11 lbs 6oz and loves yoga

Davis and I had a fantastic time at Yoga..we managed to participate in almost the whole class today!  He has such a great time watching all the other babies (and himself in the mirror).  I tried to capture a picture just before class started when he was smiling, but I missed it.  I got a pretty fun one anyway (this picture also demonstrates the thumb between the first two finger thing that he pretty much does all the time).  At the maternity store, I weighed him for the first time in a couple of weeks and the big guy is 11lbs 6oz!  I took a picture of him in his stroller with his 'concerned' face, but it shows off his chubby cheeks!  

A new development is that Davis does not want to nap during the day anymore.  I spent most of yesterday trying to put him down for his morning nap, finally I just took him for a walk at 1pm (clearly, not a morning nap at that point), and he fell asleep and slept for 3.5hours!  A similar thing happened today, he wouldn't sleep until I took him for a walk and then he only napped for a half hour, but he was still happy for yoga and then he had a great nap afterwards when I went out to lunch with other moms (our yoga class is getting really fun now that I know most of the women and their babies).  I just don't understand how a 7-week old can possibly get by with an hour nap in an 8.5 hour window.  I guess the good news is his sleep schedule is definitely starting to show a separation between day and night.  Although he wakes up a lot at night he can mostly be put back to sleep.  The bad news is having to walk him means I don't get to nap at the same time, but the good news is it gives me lots of time to call and talk to people I've been meaning to call for a while!  Luckily, as he's awake longer, his attention span for playing by himself is increasing too.  Below is a picture of him on his play mat where he was looking really intensely at the whale.  I swear he was trying to figure out how to make it move or to grab it...of course, I've been known to overanalyze and read too much into things.  

And now it's time for me to head to bed!  John watched Davis while I went on a women's ride (the same one I've helped lead for the last couple of years).  They have four different speed groups and although I figured I would be in over my head, I went with the second group (versus the slowest group) thinking that I would get home faster (even if I got dropped).  I haven't hurt like that for a long time.  I got dropped, many times.  I bonked even.  Tonight I think all of us will sleep well (fingers crossed). 

Arnold Arboretum

Today, Kristen and I ventured down to the Arnold Arboretum, in Boston. We had beautiful, sunny spring weather and enjoyed an hour and a half walk through the beautiful grounds. Davis slept the whole time and Kristen got to practice taking pictures of flowers. Kristen also demonstrated her superior botany skills by quickly and correctly identifying Pines, Firs, Spruces Hemlocks and Larches throughout the coniferous section

We're back and home now and will probably take care of some errands and cleaning for the rest of the day.

Kristen early in the walk.

On the Chinese (Asian collection) path.

In front of a pretty tree on Bussey Hill.

Closeup #1 of the tree.

Closeup #2 of the tree.

Random flowers.

More random flowers.

Night time is sleep time

Last night was our second night with no co-sleeping.  Once Davis had slept on his own in the crib for three hours, we decided he was developed enough to leave our bed.  I was becoming concerned that he was building an unhealthy connection between food and sleep that we hoped would be easier to fix now than a month from now (when we had planned to move him to his crib).  I read a book that would have me believe he should be capable of sleeping 12 hours with no food and be able to fall asleep all by himself.  I decided that's crap for a 7 week old, but we are using some ideas from that book.  The key being the appearance of a 'core night'.  This is when a baby sleeps a huge block for the first time.  Around week two, Davis slept for 5 hours one night.  The idea of the core night is that he's shown he can sleep for five hours without needing food and you try and build on those five hours, first requiring he goes without food for that time and then extending them in opposing directions to spread out his sleep cycle.  So two nights ago when Davis woke up two hours after going to sleep, John soothed him back to sleep (well, mostly the swing soothed him back to sleep) and he made it another couple of hours and he woke up hungry (that's also the thing we had to learn, just because he woke up doesn't mean he needs to be fed..we need to take his cues into account).  So two nights ago he woke up three times and since we didn't feed him at midnight, last night he slept right on through midnight to his normal 2am feeding!  That's the other idea of this book and many other sleep books, that rewarding behavior (play, food, cuddles, etc.) will become a learned wakeup time for them even if they don't need those things.  

I hoped that last night we might be down to one feeding between 10pm and 6am, but he woke up again at 3:30 am, when he had only gone to sleep an hour before.  I'm convinced it coincides with the automatic cat dispenser going off and the cats (ok, Lilly) racing through the house to get to the food within milliseconds of it being dispensed.  (You can see we already have members of this family with an unhealthy connection to food :)  So tonight we're going to change the timer on the dispenser to see if it changes Davis' second wake up time.  John asked me if that could really be waking him up...and I had to remind him of his conversation with our downstairs neighbor.  John asked her if the baby was waking her up and she said "No..but the cats do".  Yes. We have those kind of cats.  Luckily, we love them and can look past that, but I'm afraid our downstairs neighbor isn't too happy about them.  However, I remember one day when Davis was about three weeks old and I had just gotten to fall asleep for a nap finally when the cats went racing through the dining room and woke him up.  They almost went to visit the sausage factory that day.  

We're very hopeful that we are helping Davis learn good sleep behaviors!

Necklace

A few years ago, my mom gave me some beads she picked up on her trip to Indonesia and suggested a great present someday would be a necklace made from them.  That day finally came!  I managed to work on it while I was waiting for Davis to make his appearance.  I thought for sure if I started a project I really wanted to finish he would come (turned out that didn't work, but at least the necklace is finished.  As are four baby blankets).  Anyway, the wire is mostly 16gauge sterling silver with a copper core.  I used 18gauge for the caged beads, which needed to be caged since they have really large center holes.  Props to John for taking such a great picture of it. 

Trying not to be THAT mom and Davis sleeps in the crib

Davis and I went to our Great Beginnings class yesterday. The topic of the day was typical visual and hearing development. I'm having a really hard time not being 'THAT" mom, the one who is so proud of her kid she drives everyone else nuts. But it's hard, Davis sure seems special! Granted, all the development the instructor was talking about was for a typical child and I think she was stretching the timeline so no one would freak out if their kid wasn't doing that yet..but Davis sure seems ahead of the game! Hah, track objects with his eyes? He's been doing that since three weeks. Vocalizing new sounds? Since last week! Looking for where Mom's voice is coming from? Since he was an hour old (kidding on that one)! Ok, so I actually refrained from saying any of it. When the instructor asked if anybody's baby was making ooh or aah sounds and I saw no one else was going to say theirs was, I kept it to myself. But, internally I said yup! Since grandparents, aunts and uncles read this blog, I figure it's safe to brag here :)

The biggest breakthrough of the week is we've started putting Davis to sleep in his crib at night. I started to nurse and rock him to sleep and after he's been asleep for long enough I transfer him to the crib. The first night he slept for 45 minutes. Last night he slept for three hours! It's really nice since now John and I can go to bed after Davis and have some much needed time alone to talk (although John dominated last night's conversation talking about wanting to buy a new camera we can't afford). Everyone can dream. Perhaps tonight I'll put him back in the crib after he wakes up to eat instead of taking him to bed. I figure we better cut me off from midnight cuddles as well. I'm starting to get very sad about going back to work. One of the other topics of the class yesterday was about going back to work (all the moms talked about their plans to return, or not to, and what they had lined up to either cover daycare or to keep them occupied with their time at home). As soon as the topic came up I started to cry. Luckily, I had finished crying by the time they got to me, so I don't think anyone noticed. Poor Grammie is going to get a lot of phone calls from me when she's here watching Davis. I had a whole lot of people telling me that I was going to have a hard time going back to work, but like being pregnant and giving birth, you can never fully understand the emotions involved until it happens I guess. Counterbalancing the sadness of leaving Davis is my excitement to exercise my mind again and to have social interactions that don't involve talking about poop and breastfeeding. In fact, for the last 3 or 4 weeks I've been working during Davis' morning nap, but now I've finished the work I started and can't think of what else to do that fits well into that hour block of time. I'm sure I'll think of something, I'll try to refrain from driving my undergraduate researcher nuts at least.

Davis wears socks!

Today Davis and I joined friends Courtney and Mack for a day at the Children's museum in Boston. Mack is 14 months old and had a great time in the playroom. Davis was too young to enjoy much, but it seems like a fantastic place for little kids. My excitement of the day was dressing him up in big boy clothes. The overalls (a gift from our friend Megan's parents) didn't last long before getting wet, but I got a picture before taking them off. Also, I sure think he's cute in his NASA socks sent by Uncle James and Aunt Stephanie.

Above is a picture of John reading a Dr. Seuss Alphabet book to Davis. Davis loves being read to! Unfortunately, Dr. Seuss has John making up rhymes that he likes to say in the middle of the night (something about dapper diaper daddy to the rescue). Davis had a great night last night. He semi-woke up once around midnight for food and then slept until 3am. He decided he wasn't sleepy however between 3am and 5:30, so I'm exhausted today! We did try putting him to sleep in the crib and that worked for a full 45 minutes at the beginning of the night. Hopefully, if we just keep trying it he will sleep longer and longer on his own in the crib. Other good news is Courtney pointed out the swing we borrowed from them has two positions for the seat recline, so now that he can fully recline we might try the swing at 3am if he wakes up and won't go back to sleep with nursing (the 3am wakeup is a habit). We've never left him asleep in the swing without supervision before because his head will fall forward and so one of us will adjust his head and prop him up with receiving blankets everytime it happens..now there's no fear of that happening!

Davis also did super well at yoga on Tuesday. He nursed at the beginning of class, but then made it through the whole rest of the class! He especially likes sitting on mommy while I do situps! Perhaps I make funny faces while doing a stomach crunch..it's been a long time since I've done them!

Davis loses receeding hairline

The headline news for this week is it looks like the hair on the rest of Davis' head is finally growing in. He had 80-year old man hair, which was just a ring round the lower half of his head. Now he has little peach fuzz all over the rest of it. His hair will be drastically different lengths for a while to come I'm sure. Other updates:

What we've done this week/weekend:

• John made a batch of beer, which we are both excited about since I have permission from the pediatrician to enjoy a beer or a glass of wine on occasion.
• We had brunch with Josh, Courtney and Mack at a restaurant we haven't been to for a long time.
• Megan and I went on a bike ride yesterday (and just barely beat the thunderstorm home) making three bike rides for me this week!
  
• We walked to Whole Foods last night to get safer diaper wipes as the ones we were using we should avoid according to the Environmental working group. When we have a chance we'll be getting cotton washcloths from Costco and just use those + some water when we are home.
• Susan, Davis and I went for a walk around Fresh Pond on Friday and had a picnic lunch (on her porch). I got to try Formaggio Kitchen finally!
• Davis does not like his new carrier. However, I borrowed a sling from Boston Babywearers and although he also doesn't like the sling either, there was a moment while his head was still out of it that he looked excited. So I have hope that in a month or so he'll like his carrier.
  
• Today we plan on grabbing a picnic lunch (from Formaggio Kitchen again) and we'll head to minuteman for a walk by the vernal pond. If Davis is in the right mood, we'll head to a friend's place for a bbq.
  
• We started giving Davis baby massages and he loves it! We plan on making it a night time ritual.