Eating!

Okay, so I know it's been a little too long since I posted. I do apologize. It really is amazing how quickly time passes when you're taking care of a baby. Plus, Brad was gone out of town all weekend, so I was left to play the single-parent role (ie: manage to get nothing done, including sleep, then get a migrane all day yesterday because of it).

We have had some interesting developments, however. Most notably, Barrett has started eating solids. And man, that baby loves his food. It only took him one feeding to figure out how to use the spoon himself. So this is how the feeding process goes:


1. Wrestle baby into highchair. Avoid pinching baby's hands in the snap-on table section (learned from experience).

2. Prepare a tasty mash of rice or oats in the kitchen while baby is distracted by spoon, toy, or plate at the table.

3. Wrestle bib onto baby and pin it down under the table so he can't eat it.

4. Take a spoonful of tasty mash and hold it a few inches from baby's mouth. Wait while baby grabs spoon, puts it into mouth, makes grumbly eating sounds, and tosses spoon back to you for a refill.

5. Immediately repeat step 4 or else baby will growl and flap his arms because the food is taking too long.

6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until all the mash is gone.

7. Get wet cloth from kitchen and wipe the mash off of baby's hands, mouth, nose, forehead, and eyelids, as well as your hands and arms.

8. Give wet cloth to baby to chew on and play with (his favourite toy!) while you try and wash a few dishes (usually unlikely).

Repeat entire process twice a day.


It sounds like trouble, but it really is quite hilarious. I think the only bad thing about solids is the way they come out on the other end... I do miss a baby who was only eating liquids!

Here are some photos:

First solid food ever!

That's a tasty spoon.

Where's the food, dude?

Some other funny things..

Barrett has started making new consonant sounds. Well, more specifically, he's trying out Bs. It started out with him making noise with his mouth closed, so kind of a muffled bbbb. Then he figured out that opening his mouth during the noise was even more exciting, becoming Boo or Baa. Now he's moved on to blowing out between his lips to make that motorboat sound. It's awesome. It does have the drawback, however, that he now makes the sound all the time - when eating cereal (which flies everywhere), when mommy is trying to sleep, when he's nursing... There's nothing quite as charming as a baby making zerberts on your nipple.

He has started laughing now, too. This is great. I find I spend my whole day now trying things to make him laugh. The best one I've found so far is to throw him onto the bed. This isn't as bad as it sounds. In fact, I discovered it by an accident recently. I was picking him up off of our bed, but I didn't get a very good grip and lost my balance. Worried I was going to fall over and crush him, I just let go while he was still safely over the mattress. He fell about a foot and bounced on the mattress a couple times, and let out a big baby giggle. Now every time I pick him up from the bed, he grins in anticipation of being tossed down again (so I usually do it!).

I think, though, the most hilarious thing that has happened recently is that Barrett found his balls. Yes, the boys have been discovered. I can't keep his little hand away from there. As soon as his diaper comes off, it slips down between his legs and hangs on for dear life. What used to be "naked time" is now "ball time." By the way, I think he might be left-handed...

Jolly Jumpin'

Here's the video I promised. Unfortunately, I couldn't turn it in youtube, so you have to watch it sideways! It's still hilarious, anyway.

Riverdance

Barrett has recently discovered the fun of jolly jumping. This is both good and bad. It's good because it means I can put him into his jumper and he'll be occupied for at least half an hour. It's bad because now he thinks he's always in his jumper - so he tries to stand and bounce all the time: when in bed, while feeding, in your lap. My arms are getting tired of holding him up. I think it's like when you go swimming, and then for a few hours afterwards it still feels like you're in the water, and normal movements feel weird. Or maybe he's just a bouncing baby. But seriously, he's fussy all the time now unless he's standing. Last night he cried and cried, and I couldn't figure out what was wrong. Nothing worked - not cuddling, rocking, feeding, burping, singing. So I finally picked him up and tossed him in the air a bit, letting him stand in my lap. End of cries... until I put him down again. That had better not become a regular occurrence.

I do think he's been a bit fussy lately because of a few other things, though. He seems to have developed some sort of rash on his face and arms, which also seems to be causing some bad cradle cap. He's always rubbing his face on things, or scratching with his hands, of course, just making the whole thing worse. I've tried creams and soaps, but no luck. Yesterday at yoga, a few ladies suggested trying breastmilk, like, actually putting it directly on the rash. Apparently it heals anything, including eye infections. I put some on last night and this morning and it actually does seem to be working. Who knew!

Also, I think he's ready to start solid foods. He's such a big, hungry baby. I just don't think milk is doing it anymore. Speaking of yoga class, Barrett was very chatty yesterday. So loud, in fact, that I actually had trouble hearing the instructor. It was hilarious. And not very relaxing! But it's fun, so who really cares about the yoga part.

So a few funny developments lately: Barrett has started sucking on his lower lip. This is a hilarious face that you must see to appreciate. I got a picture of it the other day while he was playing with his giant frog. Yes, his giant frog. This is a big stuffy that Auntie Christina gave him, which is about the same size as him. He loooves it. He sucks on its fingers and eyeballs and wrestles with it.



Also, he's started laughing a little bit. Now, I was expecting him to start giggling like you hear babies do. Not Barrett. His laugh is a one-shot suck-in of air. The kind you do accidentally during a hard laugh or at the end of a hearty chuckle. And that's it. No giggles. No breathing out in a little chuckle. Just a suck of breath and a gummy smile. It's still worth all my troubles, but I do hope he figures out how to breathe out and laugh soon.

Daddy's shoulders is the place to be!

You must be wondering why this post is titled Riverdance. This is because when he jumps in his jolly jumper, he doesn't move his arms. But his little legs go like crazy. It's awesome. I got a video of it but it's not working right now. I'll try and post a new one later.

Yoga

Today was our first Mom & Baby yoga class. I've never been in a room so full of babies before. There were about ten moms, with babies ranging from 6 weeks to 6 months, and they were all quite active little critters. It was pretty good, although I got very little yoga done. But I suppose that's not really the point. I did, however, learn a few other things.

1. I definitely need new workout clothes. It's shocking how easily I convinced myself that I still fit into my old (pre-pregnancy, pre-40 extra lbs) ones... there's nothing quite like a full-length mirror to bring you back to reality.

2. I need to pin back my bangs next time. During one of the moves I leaned over Barrett (who was lying on his back on the mat) and he grabbed a big clump in each hand. Hard. It didn't hurt so much, but I was totally incapable of freeing myself. The instructor actually had to come over and pry his fists open while everyone in the room giggled at us. Now I'm always going to be "that bang girl."

3. I'm way more out of shape than I thought. I think I would have a hard enough time doing lunges and squats these days, but with a 16-lb baby on my knee it was nearly impossible! I'd better start walking every day.


In other news, I've gotten a bunch of kids' CDs out of the library to make copies of them. It's amazing how much my opinion of this music has changed over time. I remember how fun it was when I was a kid, but I never took any notice of the quality. It's still not too bad, but I never realized that Sharon, Lois & Bram use hilarious 70s-era keyboards, Raffi can't sing worth beans, and none of them can pronounce French to save their lives.

I'm also signing up for Babytime at the library. Whoo-hoo! Shakers, here we come!!

Haha baby mullet!

blanket + squeal = fun

Barrett found the next octave of his voice recently. It's hilarious, but also mildly irritating. Instead of making happy baby sounds, now he makes high-pitched baby squeals - which are difficult to distinguish from angry noises. Still, though, there's nothing funnier than watching this kid shove blankets in his mouth and squeal with pleasure!

Bad mother!

A few things have happened lately that make me a bad mother... well, not really, but I'm certainly not perfect.

Firstly, the other day, I left Barrett sleeping in the living room while I worked on the computer in another room. What I shouldn't have done is left him sleeping on the couch. After a few minutes at the computer I heard a little thud and for a second I wondered what it could have been. Then I remembered "baby, oh crap!" I ran to the living room and poor baby was lying on the floor after rolling out of his blanket nest on the couch. He had a tiny cry, but wasn't hurt - I jiggled all his little joints and bones just to be sure.


What I still haven't been able to figure out is how he ended up on the floor in the way he did. I had left him lying longways on his back (something like that photo), but when I found him, he was on his stomach, lying perpendicular to the couch head-first. This would have required some interesting air acrobatics. Or - and this is a disturbing thought - I figure he might have slid down the couch head-first, landed directly on his head, and flipped his body over itself to end up on his belly. The range of injuries he could have sustained from this is too is overwhelming for me to even consider. That day I went out and bought a new chair-bed thingy that I can put him in to sleep now.

The other bad-mother thing that I've done, and continue to do, is to laugh at him all the time. This wouldn't be so bad, but I find he's most hilariously cute when he's crying. He makes the most adorable faces and noises - Brad and I refer to them as "gremlin faces." Now, I decided I needed proof that this was worthy of laughing at, so I took some pictures the other day. Once you see them, you'll agree with me. Now, when you look at the photos, imagine him making a sound something like a hoarse dove.

Oh my!

So angry!

I'm so angry now!

Baby tears! These break my heart every time.

We're okay now.

Talkin' babies

The one thing I wanted to avoid upon becoming a parent was the endless conversations about babies. You know, when perfectly intelligent and articulate adults suddenly have nothing better to discuss than baby's recent spit-ups, sit-ups, and poo explosions. Well, here I am, writing in a blog that seems to have become dedicated solely to these things! I love my baby, and since he's the only human interaction I have anymore, I do have a lot to say about him. But, I think ultimately the fault lies with everyone else, not me. It's impossible to know someone with a baby and not ask them about it. You want to see how your friend has changed, how she deals with parenthood, and offer support. And really, who doesn't want to know about babies? Either you don't have one, so you're curious, or you do, and you want to know how other parents are coping.

I want to argue that I still have many interesting (non-baby) things to talk about, and that I can still form opinions about current issues and events. But I am starting to lose it. I don't think it's because I'm losing smarts or losing interest, rather, I just have no one to talk to and no time to talk about anything else! When I do get together with a friend, the conversation inevitably centres around baby simply because I still have to spend the whole time paying attention to him. And when I don't get together with friends, baby doesn't make a very high-brow conversation partner.

I am looking forward to summer, though. Part of the reason I don't get out is the cold weather. Once it warms up a bit, it'll be far easier to take trips away from the house - maybe attend play groups or something. I've started along the path already, actually. I just signed up for a mom & baby yoga class that begins next week. I've never done yoga before, and I think I'll be at a disadvantage with such a huge baby to use as a weight, so it could be a somewhat frustrating experience at first. But hopefully I can meet some other moms, or at the very least be around adults for an hour each week.

Now, some pictures!

Friends visiting with another baby.

Barrett at the computer with Brad.

Barrett and Grandma Jackie.

Outgrowing

Let's talk about baby clothes for a minute. They're retarded. The sizes never match properly with the baby's age, making it very difficult to buy appropriate outfits. Now, I realize that we have an enormously large baby (somewhere in the 97% percentile), but I think I would still have trouble fitting his clothes even if he wasn't. When he was born, he was already fitting into 3-6 month sizes, and we've recently moved onto 12 month sizes. He's only two months old! How confusing. Anyway, I do have a feeling that no one's baby ever fits into newborn sizes. Those things are tiny.

Barrett has also recently outgrown his first car seat. The first kind you use for babies is an infant carrier that clips into a base that stays in the car. You've probably seen people carrying their babies around in these. They also clip into a matching stroller, making it easy to bring baby shopping or whatever. Most babies fit into these carriers for quite a while, at least 6 months or so. I've even seen some people still using them for one-year-olds. Not our baby. The carrier was safetied for babies under 22 lbs and shorter than 26" - a length he reached quite a few weeks ago. It was noticeable, too, since his feet were starting to hang off the end.

I'm also thankful that we bought a big cradle for him. Usually, parents will get a bassinet or cradle for keeping the baby in their room or to put in the living room for daytime naps, rather than having to use the big crib for the first few months. Most bassinets are kind of like frilly oval baskets, probably a few feet long. We thought those were a bit fruity, so we ended up buying an actual wooden cradle, which, thankfully, was also about a foot longer than the usual bassinet. That was sweet, because he would have outgrown any bassinet by now, but he's still able to fit into the cradle. In fact, someone lent us a (hideous) bassinet that we kept in the living room, and he outgrew it almsot a month ago - check it out:

Barrett in the hideous bassinet about a month and a half ago.

Definitely running out of head room!

Speaking of outgrowing, here's possibly my favourite picture yet - this is Barrett's first bath, and he's not too sure what to make of all that water. Now he loves baths, although he's also outgrown this little baby bathtub. This means that we have to put him into the big bath. If you've ever held a wet, slippery baby, you'll understand what this entails. He's still too little to sit up on his own, so one of us has to actually get into the bath with him, to make sure that he doesn't just slip away through the water.

Hehe - little balls peeking out there!

Lastly, I have an update on his hands. They've definitely uncurled and started exploring the world. Just the other day, they found each other! Now he's always busily rubbing them together like he's plotting a diabolical master plan. I keep expecting his little pinky to press against his mouth like Dr. Evil.

Reggae

Baby likes reggae music. I don't know why that is. Maybe it's the rhythmic jammin' or the soulful singing, but whatever it is, he immediately settles as soon as I toss on a song by Bedouin Soundclash and dance around with him. For all you reggae purists out there: I know Bedouin Soundclash isn't exactly true reggae, but at least it's not The Police. I haven't expanded my testing range to include the classics like Marley, Gregory Isaacs, or Steel Pulse, but I suppose I might try it out sometime.

Baby being carried around the house with me.

Just being cute.

Again, cute.

Also, he gets the hiccups every day. Seriously, every day. Sometimes twice. I don't know why. I guess all babies do. The whole time I was pregnant, I could actually feel him having the hiccups every day as well. He seems to really hate it, though. To prove my point, here's a little video!

CHEO

We made our first trip to the hospital with Barrett this weekend. I guess it's inevitable that babies get sick, but what a terrible experience! Actually, it turned out all right, so really it wasn't too bad. It started last week when my mom and I tried to take the little man out to the store with us. As soon as we got outside, though, he started having some sort of strange convulsions - he lost his breath and started making choking-gulping sounds, while he went all shaky and his eyes rolled around. We brought him back inside immediately and he seemed to be fine. We thought maybe it was a fluke and he just choked on his saliva or something, but as soon as we returned outside it happened again. I started wondering if they was some sort of seizures caused by the light or the cold, but he had been outside many times before, often in far worse weather, without any problems. Anyway, I decided to stay home with him to make sure he was okay, and he was. It only seemed to happen outside, and he didn't seem to suffer any effects from it. But then it happened again yesterday, the next time we went out. The mom in me decided that three times was too many, so we headed to CHEO for a check-up.

We waited in emergency for about two hours, not too bad, really. Barrett was really excited to be around so many other children, and he was probably the best behaved of them all. After another hour or so waiting in the treatment room, the doctor came by to examine him. He couldn't find anything wrong, and both he and the chief doctor gave Barrett a clean bill of health. They figure it was a cold wind that took his breath away, and that it just hadn't happened before for some reason. But while we were there, all the hospital staff were so excited to see such a happy, sweet baby! The nurses kept cooing over him, and the doctor said he was the best patient he'd had all day. Barrett even smiled and played with the doc while he shone lights in his eyes and ears and all that. So, it turned out to be nothing, but it's nice to have someone say that officially. I'm just extra paranoid about totally covering him up when we go outside now.

In other baby news, he's learned how to hold himself up in a sitting position (with a little bit of help). He loves it! He'll sit on your knee or on the couch and look around at everything. I guess it's more fun than being stuck on the floor or a little bouncy chair at floor height. He's also started giggling a bit. It's the cutest sound ever! Now that he's figured out the world a bit, he's very happy, rarely ever crying. The only time he cries now is if there's something obviously wrong - hungry, cold, wet, etc. - but he's very easy to console, so any crying only lasts a few minutes at most.

To conclude, I'll leave you with a funny story. Right now, Barrett is still sleeping in our room in a little cradle next to our bed, rather than in the big crib in his own room. It's a wooden cradle with rocker-style legs and slatted sides like a crib, very nice. Anyway, now that he's getting to be so heavy, his nighttime rolling rocks the crib from side to side if I forget to engage the rocking stoppers before bed. One night before I figured this out, he managed to roll all the way to one side of the cradle, forcing it to lean quite far in that direction. This pushed him into the corner, up against the side of the cradle. When I woke, I found him still stuck like that, with his little arms shoved out between the rails and his whole face mashed into the crack. It was hilarious! He still sleeps like that now, with his arms out to the sides, sticking through the cracks. It's very cute, because it means I can hold his little baby hand in my sleep.

Sitting on the couch like a big man.

Arms out sleeping.

I love my baby!

chatty baby

Baby hands

Barrett found his hands this week. Now, instead of being little balls of angry baby fists, they open up into grabby fingers. It's like they're little snails that have come out of their shells to explore the world. Unfortunately, this also means he's been grabbing and scratching at everything, including his face, my face, and Brad's face. Just the other day, I woke up to find he'd gouged out a piece of his nose with a scratchy fingernail (see above). So I have to make sure those little buggers are kept short. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to cut baby fingernails. It involves distracting him with something (ie. my breast) while pulling each little finger straight with one hand and clipping the nail with the other, all without clipping parts of the baby. Don't even get me started on toenails... I have yet to successfully cut those.

Some other funny things... He makes little spit bubbles - hilarious. He's also started to be chatty, which I think mentioned before. What I didn't mention is that I managed to get a little video of it. I don't know if I can upload that here or not, but I'll see what I can do.

Oy!

It turns out I have so little time to post here! I feel so truant in my updates. I must apologize to my loyal fan (Maria) and give a delayed shout out to Eric for the comment (and congrats to you and Bex!!).

So, we have a baby now. It's a funny thing to suddenly be a parent. I'm not at all ready to be called 'mom' yet, so I'm glad he didn't come out talking. However, it's true what they say about you immediately loving the little one. What a sweetie! Now, at two months old, he's finally starting to interact with us, rewarding our attention with big, happy smiles and chatty baby sounds.

Other than regular baby things, though, I should tell you about the funny things little Barrett does. The kinds of things that parents forget after a time.

Like the other day, he peed into his own face. Seriously. I was in the middle of changing him when he kicked his legs up into the air, and consequently, also kicked his little penis into the air. And then he started peeing. I have never heard such a terrible wail in my whole life as the one he let out when his face was suddenly covered in piss. No harm done. I promptly called everyone I knew to tell them.

Lately he's taken to sucking his thumb, but hasn't quite figured out how to separate his thumb from the rest of his fist. So he ends up gnawing on the little end of his thumb while shoving his balled-up hand into his mouth. This means the sucking sound is three times as loud as it would normally be - loud enough for me to hear it when I'm on a different floor of the house. I've tried stopping this bad habit in the making, but nothing seems to work. I've tried giving him rattles to hold, swaddling his arms up, and even putting socks on his hands. He just drops the rattles, cries about being wrapped up, and sucks on the hand through the sock.


The last resort (and quickly becoming the first resort) for uncontrollable crying is to strip him naked. He loooves being naked. It's pretty much the only way we can get through a whole tv show or movie. I don't know if it's the freedom of movement or the air on his balls, but you take that baby's clothes off and he'll hang out on the floor for hours. All the baby books say to be quick when changing baby's clothes or diaper, because they'll start crying as soon as their skin hits the air. Those baby books are such a waste of money.


Well, I'll try to post more often from now on.