To Make a Long Story Short

So, this started off as a REALLY long post about why Eamon has been weaned already onto formula, and then I realized: I was writing it more for me than for y’all. I’m really disappointed and a little heartbroken, but suffice it to say—on this super hypoallergenic formula (read: super expensive), his eczema has finally cleared up, his cradle cap is a lot better, and his eyes aren’t nearly as runny (this might sound familiar to those who read the Molloy blog). His tummy seems a lot better and his poops aren’t green and explosive anymore. He was weaned in approximately 10 minutes, in which we stuck a bottle in his mouth with formula, he fought it for a minute or two, and then decided that food was food. It’s not that I wasn’t willing to eliminate things from my diet, but I already have a ton of allergies, and even as bland as my diet was, he was still allergic to something. I figured that if I took too much more out of my diet, the milk wouldn’t have any nutritional value, anyway.

So.

Anyway, here’s a bunch of cute pictures.

Meltdown Extravagana

Um, okay. So: Easter.

Here’s the thing. We’re not pulling your proverbial blog legs here—most of the time Eamon is a sweet, easy baby. Would you believe that we’ve never seen him cry that hard for that long? No, really. So, then, the question is: what turned an event that should have been a nice Easter gathering into Screamfest 2009?

We present our theories, in the order that they occurred that day.

1. He was hungry. We ruled this out when we gave him a bottle and he still screamed.

2. He was refluxing. Well, crying that hard will give you reflux, but even a few solid burps he was still giving us the business, so…

3. He was tired. After about 45 minutes of screaming, I finally got him to sleep. He slept for about half an hour, and when he awoke…he was still screaming.

4. He was hot. When I changed his diaper, we realized he was so warm that certain delicate parts were actually stuck to his diaper (baby sweater vests: achingly adorable, but they don't really breathe). Ouch. But, even after I changed his clothes and let him hang around in just a onesie, he was still crying, so…

5. He had an upset stomach. I must have eaten something (who knows what? This child seems to be allergic to everything if he can’t even digest my milk), and his face was all broken out, and he had a light rash over his body. Still, that doesn’t usually bother him so fiercely that he can’t stop screaming.

6. He was overwhelmed. There were at least 30 people there. Many of them wanted to hold him, and Eamon has definitely started with the stranger anxiety (today at lunch he let my friend Charmaine hold him for approximately 3 minutes before he started screeching…she passed him back to me, and he immediately calmed right back down). I felt terrible, since many lovely-hearted people wanted to help, and kept offering to take him and walk him around…but every time we passed him away to someone, he just screamed more and louder.

This current theory is also validated by the fact that as soon as we got into the car, he was smiling and happy again. On the way home, we stayed with Aaron’s friends Marc and Keiko, and Eamon smiled and cooed at them (no one there tried to hold him), and was positively enraptured by their 4 year old, Ayana, who played peek-a-boo with him and sang him songs and basically was wildly entertaining. I don’t know how Eamon will feel about a younger brother or sister, but he certainly seems to like older ones.

Anyway, most people at Easter were very reassuring. There were several people there with babies, all of whom were smiling and cuddly-- except for Eamon, who wanted nothing to do with the entire affair. This was his grand coming-out party, and he would have preferred to have stayed in the corner. As a shy person myself, I completely understand, but it still would have been nice for Aaron’s family to see the smiling, happy baby that we know so well.

Not that he had a completely miserable time. He really enjoyed meeting Lucas, his cousin who is exactly 3 months older than Eamon. This was before anyone else showed up, and Eamon and Lucas really seemed to hit it off. Lucas was sitting on the floor when we put Eamon’s carseat next to him; Lucas immediately started eating Eamon’s feet, and Eamon burst into a huge smile. I assume this is infant for “let's be friends.”

As for the traveling part…Eamon travels well enough. Someone has to sit in the backseat with him, armed with a bottle and a bunch of toys, because Eamon also gets bored really easily. He slept most of the trip, so that was nice, and was still able to get to sleep at night, too. He’s also very interested in toys now, especially his Chatter Elmo, though I think this is more because he thinks the eyeballs look yummy and always tries to eat them (yes, he only plays with this toy with supervision).

So, we are tentatively looking forward to traveling northwards again with Eamon. This time, though, we’ll probably limit our visits to one family at a time, and preferably to see someone who enjoys playing peek-a-book. Or gnawing on his feet. Yummy.

Eamon vs Goop

Our little (big) guy had his first cold this week- coughing and goop in his eye. What made this episode particularly interesting is that he never got in a bad mood. Don't get me wrong, my boy can be fussy, but it's never for very long and it's usually because he is a) tired and needs to sleep or b) is gassy and uncomfortable. Both things are easily correctable, and he will quickly return to his smiling self once the problem has been resolved.

We think that the goop in his eye was a result of a blocked tear duct, something his cousin Lucas had problems with. After a trip to the doctor (where he weighed in at 16+ lbs!!), we got a prescription for medication that you had to smear on his eyelid. Needless to say, he did not appreciate this. However, once the initial placement was done and he voiced his displeasure, he would smile at us.

Unfortunately, the person in our household who got the worst of this sickness was Kate. A devestating sinus infection pretty muck KO'd her for the first 4 days of her spring break. Not good times. Kate has a remarkable knack of holding off any sickness until there is a break from school. I don't think I would classify this as a talent, but it does say something for her work ethic.

Eamon has started over the past week or so to become very interested in the world around him. Always very alert, even on the day he was born, he now finds all sorts of things fascinating. For example, we dog-sat for Kate's parents early in the week, and the interaction between Socrates and Nesta was the source of great amusement for our child. His grandparents got him a Giggle Elmo this week, and he is slowly but surely figuring out how to make it work. Nesta remains the most interested in the toy (she would like it to be hers and can't figure out why it's not), but Eamon does enjoy it.

One of Eamon's greatest pleasures is watching stuff (anything really- he tracks both Kate and I across the room, will watch Nesta do her thing, examines stuff on the wall, is particulary interested in the two Shisa lion dogs my friend Shawn brought us from Okinawa) so we got him a Bumpo chair so he can sit up and see. He loves it. While making brownies for the Meredith family Easter get-together, Kate put him in his chair and conducted a cooking show for him. He was very entertained (if for no other reason than Mommy was talking to him, which he enjoys.)

One of our worries is that he seems to have started exhibiting separation and stranger anxiety, which is unusual for a child his age. I took him to Kate's school last week so we could all have lunch together, and he was whisked up by the adoring teachers at her school and taken to another room. He is normally (as I've pointed out) a very happy child, but he flipped out when he looked around and there was no Mommy or Daddy. Maybe he'll grow out of it sooner due to the early start, but who knows. It will be an interesting time at Easter to see how he handles all the ruckus.

He can get over-stimulated pretty easily, as was evidenced by our second trip to Colonial Williamsburg last weekend (it was the kickoff weekend for the 30th anniversary of African American programming and I wanted to be there for it). He did really well while we sat outside the Peyton Randolph House waiting for a tour, but lasted only a few minutes in the house. In all fairness, he wasn't upset, just talkative, and the tour guide wasn't very good (not that he would know that, but Daddy did- and I had enough very quickly as well.) We made our way out to Great Hopes Plantation, where he lasted about 30 minutes being fawned over (he does get the rock star treatment almost everywhere we take him publicly) before having a meltdown. We took him back to the car, where he fell asleep before I had backed out of the parking spot.

Hopefully, he'll do better at Easter, where he will get to meet his cousins for the first time. He did really well when our friends the Weldy's (Courtenay, Andrew, Tommy and Tyler - pictured above with Eamon) came to visit, so I'm hopeful.

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.