11 Weeks!

I'm 11 weeks old today!

This week I actually slept through the night! Well, if you consider a stretch of 5 hours "sleeping through the night" . . . which most pediatricians do. For three nights in a row I slept from 7:30pm to 12:30am, giving Mommy a much needed respite in her day. But then I changed it up on her and woke up every 1.5 hours last night. I have to keep her on her toes, you know. We also went to the world-famous San Diego Zoo today with Grandma Nancy and had a fun time looking at the pandas (including baby Yun Xi!), gorillas, giraffes, and elephants. I'm looking forward to going again in the future . . . when I can actually see farther than two feet in front of me.

Belly Button Morphology

Johnny's belly button has been a bit of a shape-shifter lately. Originally, he had a super-outy belly button, as can be seen in the photo below:

This is a picture of Johnny's belly button around 3 weeks of age, which is why it looks a little scabby. But, as you can see, it has its own shadow, therefore, it is most definitely raised.

Then, John was getting Johnny into his jammies for bed when he said, "Hey Kelly, look at this! His belly button changed!" I took a look and sure enough, it was different. It looked like this:

Definitely looks different from his 3-week-old belly button, right? Looking at the side profile you can see that it is now flatter; not exactly an inny, but certainly not the super-outy it was originally.

Then the next morning, I took off Johnny's jammies and here is what I see:

 

Back to normal! Weird, no?

10 Weeks!

 

I'm 10 weeks old today!

This week was pretty exciting for a few reasons. First, I discovered my reflection in the mirror and I LOVE looking at myself. I could sit in my swing (which has a mirror above it) and stare at my adorable face for hours . . . well, not really hours, more like a few minutes. I also laughed for the first time this week, which made Mommy and Daddy very excited! I was getting ready for my bath and Mommy blew a raspberry on my tummy and I just laughed! Of course, they had to do it a few more times for good measure and I laughed every time . . .  until it got old and I was ready for my bath. Oh! And my eyes are still blue and beautiful.

2 Month Stats

Johnny and I went to the pediatrician today for his two month check up. Here are the stats:

Weight: 13lbs 14oz - 92nd percentile
Length: 24 inches - 86th percentile
Head circumference: 15.7 inches - 52nd percentile

He also had to get three shots and an oral vaccination today, which he handled like a champ . . . after he cried so hard his entire head turned beet red. After that, though, he was fine. Just tired, as usual. While we were there I asked the doctor about his sleeping habits, or lack thereof. She said it isn't normal for an infant his age to only take a few naps a day for 30 minutes each . . . so she suggested trying to put him down "drowsy but awake" to help him learn to soothe himself. It sounds to her like he's waking up after a REM/NREM cycle and then is unable to fall back asleep. So, she says I should wait awhile before responding to him when he wakes up at the 30 - 40 minute mark; since he's crying when he wakes up, he's probably still tired and it may be part of his soothing process to go back to sleep. However, she emphasized not to let him cry too long . . . whatever that means. She's convinced it will help him sleep longer at night, too . . . but I'm not too concerned about that at this point. I just want him to sleep during the day for goodness' sake! As I'm writing this, he's sleeping . . . and we're at the 45 minute mark! Perhaps there is something to this "drowsy but awake" thing.

A Word On Genetics

Everyone who has seen Johnny from Day 1 to now ALWAYS comments on how much he looks like John . . . not that I'm jealous or anything . . . Honestly, it's true. He and John look incredibly alike, as seen in the pictures below.

Picture of John (my husband) around 7 weeks old, courtesy of Gail, my mother-in-law.

Picture of Johnny (my son) around 7 weeks old.









Amazing, no? They are SO similar, it's ridiculous. However, I'm hoping that he will have my eyes . . .

 

So far, so good. Though we do have to wait until 9 months to see if they change . . . *crosses fingers*

2 Month Photo Shoot

Johnny is officially two months old today, can you believe it?! He's already grown so much, it's hard to believe that in another two months he will have changed completely. So, in honor of him turning two months, we did a little photo shoot together yesterday. :) Enjoy the pictures!

8 Weeks!

I'm 8 weeks old today!

 

I know, I know, I was actually 8 weeks old yesterday, but Mom and Dad were dragging me around to various Superbowl parties so I didn't get a chance to blog. Well, this week brought some new challenges for Mommy and Daddy as I ramped up my fussiness in the evenings and decided not to sleep during the day anymore. I mean, really, an 8 week old is supposed to sleep up to 20 hours a day? C'mon! Do you know how much I miss out on when I sleep that much?! Geez. But, Mommy read a book by Tracy Hogg, the so-called "Baby Whisperer" and we're working on her E.A.S.Y. routine so that I can sleep more. We started yesterday, despite all of the Superbowl parties, and so far, things are going well for me. Now that I'm sleeping more, I'm in a much better mood throughout the day. Who knew?

This week I'm looking forward to my two-month birthday and Valentine's Day next Sunday . . . because I'm secure in my masculinity and, therefore, can enjoy Valentine's Day.

Here's a video Mommy took of me after one of my naps. Look at how chipper I am!

 P.S. I know that the right side of the video gets cut off. If that bothers you, you can click here to see the video on Youtube.

And the livin's E.A.S.Y.

In my previous post, I made Johnny's disgust for napping known. I talked about the entrance of the lovely vacuum into our lives and my ingenious idea of making vacuum songs for Johnny to fall asleep to, so his nap looked something like this:

 Observe the iPod speakers in the bottom left corner. And the swing needed to get him to sleep.

Well, I take it all back. After almost week of trying to get to him to nap during the day, we're not doing so hot. He has decided that napping is not his thing and he can resist the magic of the vacuum noise if he really wants to. This has lead to him being severely overtired and thus, totally fussy and inconsolable in the evening, as Grandma Durso can attest to. I have decided that it's not okay to have a child who is overtired! The poor thing is so worked up that he can't get himself to sleep; it's tragic, really. Who doesn't love sleep?

And so I turned to my dear friend, the Interwebz.

I discovered a method called E.A.S.Y. by Tracy Hogg that revolves around making a pattern for your infant so they learn what to expect after a certain amount of time and to make it easier for exhausted moms to tell apart their child's cries. Oh, and to get their child some rest so that their cries actually sound different.
E: Eat
A: Activity
S: Sleep
Y: Your time (during the sleep)
The best part is, it's not a "cry it out" method, which I don't think I could handle, but was willing to try to get my poor son to sleep. All I have to do is follow the above chain of events and work on getting him into a rhythm. Ideally, he'd be on a 3-hour cycle, so he eats for 30 minutes, plays for 30 - 60 minutes and naps for 90 - 120 minutes. However, since the author stresses that every child is different  you need to refer to your child's cues, not a clock. Granted, it's not an easy thing to achieve, so it'll take some time. Hopefully, after a week (that's the average time it takes to take effect), I'll have a more rested, happier infant. So we can deviate from this:

To this:

 

It's a work in progress. 

White noise

As I blogged about yesterday, Johnny has been having some difficulty falling asleep these days. He's really fighting tooth and nail when it comes time to go down for a nap or just to go to sleep for the night, thus, he's getting fussier throughout the day since he's getting overtired. The experts say that it will go in stages where he'll fight sleep for awhile and then he'll go back to normal and then fight again, then be normal. Well, since I spend a good 2/3 of my day trying to get him to sleep, I've decided that that's unacceptable and have started looking for better ways to soothe him so he can fall asleep easier. The first step was white noise.

Over the weekend, I put him in his swing, turned it on low and then started vacuuming. Voila! Asleep in 2 minutes or less. I decided to purchase a noise machine at Bed Bath and Beyond that makes all kinds of soothing noises like rain, waterfall, summer night, heartbeat, etc. Johnny's not so much into those, unfortunately. But he LOVES the vacuum. So I took my computer next to the vacuum and recorded it for a length of time and then messed around with it on a program called "Garage Band." A few minutes later, I had three "songs" called "vacuum - 15 minutes," "vacuum - 30 minutes," and "vacuum - 60 minutes" ready to be loaded onto my iPod. Lo and behold, he loves the vacuum noise. It's a little obnoxious, not going to lie, but hey, I'll try anything that will get my kid to sleep better and more during the day.

Next step, returning that noise machine. But first, I think I'll cheat and copy the noises on it to load to the iPod . . . y'know, just in case he tires of the vacuum and goes for something that will keep his mother more sane.