Gametes In Love

For S2’s 6m photo-shoot I asked Kelly to capture a few moments of me with S2 that mean a lot to me: bath-time and dinner-time. Those are mostly 1:1 time for the two of us, and it’s something I really want to remember. She did a great job.

AND she also took an amazing photo of all of us together (including the blur that was G 3 months ago). Thank you, Kelly!

You can see the full set here.

“Can you hear me now?” G and S talking. To each other.

S2 on the other hand got to chill with his buddy D. D not having been around dudes his size was very intrigued. He wanted to spoon,

check out the competition,

and pull on some ears.

S2, on the other hand, got tired of the last part of that inspection pretty fast.

There’s proof!!! There’s finally video proof that S2 can roll over from belly to back. It took me weeks to get it, but here it is.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5Kp8mpvILE]

(And what do you know? It made it in time for Movie Monday)

Woa! Halfway to one already.

This has been an exciting month. In it, S2 has began to roll from belly to back (but won’t do it for me), started inchworming while on tummytime (or more realistically wants to get off his belly enough that he shuffles and kicks his legs enough to propel him forward, and he’s discovered the fun reaction he gets when he nuzzles his head on other ladies’ chests. I call this last one practice for motorboating later on. Ms. C is quite amused by this morning routine. Or perhaps not.

His smile is incredible! It’s that full on, toothless baby smile that makes you forget anything is wrong in your life. I’m pretty sure the ‘You are my sunshine’ song is in reference to babies when they smile at you like that.

S2 loves his paci: it’s his biggest source of comfort. I’m happy and worried about this. I’m glad he has something that I know will work, especially at 4am in the morning, but I dread having to break him away from it, as well as the possibility of a second orthodontics fund.

Over this past month S2 has also discovered his feet. For some reason he doesn’t seem to notice them when he’s NOT on the diaper changing table, but when he sees them he stares at them with great admiration.

He’s still not sitting up on his own just yet, but he’s making good progress. He can last 1, maybe 2 seconds sitting on his own before falling over in a random direction of his choice 🙂 The photo above for example: not-held. Of course, the frames immediately following are of him crashing to the left.

Of course, this month was the month S2 started eating solids foods. And he likes them. He polished off a whole jar of squash this morning. I’m not sure I know how to deal w/ a kid that actually likes to eat. But I like it. Keep on, little man!

Weight: 16lb 2oz

Height: 25.39″

Favorite activity: Bouncer and watching the moving wall fish aquarium at school.

Favorite toy: His little bee from First Years

Sweetest moment: Did I mention big baby smile yet?

Naughtiest moment: Motorboat, motorboat, where are you?

Important milestones: Rolling over from belly to back. Started on solid foods

When S’ parents were in town we had some pictures taken for G’s 6 month birthday. They were taken by Kelly M Photography (who also took his newborn pics) and are really, really great. Can I tell you how incredibly fortunate I feel to have such great photographers around us?

And here’s a bit of contrast from the last time Kelly took pics of G.

Then

& now

Same basket… BIG difference.

G tried peas for the first time this morning. It went something like this:

Bite 1: Smile

I was anticipating that first bite reaction so much. S, you see, hates peas. I mean, HATES peas! I on the other hand love peas. I was really hoping that G would take after me on this one, so that smile was so promising. I was thinking “Score!” My excitement, however, came too soon.

Bite 2: “Heh!”

Bite 3: “Maybe I had a premature reaction to this green stuff”

Bite 4: “Ok, I’ve had enough, get me out of this chair!”

And so the jury is still out. We tried again in the afternoon, with roughly the same results.

I’ll keep cheering the peas along, but as of right now Winter Squash is his favorite.

Earth’s Best is the food I’ve been giving him. It’s organic, and it contains the ingredient on the label. No more; no less. When they say “Sweet Potatoes”, they mean “Sweet Potatoes”. And it actually tastes good! Yep, I speak from personal experience. I admit that I’ve tried every food item I’ve offered to my kid. Mostly from curiosity. Some stuff is gross (breastmilk, for example – bleh) but jarred food has been really tasty.

G’s got it pretty good I tell you! Now, if he could only give the peas a chance…

Where, oh, where could they be?

Yeah, I’ve been living in supply decline city here for the last 2 weeks. I’m still stuffing myself with fenugreek & blessed thistle, enjoying my lactation cookies when possible and doing the beer thing, yet it’s as if my body has developed an immunity to the aforementioned tools. I’m coming up about a day-care bottle short now daily. And it’s not like G is eating any less. Kinda sucks! Luckily I have my freezer stash to look to, but I hate seeing (the security blanket that it is to me) go down.

I have two awesome friends who have offered to share their milk with me, and I can’t possibly tell you how fortunate I feel for that, but in a way I feel selfish: I want MY milk and to give all that I can before I go down that route.

So enter Reglan. Yes, THAT Reglan. It turns out that while you’re solving for upset stomach and nausea, you’re also getting more milk as a side effect. I met with my OB on Monday for my annual check-up and we talked about my declining boobage. I asked for a prescription, and she was nice enough to oblige.

I’m excited about taking it and hope it will get me back to where I was.

Now with that said, Reglan can come with some side effects. My primary concern was that it is passed through milk to the child. Normally, this may not be an issue, but since Reglan is prescribed to babies with reflux (which as you know G has), I don’t want it to overmedicate my little guy on top of his existing meds. So after three days of impatient waiting on a talk with our pedi, and an informative discussion, he didn’t have any issue with the meds. Check one.

Secondary concern is possible side effects on me. Depression has been listed as a possible side effect, but I’d like to think that my cheery disposition so far in life hasn’t shown me to be prone to depressive episodes. However, if you see me getting moody here call me out on it.

So we try this for about 6 weeks and then check in with the pedi.

C’mon milk!

… I’ve been chasing you for days!

Yeah, G’s on a new mission towards world domination. It goes something like this:

Step 1. catch foot

Step 2. pull off sock

Step 3. insert foot in mouth

Step 4. take over the world

He’s not completely able to catch his own feet yet, but boy is he trying! His “tries” look like he’s exercising and doing reverse crunches… baby style.

Look at that content smile when he grabs one though. It’s totally the “Ha! Got’cha!” smile.

Plus,  I love the look of determination he gets when he’s going for his toes. Man, he’s really obsessed with them toes! I’m not sure if he knows they’re his yet, but either way, they’re bound to make their way into his mouth if he has anything to say about it.

I’m afraid to rock the sleep boat, but… for the last week and a half G’s been back to his regular sleep schedule.

We did two things: 1) increased his reflux meds (per his pedi); and 2) stopped swaddling.

We had tried putting G down unswaddled previously and failed utterly each time. He’d wake himself up right away and cry. But since he was already waking up and was already crying, I thought “Well, can’t get much worse!” so we gave it a shot.

And he slept like he used to. All night long.

Now, he does get some assistance. You see, it turns out that G takes after his mommy and likes to cuddle with toys while sleeping (and no, I’m not embarrassed to admit I still do this). He sleeps best with Froggie or Munka (his Monkey) by his side. He cuddles his lovie at night and will only wake up and cry if he looses it and can’t reach it. He’s super cute about it. He’ll rub the lovie blankie on his face and cuddle with it all through the night.

At the same time, the fact that he likes to sleep with it covering his face FREAKS.ME.OUT. I’m just so paranoid about him suffocating, it just bugs me to see him do that. However, he clutches it so tight, I can’t pull it away. He get pissed off if I try take it away too. The good news, though, is that he’s proficient at pulling things away from his face (we play a peek-a-boo game) so I know if he wanted to he could easily move it away. None, the less, still a little scary.

So sleeping for the tall folk is back to being good again.

Knock on wood!

Each morning when I go get G to wake-up he gives me a big smile.

I used to think he’d see me and think “Hello, Mama!”, but now I’m starting to believe he sees me and says “Sweet! Hello, Breakfast! What’s on the menu this morning?”

I really only get about 2 minutes lead time between smiles and fussiness. I think it’s because he’s seeing food (aka boob) flaunted in front of him and it’s not in his mouth. He really only calms down after he gets to eat.

So yeah, call me “Breakfast”.

In other yummy news, G has now expanded his eating repertoire to include Sweet Potatoes and Squash. He likes them both and now refuses cereal. I don’t blame him. Squash and potatoes don’t taste like cardboard. However, they do make for some very messy eats, which is really testing S’ limits. S, you see, is not crazy about the whole baby messy mouth/hands thing, so he’s having to re-aclimate… ‘cuz G sure won’t be observing clean standards anytime soon.

Yeah, Daddy, you just wait until G starts flinging food clear accross the room.