Below are a few pictures we took of G this weekend and thought we would share.
It is funny to us how much growth everyone else can see in G. For us, we are with him every day, so the primary way we notice is that our muscles ache sooner while carrying him around than they did a month ago (especially in his car seat which probably doubles G’s weight by itself). We also notice how much he has grown when some of his birth photos fly across our TV.
It was a good weekend for everyone here. BM babysat G while I worked all day Saturday and today, we took G to the grocery store and snapped a few pictures. Tomorrow it is back to Groundhog Day. Hope you all had a good weekend.
Anyway, each morning while I am feeding G, BM and I watch a TED presentation. They usually last about 20 minutes which run perfect with G’s feeding. The TED we watched today was a presentation that Steven Levitt did (Mr. Freakanomics). Being a stats head, I love his fresh approach and ways of thinking that help break down preconceived notions in our society.
Steven did just that in today’s TED video. He appears to have made a very compelling case that child seats for children over the age of two are at best as good as standard issue seat-belts but at worse they are worse for the health and well-being of our kids.
I know, is contrary to how we think in this country, but if you ponder how public policy is made in this country (think special interests and there are no major special interests in support of no child seats), you can probably understand why we have an overwhelming belief that child seats are good. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not criticizing our policy process as it is the best anyone has come up with this far in human history. In fact, our entire system was build primarily to keep the power of the special interests in check as much as is possible - but again I digress.
If you are interested, you can watch the TED video below or watch it on the TED website. Have a good weekend!
It is funny the nicknames that people come up with for their friends and family. Sometimes the nicknames are endearing and other times they make absolutely no sense to the outside world. I suspect most of the latter are never shared with the world, but hey, this blog is about being open :)
At night our goal is to bathe, feed, and swaddle G in about 45 minutes to an hour. We try to keep this process a little boring so as not to stimulate him or prevent him from falling asleep.
So, G’s nighttime feeding is 6oz which takes us about 30 minutes to feed and get a few good burps out of him. After he is done eating he is pretty much a happy camper.
He knows his routine and he knows how things work. For the most part, he isn’t fussy when we put him down and he usually puts himself right to sleep. On occasion we hear him make a few peeps before he begins “chasing bunnies” (that is our code for G is dreaming - and no he isn’t a dog :)
Well, when go to swaddle G, he has learned he needs to puff up his chest just before the swaddle is cinched down. He is funny in that he will arch his back and inflate his chest - all with a smile and maybe a few grunts. But the reason he does it is to prevent the swaddle from being too constricting. This made BM give G the nickname of 6oz Pufferfish. Every time I hear it, I laugh. I just can’t help it.
Now, if we were to leave the swaddle as loose as it is when G puffs up, he would be able to wiggle free during the night. Since we don’t want him to wiggle free, we have to wait a few extra seconds before the swaddle is tightened down. G can’t hold his breath that long so eventually, his chest will deflate and his back will lower and we can give him a snug fitting swaddle.
25 years from now, I am sure G will be at some cocktail party and a blog reader from today will start talking about the 6oz pufferfish. This will give G further proof that his parents are weird, along with the blog readers :)
I finally captured a little video of G speaking. The flashing light and noise deal that sits on top of this play mat thing turns off after about five minutes of playing. Within 30 seconds of the lights and noise stopping, G begins to use daddy’s technique of commanding things to happen (I think G is more successful than I am). So, he chats for a second or two and then turns to see himself in the mirror. Thought you all might enjoy the little video. I have to run as it is his bath time.
So if being ‘with child’ weren’t hectic enough, Bmommy and I will add more stress to our lives in the coming weeks. After our trip to Maine and New Hampshire, my work travel schedule has picked up. Detroit last week, Los Angeles this week, and Las Vegas two weeks from now. I feel like a celebrity or an NBA player, except with out all the fame, fortune, and rehab.
We are also starting a kitchen renovation project tomorrow morning that will last the next 3 weeks at least. Our things are scattered about (kind of like our brains at this point) and we are hoping things go as planned. Unlike a kitchen project, at least a fetus is pretty predictable. Imagine if a doctor told you that the baby was due in January and it finally arrived in late March. Not that we expect problems with the renovation, but these things rarely go as smoothly as you’d like.
Have included a picture we took recently when we were hoping to have a baby. Ah, the power of positive thinking.
Well, we just put G down for bed. He is getting close to sleeping nine hours every night and BM and I aren’t able to sleep past 6a. Truth be told, we prefer to be up and moving by around 5:15a, but sometimes we have to get some sleep.
So, today was G’s two month doctor visit. Everything looked great according to the doctors. G weighed in at 13lbs 13oz. He was 25 inches long and his head was 41cm around (he has a big head like his daddy :) The funny thing was that both the nurse and the substitute doctor (ours wasn’t available today) told us how great Grayson was doing since he was in the 75th percentile for all three measurements - the implication was that Grayson was doing better than 75% of the babies his age. The truth is, those numbers aren’t a grade or score, they are just a measure to show how our child compares in growth to other children. A child that is in the 25th percentile isn’t worse off than a child in the 75th percentile. Not to mention, if all my years of school serve me well, having a score of 75 is actually not all that great (a C I think).
Now, if we were talking baseball players, someone batting 750 would be making all the money his ball club could pay him (oh, that raises another question…why aren’t there any women pro baseball players?). However, you probably wouldn’t want an auto body repair shop to fix only 75% of your car after an accident. Oh, how I digress. Needless to say, his appointment went well and he is down for the night. Time for us to take care of a few more things before our sleepy time begins.
The weekend was a good one for us. We had a few friends drop by to meet G and he put on quite a show with his smiles and little noises. Unfortunatly, the weekend wasn’t long enough.
Tomorrow, G will be 10 weeks old. We have a doctors checkup for him tomorrow and I will try and post a short update after that session.
A few weeks ago, my wife and I found out we are having our first child. We are about 8 weeks right now and are due in late January.
My wife, hereafter referred to as Bmommy, has begun to feel the effects of pregnancy. She is waking early in the morning for a snack. She has developed a mild case of narcolepsy in which she falls asleep suddenly, usually at the first sound of a sports announcer’s voice. Bmommy is also a stickler for the rules, meaning that she will not be lifting anything for the remainder of the term. I don’t mind the extra work-out.
Coincidentally, Bmommy and I took a pre-scheduled trip to the East Coast recently, which was a good chance to relax and talk about the baby. We are very excited, and have taken to giving the baby joke names based on its relative size. For example, when it was the size of a grain of rice, we called it Riceton (boy) and Grainsley (girl). The blueberry version was Violet (think Willie Wonka) and the peanut size was Shelly. It gives us a way to avoid thinking of real baby names.
Father’s Day was a great day for me. BM, Gman, and I pretty much hung around the house and did a bunch of nothing. It was nice to relax and play. I told BM, that I must be a father since I spent a large portion of the day watching the US Open - and I have never enjoyed watching golf before.
Gman is doing really well. He is putting on weight like he should and is sleeping close to nine hours at night. His disposition is wonderful and he is definitely interacting with BM and I more. He is continuing to improve his gurgles and other noises in his attempt to communicate with us. He definitely recognizes both of us and lets go with the biggest smiles first thing in the morning when we unswaddle him and change his diaper.
Over the past couple of weeks, we have taken him out to eat about five times and he has done very well. Usually we will head to dinner after G’s 6p feeding when we know he will be full and happy through about 9p. It is nice to take G out more but it is also nice for BM and I to continue to move back into some of our old routines.
Anyway, hope you all enjoy the photos and have a great week.
As you know, several months ago we changed from opensourcebaby.com to opensourekids.com. One of our primary reasons for making the jump was to allow other parents or parents-to-be the ability to write and share their experiences with all the OSK readers. In other words, the blog isn’t necessarily just about our adventures, but it can be about your adventures too.
So, if you are a parent or a parent-to-be and would like to use OSK as a means of sharing with family, friends, and others that just want to learn or follow the adventures of parenting, just drop me an email and I will set you up with an account.
You will be able to publish as often as you want and you can use the OSK system we built to distribute your content. We would love to have new authors and parents to share tips, news, and advice with us all. So, drop me an email if you are interested in having an account setup for you to add to the blog.
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