The Best Things in Life are Free...sort of

After painstaking research, Elijah has found the next great toys for the holiday season and we will be presenting them to Fisher-Price later this month.

1. Metal mixing bowls - make great noise, good for banging and keeping baby out of the kitchen(mostly) while making food.

2. Coasters - hours of fun, also good for banging together and on the coffee table, chewing (they are metal so I don't understand this) and scattering all over the floor3. Springy thing behind the door - results in big smiles with very minimal effort

What The What, Baby?!

In the last week, this tiny (or not so tiny) boy has decided that sitting and crawling is boring. I mean, being able to move is great because he can get all the things he's not supposed to have but there's got to be more, right? So after watching his friend Andrea at "school", Elijah has figured out how to pull himself up to standing. That's right, my not-quite- 7 month old is standing up. Seriously, Baby, you could have waited longer, we would have been okay with that. We are just getting used to picking stuff off the floor that we don't want you to get. Now you have access to the coffee table, chairs, shelves, your favorite foot rests and other things I have not even thought of yet. Where are we supposed to put things? I am guessing the only truly secure place is on top of the fridge, because even I can't reach that. And that is the true definition of baby-proofing.

6 months

Elijah went for his 6 month check up on Thursday. Can you believe it? He is 17lbs 2oz and is 26 (and 1/2? maybe) inches long. I guess that explains why my arms are so tired. But I have been bench pressing him to build my strength;) You can see how curly his hair is getting in this picture.

He's been trying out food and most of the time likes it. His favorite is bananas and he even likes peas. I thought I was going to be all Martha Stewart and make all of his baby food. (Not that I think Martha Stewart makes baby food but she is synonymous with everything homemade, so you know.) Things like bananas and pears are easy but when you have to get out the blender/food processor, it's a pain in the ass. And with the price of fruit (except bananas) it is really not cheaper. But seriously, Gerber, why does your baby food come in non-recyclable plastic containers? All I want from you is to ease my green guilt a little since I'm creating serious waste with disposable diapers (ahhh, the devil!). But I'm not giving those up so at least let me recycle the containers the baby food comes in. I usually get the other brand that comes in glass jars but they are always out of carrots and they never have green beans or squash (what's up with that?). Ok, that wasn't supposed to be a rant, but it turned into one. About baby food. Yeah, I need to get out more.

Oh, I want to point out that Elijah does not always wear pajamas (even though he looks darn cute in them). But he is always in such a good mood in the morning (I don't know where he got that from) that it is always the best time to snap a photo, hence, pajama boy.

T minus 5, 4, 3...

Our little baby boy is getting so big that you probably won't recognize him. He has two little teeth on the bottom that are quite sharp when he bites down on your finger. It reminds me of that video with the kid who sticks his finger in his brother's mouth and then starts yelling because it hurts. Yeah, this one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM



He chats up a storm and can sit by himself for a pretty long time (like 20 minutes). But as the video below reveals, he will not be contained for long. He's a quick little guy, able to grab my glass on the table before I've even finished sitting down with him. He is also like a vaccuum cleaner (though apparently better than ours) that finds every little speck of everything that is left on the floor. This led to our decision to purchase a "play yard" or as we fondly refer to it the "baby cage". We talked about the gates, but we needed so many of them to keep him out of things like the cat food and the cat litter that we decided this was the best and cheapest option.



As I mentioned before about "school", it seems he has learned this trick from his friend Andrea, who is about 6 weeks older than he is. But once he saw her doing it, he's like "so that's how you do it, I can do that".

Feline Friend

After 5 months of pretty much ignoring each other, there has been contact between cats and baby. Well, one cat and baby. Elijah has been watching the cats intently for a couple weeks. Izzy is the one we often call Scaredy because sudden movements, strangers and lots of times Micah all cause her to run away and hide. She does really like me when I'm sitting on the couch, which a lot of the time means that I'm feeding Elijah. The other day I had just finished feeding him when she came to the couch mewing to be pet. So I showed Elijah how we pet the kitty and he got really excited. Then Izzy sniffed his hand and rubbed her head on his hand! Then he tried to go for her with two hands and she knew she better run out of his reach. She jumped to the ottoman and then a few minutes later jumped back to the couch. Elijah thought this was hilarious and started laughing. So we pet the kitty on most days and Elijah squeals with excitment. Sophie is still being her biotch-self and does not understand why everyone is making such a fuss over this hairless cat.

Picture update

There's a lot going on right now that I will go into later. In the meantime, here are some pictures to look at. Someone we know is working on her photography business and needed some baby pictures for her portfolio. Luckily, we know of an adorable baby, so here are some of the family.

Go to tfortara.com
Click to enter the website
Bottom right hand corner, click on "proofing"
A text box will pop up and the password is Emily (with a capital E)

He probably already looks different because these were taken a couple weeks ago. You know how those little guys grow. Enjoy!

6 weeks plus

I had intentions of writing each week to give updates but I'm already sorely overdue for this, so I'm doing the 6 week update today. Elijah is getting bigger every day. He is starting to be too big for some of his newborn onesies! We tried some with long pant legs last week and he must have very long legs because the crotch was down at his knees. He has been making more baby noises the past week or so and likes the tummy time. He is also smiling but alas I have not been able to capture it on camera. The flash is just not quick enough. I will post a picture when I finally capture it.

I know everyone likes some good poop stories... so Elijah has decided to only poop once a day and sometimes once every other day. So when he goes, it is copious. We went to pick up Micah from dropping his car off to get fixed and then we went to lunch. He was getting a little fussy and when I went to get him out of the carseat, his diaper had exploded and there was poo leaking from the front of his onesie. So I go to the bathroom to change him and there is, of course, no changing table and I have to put him on the floor (don't worry I had a pad to put him down on). I should have just rinsed him off in the sink! So note to new moms, always bring extra clothes. Luckily I had one in the diaper bag or he would have smelled quite ripe during lunch...mmm appetizing.

Almost in the single digits

This might be the last post for a little while. We'll see. At 38w plus 4, Baby B is progressing quite nicely. According to the doctor, she does not expect him to go past his due date. When we saw her yesterday, I was 2 cm dialated and starting to thin out. Of course, some people can stay like that for weeks but there have been quite a few Braxton-Hicks contractions, so we are guessing that means progress.

I have a very hilarious friend who told me another friend was updating her Facebook status while in labor. FYI, I will NOT be doing that. You will all get a text message sometime after the baby is born. So make sure my phone number is in your phone so you're not like, "Who the hell is texting me at 2 am and who the heck is Elijah?" Which reminds me that last week I had a dream that the baby was born and they were showing me the birth certificate but the only part I could read was "born at 1:14 am". So really, that will be 3 or 4 AM for my midwest friends. Let's be honest though, I'm not going to text you from the recovery room. Nothing personal to any of you, but I might be a little preoccupied.

Milk

So two of my friends, who do not know each other, both wrote blogs today about breastfeeding. Was there something in the news I missed yesterday? One, I feel, is a realistic account of what it is like to breastfeed, which I appreciate because I feel like people don't really talk about it. They just talk about how great it is for the baby. The other one is a shout out to support breastfeeding and how our culture doesn't really support it. Now, I don't want to into too much detail about breastfeeding, mostly because people like my dad read this and it makes me feel a little awkward. However, I feel like I need to respond.

I intend to breastfeed. I know full well that some women have problems and I think that if it is not possible to breastfeed, there is absolutely nothing wrong with giving your baby formula (I don't think anyone's blog was saying there was). But I do feel (and I think this comes from my husband being a pediatrician and seeing this first-hand) that some people make mothers feel bad when they are not able to breastfeed and when it doesn't come easily. It makes them feel like a failure and there are a lot of things to feel like a failure about already with a new baby. Women also don't have the support they used to have when having a baby. I mean, there is a whole generation who were bottle fed because people were saying it was better than breastfeeding. Some of our moms don't know how to breastfeed and it seems like something that should just come naturally. But it doesn't always. That's all I'm saying. I'm all for the better conditions for mothers to make it happen and for people to not be so weird about public feeding. However, there is a perfectly nutitional alternative if it is causing too much stress in an already stressful time.

Picture

So, here's the only one with me in it (I guess I was the one taking photos). That was at just about 32 weeks.

And I was reminded that I hadn't announced Baby B's name, although alluded to it in the last post. His name is Elijah Carter.

6 weeks and counting down

We got moved into our new place last weekend. We are now working on getting everything unpacked and the boxes are madness. Now that we are in our new place we can try to set up baby B's room/the office. It's a lot harder than I thought to make an office slash nursery. Maybe that's because our desk weighs 5 tons. Hmm...maybe we should have thought of that before the movers carried it up 3 flights of stairs because that thing is not moving now. If anyone wants to contribute to the nursery, a link to Elijah's baby registry is on the right.

Little boy is nearly 5 pounds now (the heft of a cantelop-yuck) and about 17 inches long. He's not doing much length-growing right now because he's running out of room, but he is concentrating on putting on weight for the next 6 weeks. We went to the doctor's office last week and he is moving along on schedule and his head is down (so hopefully it stays there). Mama has been a little uncomfortable lately with some back pain. But I went in last week for a prenatal massage, which was awesome. I wish I could afford to do them every week, but I'm going to try to get in a couple more times before he comes.

I have pictures from a baby shower with some friends, but have not yet found the cord that connects the digital camera to the computer so I can download the pictures. They will be coming when that box is unpacked. You will be amazed by my gigantic-ness. But be forewarned, if I hear one more person say they don't think I'll make it another 6 weeks, I might punch them in the face. Don't be that guy. I can make a punch through the computer, don't think I won't!

3/4 of the Way Baked

Baby B is now 3/4 of the way done. We are officially 30 weeks today. He weighs approximately 3 pounds (the size of cabbage) and is about 16 inches long. I was planning to include a picture so you can see how giant Mama is getting but I can't figure out why the timer for the self photo is only like 2 seconds long. And my hubby is gone this weekend, so I'll have to add it later. We saw the doctor last week and she said everything looks good. We now have to do some kick counts every night from now until birth. I just have to time how long it takes him to make 10 movements and he is very good at it, usually completing the task in about 12 minutes. He's a very active little guy.

I also had to get a shot last week so that my blood doesn't attack Baby B's blood since I'm Rh neg and his dad is Rh pos. But seriously, they gave me the shot in my butt. What's that all about? My nurse is like, "Don't look at the needle, it's big. That's why we do it in your behind so you can't see it." I saw it, it wasn't that big. Seriously. Micah said they don't even do that for kids. I guess you probably don't want a pregnant lady passing out though.

So, I'm pretty stressed right now because we have to be out of our apartment by February 1 and we don't have a place to live yet. So send good apartment vibes our way. And also if you could pack up all our stuff and move it that would be awesome.

Happy Birthday to me

Today, I am 29. And I'm going to be a mom. I'm old. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Anyway, last week we went for our 24 week check up. All is well and Lil Mr. B seems to be growing well. He is also extremely active. The Dr. went to listen to his heart with the little doppler thing and he kept moving around while she was trying to listen. It sort of makes the sound of someone brushing against a microphone when he is moving. So she finally found a place where she could hear it and after about 10 seconds, he kicked right where the doppler thing was, which made a nice thud. He is apparently a little stinker. Must take after his dad.

And for all of you crazies who want pictures, here you go. I must say after all the demanding of pictures, I posted this on facebook and have gotten 1 comment. I think it must be worse than everyone thought;)

The results are in...

We had our sonogram today and we are having a little boy! More details and pictures to come.

Week 17

So at 17 weeks, I’m feeling pretty good. A little on the tired side, but I guess that is to be expected when you are growing a human being in your belly. Supposedly, this week the baby is making fat tissue. Before that, Baby was very busy making organs and moving its eyes towards the front of its face to avoid “fish face” appearance. It’s strange to me that people are starting to ask how the baby is doing. I assume Baby is doing fine. I mean, I can’t see or feel (yet) what’s going on in there, so I’m assuming it’s all going according to plan. The stomach continues to move outward which is either a result of the baby or eating too many fudgesicles. They are Skinny Cow fudgesicles though so I’m going to put my money on Baby B. October 23 is the date of our ultrasound, so more details and pictures will be available after that date.

Week 15

So, I am in my 15 week of pregnancy. The weird thing happening this week (that I can see) is over the course of 3 days my belly has started sticking out significantly. It was like one day I was wearing regular pants (with the proper ratio of 1-2% spandex, of course) and the next day, I need to unbutton my pants so I can sit down. This creates a slight problem because this Saturday is the Gala, where I am expected to wear something “black tie” appropriate. When I tried on my dress from last year, two weeks ago, I thought, this is do-able. I mean, I look pregnant, but I can zip it and I can breathe. Bonus! However, now since my belly has started showing, I’m afraid that it won’t fit as well. So I’m sure there will be a picture of me looking a) way more pregnant than I actually am in a dress that barely fits or b) something less appropriate for a black tie event, but really who cares, I’m staff and I’m not even allowed to sit down at the dinner. Either way, it promises to be uncomfortable. I’m very excited.

My husband thinks that it’s weird that people take pictures of their growing “baby bump” and share it with their friends and family. Yes, we must hide all photographic evidence of pregnancy to promote the myth that our baby actually came from a cabbage patch or stork or such. I said, “people like to see what you look like when you are pregnant.” He says, “I see pregnant people everyday, it’s not that exciting.” Well, people don’t see me pregnant everyday so whatever, dude. I think people secretly just want to know what I look like fat…which makes me rethink the picture thing.