Baby Boot Camp Graduate

It's official. I've now survived Baby Boot Camp (or, as others call it, the 4th Trimester). Allegedly now that Seth is 3 months old, things will start to get lots better--as in more sleep and more fun. As of right now, I can attest to the latter. Still holding out for the former.

At three months old, Seth weighs exactly 15 pounds and is 2 feet tall. Which basically means he's a chubster. Still. We have now grown out of our 3 month clothes and some of our 3-6 month clothes. Oddly enough, he's not too chunky for the outfits--he's too tall. Our child must have a long torso. Sure didn't get that from me...

Things Seth can do at 3 months old:

*Smile--it's adorable. I'll prove it soon.

*Laugh (usually at his dad)

*Chew on his hands

*Concentrate really, REALLY hard on grabbing his blanket, but then give up and go back to sucking on his fist.

*Shriek like a banshee

*Hold a 5-15 minute conversation consisting of coos, babblings, and banshee shrieks

*Sleep from 9 to 9 with only one feeding. Number of times he's done this? Once. But still...

*Have an opinion about taking a bottle. We're just happy he'll still take one.

*Spit up all over Mom in the hallway during Stake Conference

*Blow raspberries.

*Put himself back to sleep occasionally when Mom is too lazy (read: exhausted) to get out of bed again. That's right--I'm already letting my child cry himself to sleep. But only for 5 minutes at this point.

*Have exactly 5 rolls on his thighs. Obviously we don't NEED those late-night feedings.

He really has gotten a lot more fun recently. It's nice to see that he really does like us. One thing I miss, however, are his milk smiles. They used to happen all the time, but I haven't seen one in several weeks. He's also lost the newborn cry (which I don't miss too much, although it's cute in its own way). All in all, he's a fabulous baby. I'll take a good-natured crappy sleeper over a grumpy sleeper any day.

Sorry. Pictures soon.

One Productive Weekend(ish)

Jon has flex time at work, which means he works 9 hour days and gets every other Friday off (and we LOVE it). This weekend he not only has Friday off, but Monday as well. Thank you, U.S. Government, for inventing holidays and then giving your employees the day off.

To celebrate, we're doing some things we've been meaning to do for a long time. First of all, to please the grandmothers, we bought this:It should be here in a week or so.

And, with my hard-earned piano teaching money, we bought and assembled this to put in our kitchen:...and bought this, which I have been longing for since I saw it in the chapel of the Nauvoo Temple.We also caulked our bathroom shower and fixed the drain ring in the sink. Today our plans include vacuuming out our disgusting cars and finishing "fall cleaning" the upstairs. Yes, I deep clean my house every 6 months. You can blame my mother for that obsession.

On Monday we're planning a nice "hike" in Gunpowder Falls State Park (you can't really hike when you have no mountains).

In other news, Seth is officially 13 weeks old today and will be 3 months old tomorrow. To celebrate, he has decided to abandon his previous nickname of "Serious Seth" and has started smiling up a storm. He is currently working on perfecting his high-pitched shrieking skills and his hand-gnawing skills. Aren't you all just dying for pictures? We just hope the camera shows up before Halloween. Because let me tell you, we're going to look good (provided I can find the necessary costume pieces for Seth).

By the way, THANK YOU ALL for the book recommendations. Keep them coming. I just grabbed 6 books today and requested a few that were checked out. And, in case you care, Mylicon seems to have helped the gas issue a little bit. We're nowhere close to making it all night, but we usually make it from 9 to 2 with no problems. Hallelujah. If only that stuff weren't so bloody expensive...

Do you ever wonder...

...if your baby secretly hates you? Why else would your child sleep from 9pm to 4:45 am one night and then only from 9:40 to 12:40 the next? I think Seth secretly enjoys watching me get my hopes up and then dashing them REPEATEDLY the next night. You'd think I would have learned my lesson by now.

On a very closely related topic: is my child the only one who wakes himself up 3 or 4 times a night with gas? What am I supposed to do, give him Mylicon before bed every night? And no, it doesn't depend on what I eat. I'm just praying that his next growth spurt will include a fully-functioning digestive system (which will hopefully lead to a decent night's sleep for me).

In other news, I got to eat at the Cheesecake Factory for the first time last weekend (thank you Christine, for coming to DC!). Their lemon-raspberry cheesecake was PERFECT--not too lemony, and not too heavy.

Still no camera. Sorry guys. I promise our child is still adorable. We'll prove it soon.

Book Rants/Recommendations

We don't have TV. There are two main reasons for this: #1--we're cheap, and #2--it forces us to be creative with our spare time (which really means we just watch an X Files episode on the computer).

I quickly discovered that nursing can be very, very boring. Yes, occasionally Seth will look up at me and we'll have a bonding moment, but usually he's all business. Things have improved now that he's usually done in 15 minutes flat, but back in the days of 40 minute nursing sessions I was dying. Other moms joked that I would end up addicted to shows that neither I nor anyone else knew existed because they only air at 3:30 am. Then I'd explain about our TV situation and get some funny looks. Apparently not having TV is borderline "overzealous Mormon" trying to remove the evil influence of the world. But really, we're just cheap.

To cure my boredom, I've taken to reading books. LOTS and LOTS of books. I've always been a fast reader, but I never realized that could be a problem until now--I've practically exhausted the library's collection of decent books and I still have many months of nursing left. Having this perpetual reading marathon has allowed me to make a few conclusions:

1--There are way too many books about Camelot/Arthur.

2--It's very dangerous to just pick a random book off the shelf. You never know what you're going to get.

3--Finding a book in the adult fiction section that DOESN'T include at least one skanky scene is very nearly impossible.

This last conclusion came after a frustrating experience where I had to return 5 out of the 7 books I borrowed. I'd get partway through the book and then hit the skanky part and have to put it down. This really ticked me off because I got far enough into a few of them to actually care what happened. But that's my new rule: any scandalous activity and my reading is DONE.

This is a significant problem. Now I'm not only limited by my book-snobbery (I can't help it--I'm an English major!), but I have to avoid what seems to be the focal point of 90% of adult fiction books. Thank heaven for C.S. Lewis. I can at least bank on him when nothing else works out.

So I'm here pleading (again) for recommendations. In exchange, I'll give you some of mine. These books all passed the snobbery and skankiness tests (thought that doesn't necessarily mean they're suitable for sensitive readers):

March--Geraldine Brooks
Till We Have Faces--C.S. Lewis
A Separate Peace--John Knowles
When the Legends Die--Hal Borland
The Giver--Lois Lowry (Gathering Blue was decent, I'm working on Messenger)
Chronicles of Prydain--Lloyd Alexander (the last two are the best)
Chronicles of Narnia--C.S. Lewis (the first two are boring, the last ones are best)
The Whistling Season--Ivan Doig
Last Lecture--Randy Pausch
Peace Like a River--Leif Enger
Freakonomics--Dubner & Levitt (just a warning--the section on abortion was hard to read. Not difficult, just...hard).

Can't think of the rest right now. Please pass on anything good you've read lately--I'm getting desperate!

Why Jon is the best husband EVER

This is our sweet little baby. He was sleeping from 8pm to 2am every night.Then he stopped. Which means Mommy isn't getting her one good chunk of sleep every night. Which means Mommy is tired. Which means Mommy tends to get angry and/or emotional.

Saturday night he slept like a dream--8 to 2, 2 to 5:30, 5:30 to 8. So, of course, I didn't sleep very well (and yes, I was laying in bed thinking, "Why am I not sleeping!? This is so unfair!"). And, of course, I was exhausted the next day.

I figured that since he'd made that 6 hour stretch the night before he would do it again. Silly me. I fed him at 8:45, had him asleep by 9:30 (and then went back in at 9:40 to put the stupid pacifier back in his mouth) and fell asleep counting on a solid 4.5 hours of sleep.

He's up at 12:45. I plop his pacifier in his mouth and go back to bed.

Then again at 2 am. This is legit--I feed him and put him to bed.

2:40 am. He wakes up and wants his pacifier (he NEVER needs it in the middle of the night). I make Jon deal with him.

4:20 am. Up again. I give him his pacifier, go back to bed and cry because I'm so angry. And then I start thinking about how I haven't gotten a decent night's sleep in 2 1/2 months. And then I start thinking about how I probably won't get a decent night's sleep for a very long time. Needless to say, this is a very bad train of thought at 4 am.

I was trying to be quiet, but I still woke up Jon. He got me calmed down and we fell asleep.

5:45 am. He's up again. Jon jumped up and got him before I could. He offered to give him a bottle so I could keep sleeping. It was very tempting. But then he had a better idea--he'd stay home a few extra hours that morning so I could sleep. Done. I fed the kid and went back to bed.

8 am. I wake up in a panic because I haven't heard any Seth noises (usually he'll wake up around 6:30 and then sleep for two more hours in his swing). Yes, I'm still terrified that my baby is going to die of SIDS. I roll over, and realize that Jon isn't there. Apparently Seth had woken up at 7 am, but Jon got him up, changed his diaper, and turned off the monitor RIGHT NEXT TO MY HEAD without me hearing a thing. I was REALLY tired.

Sadly, I had a visiting teaching appointment at 9am and couldn't sleep in. Jon forgot about it and came into the bathroom demanding to know why I was awake. He was planning on giving Seth a bottle so I could sleep as long as I wanted.

I've heard that a husband doing housework is the best aphrodisiac for a woman. I think giving your wife a few extra hours of sleep is even better (unless that qualifies as "housework"). See? I have the best husband ever.And yes, I still love our baby. I suppose it's not his fault he can't sleep through his own gaseous bursts...

Oh, and we bought a couch and a loveseat this weekend. They were fabulously on sale. I'll put up pictures when they get here (provided we have a camera by then). Now people will have somewhere to sit on the main floor!

Family Weekend

Yeah, still no camera. Sorry. You'll just have to use your imaginations.

This weekend Jon's sister Mary and her husband Scott flew up from North Carolina to visit us and meet Seth. Daniel, Wendy & Jocelyn came down from New York AGAIN so they could see Scott & Mary, too. (Wendy, you are one brave woman).

Things started off rather dramatically, in that our Escort overheated as Jon was on his way to the airport. He pulled off some random exit and sent me & Seth to pick up Scott and Mary. Luckily whatever was wrong only ended up costing around $150--not bad for a car repair.

It was a pretty relaxing weekend--we talked, played games, went mini-golfing (I lost, Jon won, big surprise...) and out to eat. Seth spent the whole weekend staring at Scott, regardless of who was holding him or trying to get his attention. Luckily Scott was a good sport, since Seth was ignoring my "it's rude to stare" lectures.

Seth had two big "firsts" this weekend. Saturday (the 20th) we went to Broom's Bloom for ice cream. Jon & I got some fabulous red raspberry ice cream. I went inside to grab an extra spoon, and when I got back I saw Jon feeding Seth some ice cream! Yes, it was just a tiny, tiny bit (just enough to turn his drool pink), but that is SO against the baby rules. Seth seemed to enjoy it. He even got a couple more tastes (which he basically just drooled out). I really missed my camera that night.

I actually wasn't there for his next big accomplishment--Jon was being kind and letting me take a nap. So it was only when I woke up that I found out Seth had LAUGHED for him! He never thinks it's funny when I change his diaper... And no, I haven't gotten him to do it since.

We had a really good time visiting with everyone. It's fun to think that next time we see them, both Scott & Mary AND Daniel & Wendy will have little baby girls (or at least close--Mary's due the beginning of January). Poor Seth--he's going to be the only boy with 3 girl cousins!

A Pity Party for Me. Wah.

This is how Seth feels about being stuck at home with Mom for four days:

So Jon's in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Again. Which means Seth and I are home alone for 4 full days. Yes, I know it's not that long, but I definitely miss him most in the evenings when he relieves me of Seth duty for a few hours. He's so good to me.

Now I'm in the process of trying to keep myself busy so I won't think about being here alone. Today we hit Target, the library, and Aldi. I borrowed "Hairspray" and "Becoming Jane" from the library--"Hairspray" because Jon absolutely will not watch it with me, and "Jane" because I may or may not have developed a slight crush on James McAvoy after seeing this movie (although seeing him as Mr. Tumnus kind of cooled the fervor a bit).

As usual, my wonderful friend Dawn is keeping me from going insane by inviting me for dinner one night and ice cream the next.

One good thing about having a newborn: I'm too exhausted at night to fret about someone breaking in. In my younger days I would be sleeping with all the lights on (ask my parents what the house looked like when I babysat at night). Not that I'm really that worried--what are they going to steal? Our microwave?

2 months

Seth at the doctor's office, completely ignorant of what's about to happen

Yesterday was Seth's two month birthday as well as his two month check-up. He, of course, had no idea what he was in for. I did--and I felt like a terrible mother taking him in to get stabbed 3 times. Luckily Jon was off work and could come with me.

Seth actually did really well--he cried a little bit, but it was nothing compared to the PKU/jaundice heel prick scream (which he had to go through FOUR TIMES). We ended up giving him a bit of Tylenol later in the afternoon because he was fussy and a bit warm, but then he slept for 4 hours and woke up happy as could be. In fact, he put on the most impressive song-and-dance routine I've seen out of him (and, of course, the video camera was dead). However, he couldn't let this trauma pass without dishing out some punishment in the form of blowing out his diaper BIG TIME while I was nursing him. So pleasant.

Here are the stats: 12.5 lbs, 23.5 in, 15.5 in head circumference. He's pretty solidly in the 75th percentile. I think he's done with the whole "put on a pound a week" phase--he's sleeping longer now and not eating for as long. Hallelujah.

Things Seth can do at 2 months old:

-Hold up his head without any support from us (unless he's really, really tired)

-Stand up and support his own weight (we just have to help him keep his balance)

-Smile--although he's still very selective about who gets smiled at and when. Seeing Jon in the morning usually evokes the biggest smiles (which is SO unfair. I'm the one who feeds the dang kid)

-Go for 6 hours between feedings at night. I usually feed him around 8:30 pm and don't hear from him until around 2 am. And if I do hear from him, now I just put his pacifier in because I know he CAN make it 6 hours.

-Talk up a storm

-Sit up all by himself. That's right--our child's a prodigy

-Wake himself up from a dead sleep to fill his diaper (which usually ends in a blow-out)

-Spit up on himself, me, and three stairs all in one shot

-Enjoy taking his bath (although he doesn't like his feet to touch the water)

-Spit his pacifier into the storm drain, where it will remain for eternity

-Design his own rockin' cool hairdo

-Refuse to interact with his parents when the ceiling fan is on (it's apparently much more interesting than we are)

-Make fabulous spit bubbles and then drool them down his onesie

-Turn his head from side to side during tummy time

-Mistake his dad's nose for his pacifier

Tragically, I didn't get any pictures of his cute not-so-little thighs with bandaids on them. Why? Because my camera decided to die AT THE DOCTOR'S OFFICE. Now it will only take pictures that look like this:I think our video camera will take pictures, provided that I 1) charge the dang thing, and 2) figure out how to use it.

By the way, we totally weren't lying about that whole "sit up on his own" thing. Not at all.

Just for Adrian

(If I remember correctly, the party didn't actually start that night until 2:44 am).

Side note: Seth went 6 hours between feedings last night. Which means I got 4-5 solid-ish hours of sleep. If only I didn't wake up every hour after midnight afraid that he'd quit breathing...

I'm considering it a fluke so I don't get my hopes up for tonight...

When Jon's Away...

I hate it when Jon leaves on trips. Luckily it hasn't happened very often and then usually not for very long. However, I still hate it. I was particularly dreading this last trip as it would be the first time I was totally alone with Seth. Yes, it was just 3 days, but 3 days with a newborn can be exhausting.

To help time go by faster I made sure we had at least one thing to look forward to every day Jon was gone. On Tuesday we went to the hospital (to weigh Seth--not for an injury) and then shopping at Target. Wednesday was crazy busy: I planned on taking Seth to the playgroup at church, but he fell asleep and I wasn't waking him. Once he was up and fed, we went to Sommer's to drop off the maternity clothes I'd borrowed--and ended up staying for 5 hours or something ridiculous like that. Then we went to the library, then to Dawn's for dinner. I was secretly hoping that I would wear the kid out and get him to sleep well that night, but no such luck.

Thursday, however, was the real adventure. Before I give you the full story, please be so kind as to participate in this short quiz:

Q). What city has the second highest murder rate in the entire United States?
A). Baltimore, Maryland

Q). What were Megan, Seth & Sommer doing last Thursday night from 10 to 11 pm?
A). Wandering the streets of Baltimore by ourselves
Here's how it happened:Sommer's hubby acquired tickets to a Baltimore Raven's NFL game while I was at her house visiting. Sadly, he had a church meeting he couldn't get out of so Sommer invited me instead (the real irony being that Jon was the one who was supposed to be at that meeting, but he was obviously unable to attend).

I was excited, as I've never been to a pro football game before. Then I started getting nervous that Seth wouldn't cooperate--a totally unfounded fear as this kid is never unhappy. Eventually I just loaded up the diaper bag with necessities for all possible situations (including an extra blanket to cover his ears with if it got too loud) and headed to Sommer's.

After a delicious pizza dinner, Sommer & I headed down to Baltimore. We only got slightly lost once, thanks to the stupidity of East Coast exit/entrance ramps (oh, how I miss the efficiency of the freeways out West). As we were really late to the game--thanks to our children--we managed to find free parking at a church near the stadium. Well, sort of near. It would have been a lot closer if we'd actually walked directly toward the stadium instead of somehow circling around it and coming in from the other side...

We showed up just in time for the 4th quarter. I figured Seth would knock himself out--noise usually lulls him to sleep. Instead, he spent the entire time staring over Sommer's shoulder at the flashing lights of the billboard screens. Yes, I know. Over-stimulating my child, blah, blah, blah... But he was really good. And he took a bottle (and by "took" I mean chugged it down like I was never going to feed him again).

Let me just say this: Ravens football has nothing on BYU football. This is possibly because I have a vested interest in BYU games, but I've always enjoyed college sports more than pro sports. In case you care, the Ravens lost 9-10.

Now the fun part. Since we managed to enter the stadium in such a roundabout way, we figured we'd just go out the opposite entrance, thus putting us closer to our car. We were feeling pretty sure of ourselves for about 10 minutes. That's when all the other people leaving the game had cleared out and we found ourselves on a dark, shady sidestreet with people eyeing us and cars full of guys yelling out their windows. At that point Sommer starting panicking and I started smiling at everyone we walked past, figuring they were less likely to rob/murder us if we looked like we knew what we were doing.

Luckily for us, Ben was home from his meeting at that point and acted as our GPS. Let's just say we were TOTALLY lost. Here's the map of our journey (stolen from Sommer's blog):
View Larger Map

'A' is the stadium
'E' is our car
'B' is where we were when Sommer called Ben.
We're awesome

I got home just in time to feed Seth at midnight, put him to bed, and then be half asleep when Jon got home around 1:30 am. And no, Seth still didn't sleep longer than his 4.5 hour max. He also came down with a cold that weekend, which made me feel like a horrible mother.

To thank Ben for saving our lives (and because it was Sommer's birthday) I pulled out the cake decorating skills and went to work.