Friday 5: Teething Symptoms

Teething has been a long, hard battle at our house.  And it still is going nowhere.  Remember when we first showed those white bumps at 2 months?  Well, those two white bumps are STILL white bumps.  Just the symptoms have gotten worse.  Hopefully we'll cut a tooth soon.  However, I thought I'd share a bit of what I've learned with you.

1)  White bumps on the gums

This is kind of a no brainer.  If you can see the teeth, there are teeth.  HOWEVER, I have learned that this does NOT mean that they are necessarily coming in any time soon.  It has been 3 months.

2)  Fussiness

No, he's not fussy ALL the time.

Now, I don't know how much to give credit to this.  Has Robby been fussy?  Sure, but babies are fussy.  So, who knows.  On to the more concrete things.

3)  The Teething Rash

Isn't this lovely?  Apparently, baby spit gets more acidic when it is time to cut a tooth.  Therefore, at night, when they drool and lay in it, it gets all over their face and causes them to break out in a most unpleasant manner.


4)  Excessive Drooling

The drool is MUCH more plentiful, so it soaks the sheets and makes it virtually impossible to avoid planting one's lovely, smooth, chubby cheek directly into the mess.  Bibs become daily attire.

5)  Green Diarrhea

Aren't you glad I don't have a picture?  Because your child is swallowing so much drool, their digestion gets thrown off.  Hence, the green diarrhea.  You also may notice diaper rash, yet again, due to the acidic nature.

Bonus #6) Dropping the latch vs. Chewing on things

Harper is demonstrating the chewing.  No, thank goodness she's not teething.  ;)

It hurts to eat!  The baby will start and stop because he won't want to put pressure on his gums.  And then get upset because he's hungry.  Vicious cycle here.  At the same time, he always is shoving things in his mouth to chew on.  Masochistic little man.  It's like touching a bruise to see if it still hurts.

Others:
- Low grade fever
- Rubbing cheeks and ears

What am I grateful for?  I am EXTREMELY grateful that we do not have to teeth as adults.  That'd be PMS on steroids.

Grateful for Rain

No, it's not raining right now.  Nor do we need rain.  But today has been a long day with no pictures, so I was thinking of short anecdotes.  Of course, I appreciate that rain helps plants grow, and all that good stuff, but really?  This is just about my complete enjoyment of it.

I remember once writing about my favorite place for school, and it was sitting on the bench in front of the large window at my grandparents' watching the rain fall on the lake and reading.  Really?  I can't imagine a better day than getting to curl up with a good book, under a blanket, while rain is falling outside.  Sadly, that doesn't happen so often right now, since someone doesn't think I should sit still, but one day we'll get back there.  Hopefully.

The semi-amusing anecdote is that not once, but TWICE I had the experience of walking across campus in the rain, just relishing the cool drops on my head, and having a guy run up behind me and offer to walk with me under his umbrella.  The guy at OSU, I did take up on the offer, because I had learned my lesson at Notre Dame.  I had declined, saying I was enjoying walking in the rain (which I was).  The poor guy looked devastated, and I can only imagine how low he must have felt.  I do acknowledge that it's a pretty weird thing to GENUINELY love walking in the rain.  It must have come across as the ultimate shoot-down, though.

There ya go.  Today I'm thankful for rain.

Irrational Fears

We all have them.  You can own up to it.  Mine may be a little more bizarre than some other people's, but that's ok.  Here goes a revealing look into my head.  These are the things I am afraid of:

1)  Spit

Having a baby has made me deal with this.  Unfortunately.  On the upside, his drool doesn't bother me nearly as much as other spit.  Maybe because it's expected?  Chris enjoys being cruel and threatening to give me wet willies or to lick me.  WRONG.

2)  Flying

This picture is actually new.

I used to be ok with this.  I thought I was lucky.  My mother is TERRIFIED of flying, to the point that she needs an "aid" to get on and off planes.  But, that's an improvement from the days when she wouldn't fly.  I'm going backwards.  I used to think it was fun, and now, particularly if I start to fall asleep, I feel like I'm falling out of the sky.

3) Eels and Water Snakes

  (I know I'm stretching on this one.  Do you really think I'd dress him up as an EEL?!?!)

When I was 8 years old I was happily swimming behind the canoe in the lake at my grandparents' house when my uncle turned around and said a few fateful words, "Katy, you know there are eels in there..."  I screamed and almost tipped the boat trying to get in.  There is something UNNATURAL about snakes swimming.  I'm sorry.  It just shouldn't happen.  I actually am NOT afraid of snakes on land.  But this is part of why I am putting off registering for a triathlon.  Open water swim?  No thank you!  However, I do find eel sushi delicious.  Go figure.

4)  Heights

This one isn't so bad, but it's bad enough that my friends think it's just HILARIOUS to sit next to me on a roller coaster.  Also, I promise you I will never go bungee jumping or sky-diving.  But, I can go up in a tall building just fine.

All of these paranoias make me grateful that God has given me the strength to overcome my fears.  Head over to Miss M's Month of Gratitude.

The Real Halloween Costume

The Lion actually DID come home in the skeleton outfit.  Who knew?  Still, we had something else planned for that night.  Not surprisingly, the Lion was....the Nittany Lion.  Although most people thought he was a bear, which was just fine by me.

These are less than great pictures of me, but I know I'm not who matters here.  That is one cute little bear/lion.  It's a 12-month-sized outfit, so there was some cuffing going on, but he still was very snuggly.  That might have been something to do with trick-or-treating running from 6 to 8 pm.  He was a sleepy man!

We had no intention of actually going trick-or-treating, but we did stop by across the street and next door to show off the cuteness.  We also ran into another neighbor who has a little boy, Kaden, who is a couple weeks younger than Robby.  He was dressed as a pea pod, which the Lion found utterly fascinating.  He insisted on grabbing at the fuzzy green outfit the entire time Kaden's mom was trying to take pictures.

I also harassed my elderly neighbor, Ann.  She's in her 80's, and I don't think she intended to hand out candy.  She was sitting in her living room watching tv in her nightgown, but I kept ringing the doorbell until she gave up and opened the door.  (Understand, this is usually how it goes, and she's always thrilled that it's us.)  I knew she'd want to see lil man in his costume, and I was right.  Though she immediately started bustling around trying to find stuff for trick-or-treaters, since she had forgotten what day it was.  And tried to give me candy, which I refused.  1)  Robby isn't eating it yet (though is thoroughly entertained by the crinkly wrappers) and 2) We have TONS left over.

Another neighbor gave me props for getting face-paint on him, but honestly?  That was really easy.  He laughed the whole time.  Apparently it tickled.  There you have it.  Lion's first Halloween.  Maybe next year he can get a sugar high.  (Doubtful, but he can dream.)

Happy Halloween!

There will be another outfit later, but y'know, gotta get something up here for the day.  Really, he almost never comes home from daycare in the same outfit that he leaves in, anyway, due to his amazing ability to get them dirty, so I know better that to count on that one!

(and yes, I recognize that the scary part is what I'm wearing)

And...off to daycare in his dino-bear-skeleton mix of warm weather gear.

Happy 1st Halloween!

Friday 5: Functional Changes to the Nursery

I know you've all seen the nursery in the past, but here are some functional changes we've made since having the Lion.  Some things just work better this way:

1)  I suppose this isn't entirely a change, but I've never shown the inside of his closet.  Obviously, there are hanging clothes, below is his bookself.  The top shelf has shoes, hats, and curtains we haven't hung yet.  Second shelf is books.  Third shelf is actually wipe storage.  Weird, I know.  In front of that is the laundry basket, with the lingerie bag for socks, washcloths, and bibs on top.  You don't want to be losing those!  It's actually deep to the left, so there is a box of large-size clothing, a bag of his toys (need to find a better way to store those), and hooks with various bags.

2)  His crib has been moved to an interior wall.  It was too cold against the exterior wall of our house, as we have some of the poorest insulation known to man.

3)  His humidifier.  This one rocks.  It does not have a filter that we need to change every other week, and you can set it to a humidity level, so that it doesn't run continuously.

4)  His space heater.  Also, like the humidifier, this is great because it has a programmable thermostat so that it doesn't run continuously.  It is set to 73.  It also has a remote that I joke we should leave in the crib so that Robby can adjust it as he needs to.

5)  We keep a storage bin under the futon to put away things he outgrows until it fills, and then it gets labelled and moved up to the attic.  This is a very sad bin.  Currently it hold 6 MONTH clothing.  I just want to get some wear out of things.  Is that so wrong?

Sleep Issues

Can I tell you how silly I feel writing this now that it seems to somewhat have resolved itself?  Ah, well, I've got nothing else on my mind.  And we're going to HOPE that this is resolved for good.  Robby and sleep have a love/hate relationship.  When Robby was VERY young, he slept like a champ.  He even was sleeping through the night fairly frequently.  I thought I had won the baby sleep lottery.  And then...3 months came along.  

At 3 months, the 4 month sleep regression hit.  Robby was waking up between every 45 minutes and hour and 1/2 around the clock.  I became a complete and total zombie.  This lasted for a little over a month.  Things started to get a bit better, slowing down to around 3 wake-ups a night.  And then only 2!  I thought sanity was returning.

Daycare comes too early

Last week, when Robby got sick, his sleep routine got shot to heck.  He was waking up a lot at night, and he didn't want to sleep anywhere but on our chests during the day.  He got somewhat used to this, and came to expect it.  Also, it got very cold (40's at night) in the house, and more importantly his room, and it didn't allow for him to have sound sleep.  He was always cold, since babies can't have blankets.

Now on to the happy ending.  We seem to have won the war!!!  Although, I'll have to see how naptime goes today.  This was yesterday, after being trapped under him the whole time, I DID slip out from under him and do dishes while watching him across the room like a hawk:  

How did we solve the nighttime problem?

(1)  He was on medicine for a week and is now healthy.
(2)  He sleeps both in a sleeper and a fleece sleep sack.
(3)  We run a humidifier to help him breathe.
(4)  A space heater with a programmable thermostat is in his room, set to a balmy 73.
(5)  Pacifiers are still our friends.  We are going to get a breathable bumper, though, because it is too difficult to find it in the middle of the night now that he likes to THROW it.  Not even joking about this one.  This is another little fact that Miss Laurie at daycare tried to reveal to me yesterday.  Yeah.  Already WELL aware of the pacifier-throwing tendencies.
(6)  Hanging thermal/black-out curtains on the windows
(7)  Still waking up once (yay!) a night to get changed and eat.

Our nighttime routine involves going on a dog walk (not right now because Harper's limping...story for another day), then taking a bath, getting lotioned, putting on the pjs, and nursing.

I was brushing my teeth, so I told Harper to "Go get her Robby".  He started laughing and talking to her.  I love having my furry baby-sitter sometimes.

And, with doing these things sanity has returned to our house, and there is a happy baby who wakes up on his own (on non-daycare days) and is cheerful, rather than the cranky non-morning person we're used to.  I'd say I'm pretty pleased with the change.  Last night he slept from 7:30 pm to 8:30 am.  Kind of.  That's including a nap of sorts.  He woke up at 3, and then I thought he was up for the day at 6:15.  He came down and hung out with Daddy for a bit before he went to work, but then he (and I) went back to bed around 6:45.  Ahhhh....