Firsts

Today was the first time Joshua walked...er...I mean...let's start over.

Today was the first time Joshua was babysat. Yes, Dave and I finally had a date night with just us! I've been a little paranoid about leaving Joshua with someone. I'm more worried that he'll scream his head off the whole time and they won't know what's wrong, and will never want to watch him again (which I know from experience is really a rough thing to go through). So we picked the most baby-savvy person we know to watch him while we went out: My brother Alex.

Ok, I'm exaggerating again. I don't think he's even ever changed a diaper before. But not to worry, Joshua goes to bed at about 8pm, and we left at about 8:30pm, meaning all Alex did was, literally, sit.

To be posted tomorrow: Joshua's Doctor Woes

4 Month Preview

Joshua turned 4 months old today! To celebrate I moved him up to size 3 diapers and brought up the walker from storage and wiped it down. Yesterday we tried "solid" food (aka: rice cereal) and today some of it actually was swallowed!

Joshua Giggles :)

Crick

The last little while I've had a crick in my neck and my whole left side from the top of my spine, out to my shoulder, and down behind my shoulder blade. I blame it on nursing and holding Joshua all the time. But it's probably also from simply bad posture.

Since it has been hurting on my left, I've been stretching my left side of my neck, shoulder, pec, etc. to no avail. Last weekend I went to a Women's Expo/Fair thing with some friends and we stopped by a chiropractor's booth. I had the straightest neck, but I had the tightest muscles (we got free neck massages...heavenly). I noticed that the massage therapist worked mostly on my right side, and yesterday I noticed that I always seem to have my head tipped or turned slightly to the right.

I put two and two together and realized that I need to be stretching my right side to get my left side to stop hurting. As I type this, I am looking more to my left, and as I do other things throughout the day I try to pull my shoulders down, tip my head a bit to the left, and stretch my right muscles. At night I try to sleep with my head facing the left whether I'm on my tummy or my back.

Hopefully all that will help me have better posture and help my neck and shoulder stop hurting. We'll see how it goes.

St. George - The Windy City?

Last week we went down to St. George. We went mostly because we have a client down there for our tech support company but Joshua and I tagged along as well for a little mini-vacation.

We drove down on Tuesday. Joshua slept for two hours in the car, then I woke him to feed him, and then ten minutes back on the road he fell asleep again for the remaining two hours. He had a little stuffy nose last week so I was glad he was able to sleep the whole way to help him get over his cold. We stopped by our clients for a bit and then went to dinner at Pancho & Lefty's. Then we crashed at a Howard Johnson hotel for the night because there was no room available at our timeshare that night. Joshua spent his first night in a pack & play and slept like a champ.

Wednesday Dave worked on computers and talked to a few of the other companies nearby to see if they would be interested in our services. While he did that I window shopped at the outlet mall and went a few other places to find a swimming suit for Joshua. I ended up finding a really cute suit, swim shirt, and sunglasses at The Children's Place in the outlet mall.

Waiting for me to try on shoes.

I was hoping to be able to get in a swim while we waited for Dave to finish up, since it was nice and warm, but it got super WINDY (55 mph gusts), so we opted against swimming. Then we met my aunt for dinner at the Bent Fork, which is a Italian Southwest Grill (italian food infused with a southwestern flair, a.k.a. green chile). It was delicious and we had enough leftovers for dinner the next night, too.

Thursday Dave went fixing computers again while Joshua and I stayed at the resort. We got ready for swimming, and Dave came home and hung out with us at the pool for a little while. It was still windy, so we didn't stay long. That night we went down to the hot tub though. Joshua sat in the bumbo on the deck while we soaked. I wish I had gotten a picture of that.

Friday we headed back home so Dave could go to work that evening. Joshua slept most of the way back again and I definitely think it helped him get over his cold completely.

Busy Day

Today I had a ton of things to do, and I did a ton of those things. Now I'm taking a break before I do the rest of those things.

I...(*inhale dramatically*)

Got up at 9:15, fed Joshua, took a shower while Joshua was in his cow chair, put him down for a nap, drove up to North O to get my Safety and Emissions check on the Nissan (which has been dead for 6 months and is now among the living again but expired), remembered I needed Dave's pay stubs from the Tahoe (which he took to the body shop, but was stopping by to get some stuff), drove south to find Dave (he wasn't answering his phone), found out Dave was more north than I was, drove north and met Dave at Target, discovered he could only find one of the pay stubs, drove home to find the others, made a huge mess looking for the stubs, left without the stubs, discovered some checks that needed to be deposited, deposited the checks, got Joshua's birth certificate, fed Joshua, went to a WIC appointment, got approved without the pay stubs, drove south to where I thought the DMV was, looked up the DMV's address on my phone, drove north to where the DMV is, tried to register the car (it failed emissions), got a temporary permit so I can drive legally, went home to take my antihistamine, got my allergy shots, picked up some swim diapers from a friend where I used to work (THANKS!), fed Joshua, stopped by home again to get baby bjorn, stopped by body shop to get Dave's sunglasses from the Tahoe, went to Walmart to buy swim trunks (they didn't have any smaller than 12 months), pacifier thermometer (to test for baby fever), baby tylenol (to reduce possible baby fever), baby orajel (to soothe baby teething pain?), and humidifier (to reduce baby stuffiness), drove home, fed Joshua, bathed Joshua, put Joshua down for the night.

Meanwhile poor little Joshua is being toted around with me everywhere, naps interrupted, being undressed, weighed, measured, in and out of the car, etc. all with a stuffy nose, possible fever, crying, chewing on everything, and slobbering. The poor little guy just wanted to sleep, and I sat in the car and let him sleep some for a while longer when I got to a destination (he'd fall asleep if I drove more than 5 minutes).

Right now I'm taking a break from my productive day but my pillow is calling me louder and louder, so I may just go answer it instead of finishing up my long list of to-dos today. Zzzzzz....

E.A.S.Y.

So I've been following the EASY (Eat, Activity, Sleep, You) schedule from the Baby Whisperer book.

His schedule usually goes thus: Eat for 10 minutes; burp for 5 to 10 minutes; play, be toted around, tummy time, etc. for about an hour until he gets sleepy; nap time.

The only problem is, that he gets hungry every two hours almost on the dot, meaning that his naps are only about half an hour long before he wakes up starving. Or, if he stays awake longer, when it's time for him to go to sleep, he's hungry and doesn't want to go to sleep until he's fed. If I get him to go to sleep without feeding him, his nap is even shorter and he's even MORE hungry, and MORE vocal about it, when he wakes up.

What I'm wondering is, should I switch it around to be AESY so he gets better naps, or should I just tough it out for another month and hope that solid foods will keep him full longer? Or should I scrap the whole thing and just feed him when he's hungry, and let him sleep when he's tired?

3 Months Old!

Here's a collage I made on Picnik of some pictures I took of Joshua today. He's technically 3 months and 5 days, but who's counting?!

Stats: I haven't measured how long he is lately, and that's going to have to wait because he's currently drifting off to dreamland for his final nap of the day (see sleep, below). I did the weigh-yourself-then-weigh-yourself-holding-baby-then-subtract trick today and it equaled 15.5 lbs! I'm guessing it's a little off though. I guess we'll see next month how much he really weighs at his next doctor appointment.

Eat: There's not much to report in this area. He's still breast-feeding. He still eats every 2 to 3 hours during the day and 1 to 3 times at night. He's obviously getting bigger, so it must be working.

Sleep: He takes a 40 to 50 minute (sometimes up to an hour and 15 minute) nap after being awake for an hour and a half or so. At night he gets a bath as late as I can push it (between 8:30 and 9:30 usually) and then usually sleeps a good long 6 to 9 hour shift followed by 2 to 3 hour shifts until about 9am. The biggest update is he's sleeping without being swaddled now! (as of about a week ago).

Poop: Nothing to report.

Other: He sucks on his hands a lot now, and likes to look around a lot more. He hates being in the Baby Bjorn facing me because he can't see anything. He can sit up well in the Bumbo now, and loves to sit on my lap and he still loves the cow chair, too. If he gets really upset and nothing will calm him, the swing will usually do the trick. We don't do a ton of tummy time, so he isn't rolling or anything, however today I put him on his back on the ground while I threw a load of laundry in, and I came back and he had turned 45 degrees. His favorite toy is his burp cloth. He doesn't really grab for anything else, but once that burp cloth is on his lap, he pulls it right up to his mouth to chew on.

Today was a great day without too much screaming (on either of our parts...me, into a pillow, of course). Even on days that don't go so well, I love toting him around with me everywhere. He is seriously the cutest thing I've ever known.