Busy Week

My SIL Renee and her boys were in town and Mikaela also spent the week in Tucson. On Wednesday we went to the zoo - this was Ari's first time. Of course I forgot my camera so thank you to Renee for taking some pics. :) He didn't want to sit in his stroller, so I carried him throughout most of the zoo - here is a pic of him peeking over my shoulder.




On Thursday I got to spend the morning with Mikaela. I haven't gotten to spend much quality time with her the past few months so I'm glad I got to spend time with her while she was in town. We did some "projects" as she called them that morning: made necklaces and did some cutting and glueing. We also took a walk to the park where she played for about an hour while Ari napped in his wrap and I watched. I didn't get any pics though, I meant to take the camera to the park - are you noticing a pattern here?? Doh.

On Tuesday Ari spent time with his Nana Mary as well as Mandy, Renee, and his cousins. Renee got some more cute pics (below). I love the look on his face in the first one with his lips all pursed, plus you can see his chubby legs in that one! And you can tell by the last one that he still hates tummy time!

Four Months

Ari is four months old as of yesterday; we went to his check up yesterday afternoon. He weighs 14lbs 14oz and is about 24.5" long - he was in the 50th percentile all around. This is great considering he was at the 3rd percentile at 2 weeks and the 25th percentile at 2 months. :) He is so deliciously chubby now! He didn't get his shots yesterday because he has an ear infection. :( He got a little sick when I did a couple weeks ago and has been congested, and Sunday night and yesterday morning he was fussier than usual... sure enough, the doctor stuck the thing in his ear to check it and he went from happy baby to screaming baby in 2 seconds. (His left ear by the way - I also got an ear infection in my left ear a couple weeks ago when I was sick. :p) So now he is on antibiotics and we will go back in two weeks to get his shots, assuming he is all better by then. He also has a little eczema on his legs which lotion has not been helping. The doctor said to give him a bath every day without soap. I thought bathing every day even without soap would dry his skin out more, but the doc said it would keep it better hydrated. And then we just need to put better lotion on him so we got the Eucerin cream to try. I'm not too surprised with this problem since it so SO dry this time of year, the humidity has been at less than 10%. Hopefully lots of bath and good thick lotion will help.

Ari is pretty much on track developmentally. He smiles all the time, still rolling over from tummy to his back and working on rolling the other way, babbles a lot, reaches for toys, etc. He is not giggling yet though no matter what we try! We can't wait to hear those baby giggles.

On Sunday we did group pics at Penny's with his cousins plus a few individual pics of him. The day was a little difficult for me since Sean was sick and couldn't come to help, we had a fairly long drive to the Tucson Mall (and yes, he still hates the car lots of the time and screamed most of the way there and back), etc., but we ended up getting some good pictures. (I think I told Renee that I would never do that again... but I'm sure I'll be up for the challenge next year anyway. :) The last one below though is one of my favorites and shows you what can happen when you try to get pics with two babies, a toddler, a four year old, an eight year old, and a ten year old!

It has begun....

While Momma ran to the store the other day Ari and I had a little chat. It may never stop....

Ari's First Halloween

I know Ari doesn't care about Halloween yet but we still had fun dressing him up and taking pictures! His "official" costume was a lion (because "Ari" means "lion" - I couldn't resist). He also had cute pumpkin-style jammies so he wore those before and after his lion costume. The lion costume is too cute but who the heck comes up with the designs? It has fur all around the wrists/hands, which means when baby wants to chew on his hands he gets fur in his mouth and poking his eyes, which he wasn't crazy about. :p

Anyway, after being sick all week (me) and teething all week (Ari) plus a case of pink eye for both of us, I'm glad we were both feeling much better and were able to have a good time yesterday. I like Halloween, coming up with creative costume ideas and eating candy is way fun! It will be a blast when he is old enough to understand and it enjoy it too. :) Although when that day comes, I'll do the costume stuff and Sean can do the pumpkin carving, since I am like Ari's cousin Ian - I never liked getting my hands all yucky with sticky gooey stuff! ;-)

Hope everyone had a fun Halloween! Now I can look forward to pumpkin pie and mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving. :)

Just because....

A few recent pics... Ari and Miks, "the cutest pumpkin in the patch," and a couple others. :)

I have been back at work for three weeks now, only three weeks left! November 13th is my last day. I am so glad to only have nine more days at this job. Ari will be happier, too - he loves his Nana Alexis and his Aunt Mandy, but he hates that mama has to wake him up early and then put him in the dreaded car first thing in the morning! And he lets me know how he feels the only way he can: by screaming and crying all the way to our destination. Poor little guy. I am still trying to figure out what I might be able to do part time (10-15 hrs a week) on our side of town... ideas? I have thought about things like after school tutoring, or working in a daycare, or babysitting... I have lots of clerical experience too. Hmmmm....

Although I won't have to drive him around nearly as much after I'm not working this current job, I still need to drive him around sometimes, and he continues to HATE the car and/or his carseat. I think it might be combination of both - he fusses as soon as the straps are completely tightened - but he also seems to fuss less in the truck. Maybe this is just because Sean mostly drives him around in the truck during this afternoon naptime...? I am thinking of buying one of those mobile toy things that attach to the carseat, but the ones I've found have gotten crummy reviews. A much more expensive option would be to try a different seat - I have known babies that hated one seat and were fine in another, but seriously how do you figure that out without spending way too much money?? Other people have suggested that he might like the car better once he can face forward, but that is many months off still. I have tried rolling windows down to create white noise, playing all different sorts of music, singing and talking to him, giving him the pacifier, etc. I also usually sit in the back with him when Sean is with us, although it doesn't seem to help much - just drives me crazier because the screaming is even louder back there. I would be happy to spend $150 on a new seat if I knew it would cut down the screaming by at least 50%. But since there is no way of knowing that we will first experiment with some cheaper options of installing some sort of toys first.

Other than not liking to get up with me for work three days a week and not liking the car, little man is doing GREAT. :-) He smiles all day and all night and he is getting seriously chubby! He is still a wiggler and likes to be sitting up and looking around a lot more now. And although he hated the sling and the front carrier, he loves his Moby-style wrap that his Nana Alexis made! It is like baby Valium, he takes 3-4 hour naps in this thing. He is also sleeping 7-8 hours most nights, which is awesome. His next doc appt is on November 9th, I will be interested to see how much he weighs - he has grown so much, he is close to catching up with his cousin Everett. :)

I have been nervous lately about taking him out and about because of flu season. Sean has already gotten his flu shot and I will be getting mine soon, so hopefully we can avoid too much illness in our house this season. I think I will also try to get the H1N1 shot, if my doctor's office gets it in soon. Sean's company is switching health insurance, so if I can't get the vaccine by the end of this month, the new insurance (BCBS) that we will have as of Nov 1 isn't going to cover it and I'm not sure how much it would cost out of pocket.

I am looking forward to the holiday season! Ari's first Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas - I love it!! I am also looking forward to getting his photos taken with his cousins in a few weeks, especially since these will be his first professional photos. :)

Three Months

Ari is three months old today! I can’t even believe it. I guess this is how quickly time will go by from now on, now that we are parents. ;) He is such a cute little man! He is smiley and I’ve heard a couple giggles so far. He is definitely ticklish. He is super strong and has great head control. He usually sleeps 5-7 hours in a row at night now. He is somewhere around 12+lbs now and about 23.5-24 inches long. He still likes his swing, bath time, being outside, and the ceiling fan. He has been discovering his hands and spends a lot of time trying to get his fingers or his thumb into his mouth, sometimes successfully. He is “talking” a lot more now.

 

Unfortunately, he is still not a fan of his carseat / being in the car and spends much of the time during car rides fussing and crying. This is kind of a bummer since we don’t live close to anything so going anywhere usually requires at minimum a 15-20 minute car ride. He also doesn’t want to be put down for naps during the day – I always have to hold him for him to stay asleep and if I put him down he wakes up anywhere from 5 seconds to 15 minutes later. However we think the solution to this may be to put black out shades in his room so we have a nice dark space for nap time, so we are looking into that. Don’t get me wrong, I like to snuggle him, but he takes at least a couple naps during the day and it makes it difficult for me to do things like eat, go to the bathroom etc, let alone get anything done around the house.

 

I went back to work on Monday and am working three days a week. I’m planning to work about six weeks and then hopefully find something closer to home and work fewer hours. Today was my third day back at work. Ari goes to my mom’s one day a week and to his aunt Mandy’s two days a week. Sean picks him up in the afternoon when he gets off work. So far he seems to be doing ok with it; fortunately we never had any trouble getting him to take a bottle or anything. I am pumping while I’m at work and seem to be producing plenty during the day for him to eat during the next work day so that is going fine. I miss him like crazy and it is really hard to leave him, but I am so grateful that I don’t have to leave him with strangers!! I don’t know if I could. I don’t want to be working right now but there are some silver linings: a paycheck (yay!), some time to myself (even if it’s just a couple hours a week in the car), and I appreciate the hours I DO get to spend with him even more! Plus I like my boss and have some really great coworkers. My friend and coworker Katie is dying to babysit for us, and I think mom and dad are pretty ready to have a little quality time without the baby very soon.

The first three pics are from this evening, the rest were taken within the last couple weeks.

tummy time

I don't do tummy time with Ari very often because a, he doesn't like it, and b, he just rolls over after a minute or two and has been doing that since maybe week 2 or 3. I know we need to keep doing it though so I am going to keep trying. He is pretty strong already. This is how tummy time goes...

Back to work... kind of.

So I had lunch with my boss last week. Sean and I had pretty much decided I shouldn't go back to this particular job, but there was one problem in my eyes: I have already been out of work for over three months (including bed rest) and I really should have let them know sooner that I wasn't coming back. Part of why I didn't was because I wanted to collect the extended medical leave pay (only fair given they don't offer maternity leave), but I also thought I might not have much of a choice in going back as far as finances.

Anyway, I didn't want to screw over my boss (who is a great lady) nor did I want to burn bridges and ruin what would otherwise be a stellar reference from a job I have held for a couple years. So we decided I will go back part time for about six weeks in order to help them catch up with encountering and cases and to help train someone new. They are already in the hiring process because another worker moved out of state to go back to school, but I don't think they have found anyone yet. 

I start back in two weeks, Oct 5. I will work three days a week: Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays. I was fortunate enough to get to choose the days, because these are the days that our family members can watch Ari. He will be with my mom on Mondays and with his aunt Mandy on Tuesdays and Fridays. I don't want to go back to work, even part time and temporarily, but I feel so much better that he will be left with family. Aside from my natural tendency toward anxiety and paranoia, working for daycares and CPS really left me with a fear of leaving my own child with strangers. :p

My boss thinks that once I go back I will want to keep working. She said she thinks I'll enjoy being out of the house and "baby-free" etc. Yeah, right. First, that job is super stressful and busy and crisis-driven and I'm worried about this affecting my milk supply in various ways. But also when the cost of going back to work is calculated out, I would only be bringing home anywhere from $3.75 to maybe $5 an hour.... LOL. Yeah, I don't think I'll want to stick with that kind of paycheck for that kind of stress.

Two weeks left of staying home everyday with my baby... I am going to try to enjoy it, even when he is fussy and waking up every two hours at night! ;-)

Two Months

Ari is two months old today. He had his two month check up; he is a healthy boy. :) He is 10lb 1oz and 22.5" long - 25th percentile for both. At his two week check up he was around the 3rd percentile, so this was a good jump for him. The doctor said his umbilical hernia was very small and minor, nothing to worry about and it will most likely correct on its own within a few months (about what we figured). He had to get immunizations today, which was tough, but he did pretty well. We gave him tylenol beforehand and he screamed pretty good when the first shot went in but stopped crying within a couple minutes, and then I fed him and he was fine.

Ari can hold his head up for long periods of time, roll over from his tummy to his back, push up with his legs and hold all his weight while "standing," smile, track objects with his eyes... and he can (and often does) sleep for 5-6 hours straight at night! He also loves it when mama sings him lullabies and Mockingbird is his favorite - it can calm down a screaming fit faster than most anything else. ;)  He likes to be rocked, he likes to sit up and look around, and he loves to go outside. He continues to be fascinated with the ceiling fan as well.

Here he is this evening, all tired out from his doctor appt, bandaids and all.

I tried to take some two month pics earlier today, but he was kind of fussy as you can see from that pouty lip in the second one.

Somehow when he sleeps on dad, his head starts up by dad's chin and he is vertical, but he always ends up like this.

And some smiles from earlier this week, just because. :)