Not so fast my friend...

So the easy nights appear to be over for the time being. Currently, we’re transitioning Natalie from the Fisher Price Rocker Sleeper to a more flat position. The rocker keeps her pretty snug and slightly upright. She’s been in that for a while and has slept through the night every night since about she was 6 weeks old. We’re one for three now in the new position (one night of uninterrupted sleep), which is still slightly upright in a bassinet....still in our room.

The goal is to get her to her crib in her room by her 3-month birthday. Hopefully it starts to go better. She’s weighing in at about 11.5 pounds, just a half pound short of the next size diaper. I mention this because we already have over 300 size 2 diapers while our supply of size 1 is almost completely depleted. So we’re of course wondering if we go ahead and buy some more size 1 diapers or switch to the size 2 when we are out of the size 1 diapers. I’m not real interested in getting stuck with a bunch of diapers that don’t fit anymore. I’m thinking we’ll just switch to size 2 when we’re out of size 1 diapers.

Natalie is getting more active by the day. She likes to hold hands while she pushes and pulls herself up. One of us will sit her on our lap and and let her grab our fingers and we’ll say “up” and she starts to pull and push off with her legs until she’s standing on our thighs. She’ll start to wobble sometimes but she likes to look over our shoulder to see what’s going on, especially if she’s with me and Tiffany’s in the kitchen behind us. 

Tomorrow is my day to work out of the house and it’s month end for Tiffany so it will be a loooooong day, but a good one. Hopefully we don’t run out of bottles.

I have legs!

Natalie has been moving her legs since she was born obviously, but she’s gotten more and more interested in their capabilities in the last week. We actually hold her hands and she can stand up for a few seconds. More interestingly, and worrying, depending on how you look at it is that she’ll stand up in her bouncer. Last night during dinner I look over and her legs are fully extended with her feet pushing off the base of the bouncer. I understand now why you need to strap babies in to these things. 

She’ll also do what I call her crunches where she pulls her feet and hips back to where her foot can almost go in her mouth. This is particularly helpful when changing a diaper and if I didn’t know better I’d say she was doing it on purpose because when I wipe her butt she’ll smile as she pulls her legs up to her face.  She’s also got the leg portion of crawling down very well. Granted she’s not crawling because she hasn’t figured out that her arms need to move too. There’s a lot of kicking and digging into the rug or my chest and she will move a little but only a few inches before her arms give way since they don’t move in conjunction with the legs.

I’ve also found that I’ve grown to use to the “wetness indicator” on the diapers. Our latest box of diapers don’t have them. It’s a stripe that turns from yellow to blue when the diaper is wet. Seems to me the color change would make more sense the other way, but I digress. Anyway, for some reason even though I bought the same exact box and brand, no wetness indicator. It boggles the mind how many variations of the same diaper you can have from the same company. I’m not going to take the time to count them, but take a look the next time you’re at the store. Check to see how many varieties of Pampers there are in a particular size.

I will say this, whoever came up with the rib that goes around the legs is an absolute genius. That has saved us on numerous occasions from having blowouts. Despite the mind numbing number of choices, the actual design of diapers today is pretty amazing. There’s some sort of technology that pulls the wetness away from them to where it’s barely even touching. This can make it hard to tell when they need to be changed though because Natalie can be dirty for a while before making a fuss. This is where the wetness indicator comes in handy even though there are diapers that are clearly dirty just by looking and feeling, or in some very special cases...smelling. At one point Tiffany’s mom had floated the idea of using cloth diapers....what a horrible, horrible mistake that would have been .

Pretty soon she’ll be ready to graduate from her tummy time mat to an exercise mat. We don’t have one yet and I have mixed feelings about getting one. It’s not that I don’t want to spend the money, it’s that I know that a lot of these toys get used for like 2 months and then you are stuck storing them for the next X years.

Natalie’s been down for a nice nap for already well over an hour so my time here is probably running out. She’s got in the habit of going back to sleep after eating breakfast...wouldn’t we like to all do that? So that’s it for now.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

It occurred to me this morning that this time last year we were in Las Vegas. Not a bad time to be in Las Vegas, St. Patrick’s Day, beginning of the NCAA tournament, anyway, obviously trips like that are not in our future anytime soon.

Natalie and I are preparing for a busy day. I’m doing some work, she’s enjoying a nap. If you don’t know, for the first time ever, every NCAA tournament game is being broadcast in its entirety live. I’ve been stretching my thumb for weeks in anticipation.

Anyway, lucky for Natalie that the Penn State vs. Temple game will be broadcast down here in Texas at 1 local time. I don’t think it’s particularly good draw for our Nittany Lions and Natalie agrees. At 5:45, Florida tips off so we have a double header of sorts. We’ll fill the gap with some feedings and diaper changing. Some friends that are also Penn State alums sent some PSU gear, but it’s still a little big. It will be perfect for football season and she has her outfit for today anyway, as you see here. (I took the picture after she woke up and ate and I changed her). 

Tiffany returned to work yesterday for good and will start her schedule of being in the office four days and home one next week. She will be home Wednesday’s and I will be home Thursday’s. Monday, Tuesday and Friday Natalie will have some time at Nana’s down the street. We hope this is a good mix of not overburdening Tiffany’s parents and also having some time with her ourselves. We’re obviously very fortunate to be able to have such a schedule and adjust our time at home accordingly.

People keep saying that Natalie is extremely alert for a two-month old and doing a good job with her neck. I’ve never been around a newborn for this long before so I couldn’t tell you if they are just being nice or if in fact this is true. Her hair and facial expressions do give her an older appearance though. She still has a lot of hair so we’re pretty sure that’s not going anywhere.

Yesterday we set a record for diapers within a given time span. I picked her up at Nana’s around 5 and came home and changed her and fed her soon after. By 7, we were on to diaper number four since arriving at the house. They were all also what I call “combo platters”, I’m sure you can figure that out. Anyway, her kidneys and digestive tract are obviously working fine.

Natalie continues to sleep through the night. We wake up before she does every morning, including the weekends and when she does wake up she rarely cries. Tiffany sometimes has to wake her up to feed her before she leaves for work. I’m sure if we left her alone long enough she probably would start to cry. Other parents seem somewhat irritated that she is such a good sleeper. During the day is a different story. She isn’t a big napper so if she takes a nap for 2 hours, that’s usually pretty good. Typically, she takes a lot of cat naps, so by the end of the day she looks kind of tired and is pretty cranky. After about 5, if she’s not being fed or changed, she’s usually not in the best mood. She’ll be waking up shortly and will probably be ready to eat again so I better prepare for that. She has FAR less patience when I feed her than when Tiffany does so the sooner that bottle is ready, the better.

Rub-a-dub

Natalie enjoyed her first official bath over the weekend. If you have a few minutes, you can enjoy some highlights here.....

Tiffany and I are both home today. She took some more time off after her training ended last week at the office. She’ll go back Wednesday and start working from home one day a week beginning the week following. I’ll stay home on Thursday’s and Tiffany will stay home either Tuesday or Wednesday most likely.

Natalie is starting to make more and more noises. We of course call this talking, or at least Tiffany does. She is also smiling all the time now which is nice. It’s hard to believe how many clothes she’s gone through already. I’ll ask Tiffany why she hasn’t worn a particular outfit for a while and she then tells me it doesn’t fit anymore.  I’m sure there are things that don’t fit that never got worn which is a shame.

Tiffany took Natalie to the mall yesterday, quite the outing, they were gone over 5 hours but did return home with a dress for Easter and some portraits from the “Picture People”..I’m not sure why they needed to go there when we have a nice camera here, but I wasn’t with them ;). Sunday is Tiffany’s birthday so that will be Natalie’s first trip (of many I’m sure) to Maime’s, Tiffany’s grandmother. Natalie hasn’t decided what she’s going to get her mommy yet so I’ll probably just put her name on my gift...once I get one....unless I already have.....

Daddy Day Care

We’re well into day one of my first whole day experience watching Natalie. On Thursday’s for the foreseeable future I will be working out of the house. This comes from  a combination of giving Nana a break, but also because gas prices are getting a little high for me to commute almost 100 miles a day....I am glad i have the 35 mpg Corolla however.

Tiffany left at about 6:50 this morning and Natalie was stirring after her breakfast but did fall asleep for a bit. After waking up she was in a good mood so I didn’t start her first bottle...that was a mistake. When she decides she’s hungry, she will whale and I mean whale. That is is the last sign of hunger so I think I’m going to try giving her a bottle every 2 to 2 1/2 hours even she isn’t acting super fussy. She’s sleeping now in the frogger rocker. Hopefully she will make it until 11:30 when i have her slated for her next bottle. 

...now approaching 4 in the afternoon. We’ve plowed through three bottles already and I’m hoping to make it to at least 4 to get to that fourth bottle. About the time I thought this morning, “Gee I haven’t had a bad diaper in a while”, I got a special treat.....followed by an even “bigger” treat an hour later.

I’m sure it’s coincidence but she always has a big smile when I’m changing a full diaper, kind of like she’s saying “gotcha sucker, good luck with that”. There’s a lot of idiosyncrasies to changing a diaper that you don’t think about before you actually have to do it. I’d say the biggest issue isn’t cleaning or getting the new diaper under there fast enough, it’s keeping the feet out of the dirty diaper during the swap out.

You and I may just lay still if we were getting our diaper changed, but something about laying down with your pants off seems to make a 2-month old think it’s play time and Natalie likes to perform a series of kicks and squats....this is also usually the time when she’s grinning. 

Also, another strike against the diaper genie, apparently you can just throw a diaper in there at the end of the cartridge and the bag will detach and you will have diapers all over the inside. Meanwhile I’m convinced we got about 12 “bags” out of two packs at six bucks apiece. Big, big scam, couldn’t advise against it more. I’m contemplating about cutting our losses and buying a rubbermaid trash can with a tight lid. 

Removing that, it’s been a pretty good day. I’m trying to figure out how long to warm the bottles up. I squirt it on my arm, but I seem to keep it cold or get it too hot. Natalie won’t drink it even  at room temperature let alone cold and of course I don’t want to burn her mouth so it’s a delicate balancing act. Also, just to say something positive about one of the must have baby expenses, the Boppy is outstanding. Obviously, it’s a huge help for Tiffany but I use it when I’m feeding her and I also like to sit her in it while it’s on my lap and have her face me.  For those that don’t know, the Boppy is a pillow that wraps around you. As dumb as the Diaper Genie is, the Boppy is one of the better innovations as far as I can tell.