of course, sometimes he forgets and puts the same foot out twice and is confused why the whole going forward thing stops. But then again, he's only 3 months old.

Just the Two of Us

Eamon is helping me to write this. He's sitting on my lap, and only needs minimal help keeping himself upright. He's watching the letters appear on the computer and holding onto my wrist. Now he's trying to help press the keys.

It's an Eamon and Mommy day...just like Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday were Eamon and Mommy days. Daddy has flown the coop, at least until Thursday, on a Civil War extravaganza with a group of teachers from somewhere far away (Aaron has told me several times, but I get all his groups mixed up. Is this the group from New Mexico? The group from San Diego? The group from Texas? Eh...they're all warm places with little rainfall, and geoggers was never my strong suit.)

That makes 6 days. Six days of Eamon and Mommy, and 6 nights of will he sleep through the night? Probably, but what if he doesn't? What have I learned from these six days?

I have mad respect for single mothers.

Eamon is a great baby. He's an easy baby. He goes to sleep around 9 PM and stays there until about 6 AM. If he wakes up at all, it's for his pacifier, but I don't think he'll use that much longer because he has discovered his thumb and boy is that just so yummy. He's usually very well-mannered, and only cries when he's really upset. You fix whatever he's upset about, and he goes back to being a happy, content little guy. BUT, imagine if he weren't. Imagine if he were a little more high maintenance, or a screamer. How do those mothers do it?

And, of course, we're not doing it entirely alone. My parents have been a big help, and when Aaron's parents get here on Thursday, I know that they'll help too. The worst part was Saturday. I'd had a cold all week, and didn't get a lot of sleep Friday night (not due to Eamon, who slept like a rock, but due to a mini-crisis that turned out to be nothing really from Eamon's out-of-town father), then on Saturday I had to spend most of the day at an Odyssey of the Mind competition with some of my students. I came home an achy, snotty, exhausted mess. Luckily, I have wonderful parents who took Eamon and me in for the night. They told me to go to bed (which I did around 7PM), and then they got up with him in the morning so that I could sleep in. With their help over the weekend, I got better quickly.

Now Eamon and I are back at our house for the evening. He doesn't like to be put down in the afternoons or evenings, so I'm glad that he's learning to sit up enough to sit on my lap while I type. This will at least allow me to do some important things like schoolwork and check friends' Facebook statuses while he sucks on my hands (I think he has confused them for his hands). I'm really realizing just how much work Aaron contributes to this family, however, as I try to figure out how to do laundry while holding a baby, or do dishes while holding a baby, or feed the dog while holding a baby. I just need another pair of arms. Unfortunately, that pair of arms won't be home for another 2 nights.

We miss you, Daddy!

The Big Boy

We had our 2 month visit today at the doctor's office, and Eamon is officially a Big Boy.

Hooray!

He qualifies as such for the following reasons:

1. His Actual Size: Eamon is 13 pounds, 13 ounces (90th percentile), 24 1/2 inches (95th percentile, and his head is 16 inches (just under 75th percentile). This explains why carrying him in his carseat is getting more and more ridiculous by the day. My parents have nicknamed him "Little Moose." At first I objected to this, but now, when I look at him or carry him, I cannot help but find it quite appropriate. We are considering cutting down on the amount of Miracle Grow that we put into his bottles each night.

2. He Sleeps Through the Night: At least, he has for the last week. At about 5:00PM each day, he is incessantly hungry as he loads up in readiness for the long night ahead. He pretty much has a bottle in his mouth constantly from that time on until he passes out around 9:00 (he's still getting breastmilk almost exclusively, but I've gone to strictly pumping so it's always from a bottle...that's another long and drawn out story...suffice it to say that it's working better for both of us this way).

We're very happy with him sleeping through the night, and happier still that he's such a good baby that we haven't really had to fight with him much on it. We've been able to slowly coerce him into sleeping through the night without having to let him cry it out, which is good because I think that would have been stressful on everyone concerned (that being said, if he wasn't sleeping through the night by 3 months old, I was going to attempt to let him cry it out over my Spring Break in April). Instead, we just kept putting him in his crib sleepy but not asleep. If he cried for more than 5-10 minutes (fussing didn't count), we picked him up, calmed him down, and then put him right back in. He's always in bed by 10:00PM no matter what, though usually he passes out sooner (in a food coma as he digests the mega amounts of milk he eats prior to that). Of course, tonight might be different because the shots have made him a little fussy...we'll just have to see.

3. He's Acting Like a Big Boy: Besides growing quickly, he's very alert and into the world around him. My dad had a set of those large baby keys, and Eamon watched them for about 10 minutes one day, even batting at them a few times (though he doesn't do this consistently yet). He tracks everyone and turns towards voices. He recognizes mommy and daddy by sight and voice and is already starting a little stranger anxiety. He can put almost all his weight on his feet if we just give him a little support and sits pretty well if you hold him up. He's also starting blowing spit bubbles over the last couple of days, which is tons of fun. Also, he has discovered his thumb, and can reliably get it into his mouth.

4. He's letting us take him places. Specifically, we went to Colonial Williamsburg over the weekend for a couple of hours. We wanted to enjoy the nice weather. My first inclination had been to go to Yorktown Beach, but after it took us about half an hour just to get to the parking lot, we opted instead for Colonial Williamsburg. Eamon was very awake the entire time, watching and observing everything.

5. At the doctor's office today, he was remarkably resolute. He barely even flinched at the first shot, and though he cried for the next two, he only cried for about a minute afterwards, and stopped almost as soon as I picked him up. Within five minutes, he was smiling again as I was dressing him. He's a tough little dude, and really enjoyed his spiffy Band-Aids.

The Tease

Hello, and welcome to 4:30AM. Why am I blogging at 4:30 AM? Because I am UP at 4:30AM, and there is little else to do. There's a bottle warming in a pan of hot water and a baby right now deciding whether to stay asleep or fight the good fight to BE AWAKE.

Here's how we got to this point:

On Thursday night, a miraculous thing happened. Eamon went down at 10:00PM, like he usually does, and did not stir until 6 AM. That's right...he slept through the whole night. He did wake up once, having lost his pacifier, so Aaron put it back in his (Eamon's) mouth, and ultimately we ended up with 8 hours of sleep.

Ha! We said. A fluke. Just a fluke. Will never happen again.

It happened again Friday night. Well, we said, two flukes in a row. No chance of it happening again.

It happened again Saturday night. And finally, we dared to dream that hey, maybe Eamon was ready to sleep through the night! And we began to back ourselves on our proverbial backs. We had worked so hard, helping him learn how to self-soothe, creating bedtime routines and rituals to help him understand night versus day, look how far we had come from the beginning when he wanted to be held 24 hours a day or he would scream his head off...

And then Sunday night (last night), it all disappeared in a disappointing puff of smoke. He woke up at 1:00, and would not go back to sleep until Aaron fed him. He then woke up again at 3:30, and continued crying until I put his pacifier back in his mouth twice. He then woke up again at about 5:00, and same thing. He woke up for the last time at 6:30AM, which is his normal wake-up time anyway, and absolutely would not go back to sleep, so I just got up with him anyway, even though we had a snow day and we both totally could have slept a little more if he had been at all willing to have it.

Now, tonight. Well, he fussed for Aaron a bit around 1 AM again, but Aaron magically got him back to sleep somehow, because Aaron's are generally good like that (I like to think it's magical, but suspect it's really more to do with patiently calming him down and then putting him back to bed drowsy, but not asleep, until the kid finally stays down for good). Once again, Eamon woke up at 3:30, so I changed his diaper and put him in his swing while I pumped, because he didn't really seem all that hungry even though he hadn't eaten since 9PM. He has since fallen asleep, so I put him back in his crib and he's making gentle cooing baby sounds which could blossom into full-on sleep or full-on awakeness, you never can tell...

And I, of course, am now wide awake. Even though we have a two hour delay today.

The other big tease was that Eamon was supposed to have his 2 month check up yesterday. We had decided to wait to post until after this appointment, because really, he's grown so much and we were excited to share the official measurements with everyone. We've measured him on my bathroom scale, which isn't too accurate, and come up with something about 12-poundsish, and I attempted to use a tape measure to get his length and it was somewhere about 24-25 inchesish, but it's hard to know since he's a wiggly little bugger. He's well into 3 month sizes, and 6 month things are a little wide but none too long on him.

BUT, the doctor's office was closed. Because of the inch of snow. Which I feel is a very adequate reason for closing down a school, because then I get a day off, but should not close a doctor's office, because really, by the time our 4PM appointment rolled around, there was no snow left on the roads.

Now, who knows when I'll be able to get another well-baby check? So, you're just going to have to live with the unofficial measurements, just like I'll have to live with a baby who CAN sleep through the night when he feels like it, he just doesn't quite feel like it yet, thank you very much. Sigh.

Eamon vs. Sleep

For most of his life, Eamon has tried his very best to take in all he can. He is generally a happy baby and cries only when there is a problem (dirty diaper, hungry, lonely). Unfortunately for us, he also decided that 1-5 am was a GREAT time to do much of his observation. Kate and I have tried numerous techniques to get him on a schedule, and it has finally paid off. Little Man has slept pretty well over the past week, usually from 8 or 9 pm to 6 am with one feeding around 2-3 am. This is good news for us, since Kate had to return to work on Tuesday, and we were worried that both of us would be walking zombies at work.

I don't know what this portends, but I do know that both Kate and I were pretty difficult babies, and Eamon is not. This may have something to do with Kate's lack of allergen consumption, or Karma is really cool. Does that mean that the next one will be challenging, or that Eamon will get more difficult as he gets older? Time will tell.

He is much more alert now, and gives a wide range of facial expressions. A couple of nights ago, he gave me the "people's eyebrow!" He isn't quite sure what to make of bath time, but he LOVES having his diaper changed. Every time, he flashes a smile. This is good news. I am glad my child will not be happy wallowing in his own mess.

We had our first non-adult visitor over the weekend, as our friends Beth and Jeff came over for dinner Saturday night with their 14 month old daughter Samantha. Things went well, but I think Sam was more interested in Nesta than Eamon. Another instance of the adage, "you can't compete against animals."

No, Seriously, He Smiles

We present, as evidence of the smiling thing, this video. Ignore the fact that I sound like an idiot trying to get him to do it.

As further proof, he had just pooped and peed, had finished eating and wasn't sleepy. He wasn't gassy, either, just kind of lying there staring at things when I started talking to him and he started smiling back.

Our Village

About two weeks after Eamon was born, I was going crazy with being stuck in the house. Aaron and I bundled up our little bundle of joy and went "out for lunch," which means that we went to Fuddruckers at about 3 PM and ordered our hamburgers to go. There was NO ONE there, except the staff.

While we were waiting for our food, the manager came out and sat down at a table to eat. It turned out that she was also pregnant--and due in a week. She was excited to see our little one, though kind enough not to try to touch him since I am a little paranoid about strangers or excessive amounts of people touching him before he gets his shots (people at school keep asking me when I'm going to bring him in...like I would really take him to an elementary school during cold and flu season).

The manager was actually due the following week. She was having a little boy as well, and asked us some questions about how we were handling him. When Aaron went to get our food and put together his hamburger, she told me how lucky I was that I had him (of course I know this already). The father was not in her life, so she was going to be doing the single mother thing. Not only that, but she didn't really have much family around here, and wasn't sure what she was going to do about babysitting since she works at a restaurant and has crazy hours. Lastly, she only had about 4 weeks of vacation time saved up.

This being Eamon's fourth week of life, I find myself thinking about this woman very often. How on earth is she doing to do it? I had my husband home for the first 3 weeks before I had to go it alone. Today, when Eamon went through his second night of not sleeping (he's fine...he just got overtired and then gassy and then stubborn because he wanted to be held all night), I texted my mother about 5:30 AM and asked if she could PLEASE babysit for a few hours so that I could get some sleep, and she was over here by 6:15. Eamon's other grandparents (Aaron's parents), his Oma and Opa, have also been so kind and generous. They completely did his nursery and helped us get some things were were still missing before he was born (like the swing...thank GOD for the swing), and have already been down twice to offer their support and spend time with their grandson (again, taking care of him so that Aaron and I could get some sleep).

It's not just those who help to take care of Eamon, either. Aaron's job was nice enough to let him take an extra week (he only had 2 weeks of vacation) off. At school, my fourth grade team has been invaluable at keeping me in the loop and making sure that my sub stays more or less on track with my kids. Friends have stopped by to see the little guy, or bring me lunch, or go with me to get our hair done so that I don't go completely insane from lack of contact with the outside world. We didn;t have to buy hardly anything for Eamon ourselves because our wonderful friends provided so much (and Julie even came from Massachusetts to organize it all!).

I don't know how single mothers do it. I have SO much respect and admiration for them. I know that we're extremely lucky to have so many wonderful people in our lives. I know it's possible to raise a baby completely on your own, but I'm so glad that Aaron and I have managed to cobble together a great little village to help us out. You are all very loved.

Eamon and Sally (coworker and friend from school)

Eamon and Charmaine (friend and coworker from school)

Eamon and his grandparents on both sides