Leaving On a Jet Plane

We’re getting ready to accompany Natalie on her first trip outside Texas. I feel more like a pack mule than anyone going on a trip himself. Tiffany started to get things together on Saturday for this trip. Typically, we pack the night before, not days ahead, like we do do since we our only our daughter’s entourage. Natalie is probably bringing more than her own weight in food, accessories and clothing. 

Tomorrow I should he carrying my backpack, our camera bag, my suitcase, the car seat and base and potentially the stroller depending who’s holding Natalie, what she’s sitting in and how we’re moving her around. I’m working on growing another arm.Typically we like to fly early in the morning, first flight, less chance for delay. That’s not the case tomorrow.

Tomorrow we will be taking off at 7:15 PM CST or 8:15 EST so it will make for a long day, but we’re hoping that Natalie will sleep most of the flight since she is usually in bed and asleep by 7:30. Of course the later departure opens up the possibility of flight delay, especially since it looks like there is a decent chance of a heavy thunderstorm tomorrow night despite the fact that it’s rained maybe three times in the last 4 months here. I also checked the weather in the northeast for the week this morning and wouldn’t you know it, they’re going to be in the midst of heatwave this week with highs near 100 by the weekend. Just when we think we’re getting out of the Texas heat. 

Natalie must have figured out she hit 6 months last week because she is progressing pretty rapidly now. She sits up by herself all the time and is now pulling herself up on the couch and looked to be figuring out the crib so I lowered that yesterday. Her crawling is progressing as she’s starting to move better with her feet and hands in tandem. 

At her doctor’s appointment on Thursday Natalie weighed in at 16.2 pounds and measured 27 inches. That puts her at the 51st percentile in weight and 89th percentile in length so we may have a tall one on our hands. She goes back at 9 month so we’ll see if she stays on track. I think I read somewhere that a baby is suppose to be twice her body weight at birth by 6 months. That would have put her at 17 pounds so she’s definitely shy of that, but she did lose a lot of weight in the hospital before we left.

Of course with the activity level increasing, she’s starting to explore the house on her own more. I put her on the floor in her room for two minutes the other night while I got her bath ready and I turn around and she had crawled out of her room and into the bathroom. I guess she was ready for her bath. 

She has plenty of toys to play with but her favorites are any electrical chord, shoes, my cell phone and the remote control. I swear you could have 30 toys on the ground and one thing you prefer she not go for and sure enough, she’ll find that and try to stick it in her mouth. She could learn a lot from Chase. She’ll throw things at him that are her toys and he won’t go for them. He’s never bothered one of her toys, but will go crazy when he grabs one of his which we leave out less often now. Maybe she’ll pick that up from him over time. For now I’ll settle for her sleeping on the plane.

Birthday Wishes

It was my hope that Natalie would start crawling this past Sunday, my birthday. No such luck. Truth be told, she’s probably not that close. She’s good at flipping herself over and getting up on all fours, but that is usually followed by a lot of flailing around and some verbal frustration. Either way she is starting to like to be on her activity mat more and more.

My birthday weekend did mark the beginning of Natalie sleeping in her crib at night in the nursery. On Saturday night, she even slept through the night which is getting a little more rare now that she seems to be eating more. She’s also started on solid foods, first some rice cereal and now we are mixing in some fruit. Sunday night, Tiffany’s mom was feeding her when we were all done dinner. As you can see here some visual coaching appears to help.

She’s also eating from her high chair now. I got the pleasure of putting that together on Friday or Saturday. It’s a high chair, booster seat, child seat and chair. It’s a 4-in-1 setup, not sure if I got the name of all four parts right though. Anyway, all the pieces do not get used so it made putting it together a little more complicated. It also continued a theme that I’m noticing in instructions lately. 

It seems as though some companies in a move to save time and money have stopped printing written instructions at all and have decided to just use pictures with symbols which is always a fun adventure. I suppose this saves them from writing instructions in four languages which I’ve seen, 50 pages of instructions, 8 of which are in english. I guess it’s crazy to think that if you buy a product in the United States, the instructions should be in english and english alone. Likewise, if you live in France or Mexico, the directions should be in french or spanish respectively. I know, crazy. I knew things were going down a bad path when the circulars here started having coupons that were both in english and spanish. I guess I should be thanking these companies, it’s pretty easy to learn Spanish when you have the English translation right next to it. That’s probably why they print them in both so hispanic folks can work on their english while putting together their bookcase from IKEA. Some might say that if you don’t offer the spanish option, folks might actually have to learn english and become better assimilated...Another crazy thought...But i digress.

Tiffany’s aunt headed to the airport today, but her grandparents remain in town for now. As retirees they have no set time to return to Virginia so hopefully they will spend another week or two. Her aunt seemed to have a good time. She got to use our guest level (the second floor) and seemed comfortable. Chase enjoyed her company as well. 

A sad development is that today appears to be the last day afloat for the “It’s a Girl” giant foot balloon I got at the hospital gift shop the day after Natalie was born. It was purchased on January 12, it appears it will be laid to rest on May 25, that’s 132 days for those keeping score.  A pretty good life span as far as a mylar balloon is concerned. 

Adjustments

We’ve been home at least part of 5 days now and I guess most importantly, 4 nights.  It was rough sledding that first night. Natalie was up about every hour so it was not a great night for Tiffany. Her sleeping has progressed nicely though as she only woke up once last night about 4 hours after falling asleep. That’s pushing the limits on how long you want the child to go without eating so it worked out well.

Yesterday Chase came home. I know I was a little apprehensive about how our furry son would react to his not so furry sister.  It’s gone very well so far though. We had Chase sniff one of Natalie’s blankets and he is letting her be for the most part and sits at TIffany’s feet while she feeds her. Natalie doesn’t appear to have a reaction when he barks, she’s use to it from hearing it for 9 months and Chase doesn’t seem to mind the crying too much .

I’ve been working from home the past few days, but it’s back to the office tomorrow. Today was our first pediatrician appointment and I didn’t want to miss that, plus Tiffany can’t carry the car seat yet. I don’t think either of us realized the physical recovery from the birth that his required by the mother. Just from my perspective, the aftermath seems worse than the actual birth. Tiffany feels better every day, but it seems to me it will easily take a few weeks for her to recover and feel close to 100%.

I got lucky with this one

Today at the pediatrician we got Natalie’s latest measurements. She’s 20 1/2 inches even though they measured her at 20 3/4 inches at the hospital. The good news is that she is back to just over 8 pounds. She had slipped to 7 pounds 15 ounces before we left the hospital so her weight loss, while normal, was somewhat of a concern because babies who are breast fed tend to lose weight for 3 days after birth and Natalie had already lost a pretty high amount just after two days. Suffice to say, it was nice to see an upswing and our doctor today was not concerned at all and expects her to be back to her birth weight by her appointment next week on her two-week birthday. 

One thing I’ve figured out is that newborns don’t photograph well. The flash usually forces them to close their eyes so it’s hard to get any good shots. It is nice to see her focusing on objects now, however, with those same eyes. The first few days is a little spooky when you’re looking right at them and the eyes seem to wander around with no real purpose at times. 

Chase on guard duty

Breastfeeding is no walk in the park either. It’s not hard on me obviously, but I understand why some women don’t or stop shortly after starting. It was frustrating to me at the beginning so I’m sure it was for Tiffany as well. All this switching sides, what kind of latch, it’s a lot to deal with when you can just stick a bottle in their mouth and call it a day. Tiffany has done well though and we seem to have turned the corner. 

Both the ladies are napping now so there will be a diaper change in my future here shortly and Natalie HATES to have her diaper changed. I guess it’s a good thing that she doesn’t cry instantly when she needs to be changed, but you would think the child would be happy to be getting clean. She’ll be in a fine mood but as soon as that diaper comes off, her mood changes sharply. As soon as the new diaper is on and she’s dressed again, it’s like there was never a problem. Very strange. 

Baby New Year?

Yesterday Tiffany had her 39-week appointment. There’s been some progress in the past week. Dr. Thompson said that she is about 1 cm dilated and 70% effaced. We have another appointment scheduled for next Wednesday, and an ultrasound, but Dr. Thompson doesn’t think we will get to next Wednesday. Apparently the baby’s head is VERY low as well so she looks to be routing around for a way out!

We’ve got just one day left for this year. My original prediction was today, but that looks to be off the table unless Tiffany goes into labor and has an unusually quick delivery. I think we’re both getting anxious. Tiffany is pretty comfortable, she would probably tell you that she has had a pretty smooth pregnancy. The biggest issue for her has been some back pain and some trouble sleeping, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a pregnant woman not having issues with either their back or sleeping.

It does seem a bit odd that someone will likely be living in our house next week other then us, though her room is decorated better than ours and she probably already has more clothes than both of us combined. It will be nice to see a living, breathing tiny person using some of these things we’ve been amassing over the last nine months.

I’m sorry to say I think Chase (our dog) is in for a rude awakening. He certainly won’t be ignored, but he gets treated much like a child now, especially by Tiffany so that’s going to change. Recently, he decided to start the night on the floor sleeping before jumping into bed. We think he got tired of waking up every time Tiffany got up to go to the bathroom. He usually jumps in after he knows he won’t be disturbed too much and gets a few hours in our bed after her last trip to the bathroom. This baby is probably going to put a huge crimp in his sleeping schedule. Join the club Chase.

I am interested to see how he reacts around the baby. My guess is he will be in the lap or on the legs of whoever is not holding her. I’m not sure we need a baby monitor because anytime Chase hears anything he barks or mumbles under is breath, hopefully he gets use to the baby waking up and likewise, doesn’t wake her up too often. 

A lot has happened since we first got pregnant, for one, buying and moving into a new house. It doesn’t seem that long ago.I remember thinking I would have a birthday, Thanksgiving and Christmas all before the arrival and here we are. There are those moments that you always remember throughout your life and I can still remember the moment very clearly when the pregnancy test turned positive. I have a feeling there’s another one of those moments coming up in the next few days.

Crowded Quarters

Shortly after we found out that Tiffany was pregnant, talk began of how she would need a body pillow for sleeping at night. I really didn’t give it another thought, seemed like a reasonable request. 

Soon enough a body pillow appeared on our bed. Granted, it wasn’t even being used, it just got wedged at the bottom of our bed between the mattress and the foot of the bed. There it stayed for weeks until recently when Tiffany started to use it. As you might imagine, it takes up some space.

When we got married, I’m not sure exactly when, it was decided that Tiffany would sleep on the left side of the bed and I would sleep on the right. I use to sleep on the left, but I was delegated to the right without much choice. I’ve obviously grown accustom to it and when we decided, I certainly didn’t think it was worth putting up much a fight over.

Now over five years later I sleep in the fetal position facing away from Tiffany clinging to the edge of the bed. Tiffany has all sorts of positions, but she loves to straddle the middle of the bed leaving enough space for a WHOLE OTHER PERSON next to her on the opposite side. With the addition of this body pillow my space got slightly more cramped...and then the real problem started.

When our house was first staged to sell and to have photos taken, we packed up Chase’s crate. Chase is our dog for those who don’t know and we would put him in a crate at night because he would jump on the bed at night and sleep with us if we didn’t. He reluctantly entered the crate himself (probably because he got a biscuit when he does). 

Well, we didn’t feel like setting the crate up every night and taking it down for showings so we put it in the closet for a couple weeks. When it became apparent that we wouldn’t be having showings every other day I thought it would be prudent to get the crate back out and reclaim our bed. Especially since Chase’s favorite spot seems to be wherever my lower legs are.

That did not go over well with Chase. He went to the crate when I told him, as usual, but proceeded to cry and wine for the better part of two hours one night a few days back. It seems Chase had enjoyed first class and was not eager to go back to coach. To sum up, Tiffany and I are now sharing our bed with a body pillow and our dog that both stay mainly on MY SIDE. Of course when I shared this story with someone earlier today it got a chuckle and a “wait till that baby arrives”...Maybe I’ll see if we can find a bigger crate...for me.

Free Advice

It’s interesting that as soon as you tell someone that you’re expecting your first child, they usually offer up some helpful hints. Some say that when it comes to free advice, you get what you pay for. I don’t think that applies in this particular situation. To me anyone that has had children knows more about it than me, I’ve had exactly 0. It would literally be impossible for them to know less about pregnancy or raising children than me. So I listen...intently. 

One theme or tip that has come often...SLEEP NOW. Almost every person has said that at some point after we’ve shared our news. Well, we’re trying. Tiffany takes a nap whenever she can (mostly on the weekends). But she needs it right now. It’s hard for me to sleep more than 7 hours, but i can usually get to 8 on the weekend depending on how long it takes our furry baby to wake us up on the weekend. He doesn’t seem to care that we don’t sleep all morning after waking up like he does and he’s ready to play almost as soon as the sun starts shining. 

The advice was coming fast this weekend as we had a block party in celebration of Memorial Day. We do that a lot during the summer and we’ll probably do it again for July 4th or Labor Day. This year we did take the chance to let our neighbors know about our news. It also explained why Tiffany didn’t want a Margarita, which was one of the items we provided. Everyone was happy for us and excited as the population of our street continues to expand. Our neighbors Brian and Brittany just had their first child last summer and a few more houses down, Alex and Shauna, are expecting their third child that will join their twin 3-year old boys. Right across the street, Bill and Deb just welcomed their first grandchild to the world. So everyone around here is doing their best to keep Social Security funded.

Tiffany’s family also visited over the weekend and we checked out the new pool in our neighborhood. This took a tole a on TIffany who fell asleep on the couch early in the afternoon despite PLENTY of activity around here. Other than being tired and the occasional headache, she’s doing well but is now anxious to find out if it’s a boy or a girl so we can “start buying things”.....

The Last Birthday

Yesterday I celebrated my 31st birthday and while it won’t be my last (hopefully), it was my last birthday without any children. When you get married you go from being the most important person in your own life to second. When we bought our dog Chase, I was moved to third....without being consulted. Now as we wait for the arrival of our first child, my days in the 3-hole are numbered. Soon enough, I’ll be batting cleanup. Suffice to say, when I turn 32 next year, we’ll probably have a lot more going on than we did this year..and this did not escape me yesterday.

It was a good day, as far as birthdays go. Tiffany made me pancakes (though I think she wanted them even more than me), we took Chase for a long walk and went to lunch at Cafe Express. After lunch we walked around the Sugar Land Town Center and I got a new pair of sneakers before we headed to HEB to pick up some items Tiffany needed to make my birthday dinner: Crab Cakes, 4-Cheese Macaroni and Cheese and Mississippi Mud Pie. The crab cake recipe came from her grandfather and while she said she has made them before, I certainly don’t remember. But we’ll be having them again!

One of our neighbors came over for dessert which led to a quick scan of the living room to remove any baby related items. All books for the most part, they were put on the dresser in our bedroom. The books were easily out of sight until I invited Brittany (our neighbor) into our bathroom to see our large collection of soap that Tiffany has accumulated through coupons and sales for free. When I suggested she take a look, Tiffany quickly said pretty loudly, “No, don’t go in there!” We haven’t told our neighbors yet, we’re waiting until after the next doctor visit so if Brittany had seen the books, it would have ruined the surprise I guess. Brittany didn’t notice, I guess she didn’t make it a priority to study everything in our room as she walked through it.

As far as the pregnancy,Tiffany seems to be doing quite well. She’s just tired a lot and has a little bit of nausea once in a while. It’s been pretty tame so far for her, as far as symptoms are concerned. This Wednesday we should find out our due date (finally) and exactly how far along we are which will be nice to know.