First stomach flu

Yeah. I'm blogging about my kid being ill. I know it's weird but I
want to remember some things about last night, and today.

It almost 10 am. The pukey smelling cloud hanging over DJ and I is
killing my appetite. At least I hope that's what's making my tummy
tremble at the sound of anything more substantial than toast (done
that) or oatmeal. I'm holding off on having any food partly cause I
want to wait for my tummy to feel better so I can put some protien in
it, and partly cause there isn't much I can sneak without DJ seeing.
He's subsisting on Sprite and water at the moment. I think eating
might trigger a meltdown. And at the moment he's no fussier than
usual, which is to say not very at all. Naturally we have our
regularly schedule clash of wills, and that's about it.

Many people talk about women's or mother's intuition. I would like to
give props to some daddy intuition. Last night around 11pm, DJ cried
out and made a choking sound reminiscent of serious conjestion. We
knew he was conjested, so when he quieted quickly I was almost
enclined to dismiss it. B felt strongly that we should check on him.
So I made the two flight distance to DJ's room. I go to pat him and
it's wet all over and he's gurgling. There is a smell in the room like
rotting cheese. I hollar over the intercom for Braden and turn on the
light. There I find sleepy DJ, trying to go back to sleep face down in
a mess. Dinner and some of lunch was hanging out all over the "pillow"
and on the crib sheet cover. This scenario repeated itself several
more times, with an ever smaller amount and fewer bits. But he kept
trying to go back to sleep.

How did I survive this? Rather than trying to wake up every 1/2 hour,
and at one point several dry heaves caused a mad rush up stair in just
a 15 minute period, I chose to stay awake. Luckily I had Ezio and
Assasin's Creed II to keep me company. Ha. B eventually gave up on his
late night coding to watch. So I got 6 hrs of gaming in, pretty much
straight except for the "clean up and comfort" breaks. Good times.

At 6 am, a good time on a normal day, DJ woke up ready for a bottle. I
had some misgivings about giving him milk but he was obviously hungry
so I let him have it. Half way through he stopped and curled up next
to me in the fetal position. Not good. And then he burped and his
tummy gurgled. Insert my Kermit face here. I had a bad feeling.
Shortly thereafter we were both covered in the milk he just had. Yeah.
I saw that coming. After yet another costume change and wipe down, we
put a doubled up towel under him on he master bed and he dozed off for
an hour. Luckily he didn't hurl again until later.

Seems to be just a twenty four hour bug, cause he hasn't thrown up
since morning. I think the fact that I had a bug like this before
Christmas helped me know what not to feed him and how to retrain his
tummy to take food again. I'm glad that suffering was good for
something.

Sent from my iPhone

More words... Yay? Kinda depends.

So I'm pretty proud of DJ's vocabulary so far. He knows about 20 or so
words between signs and speach. I think that's pretty good. His
tendency to put the accent on the second syllable of any two syllable
word is super cute. "DaDEE!" "baBEE!" "poPPEE!" (poppy is his paternal
grandfather.) And when he knows he's not supposed to do something, we
get the "nonononono". It's cute but a little annoying because he says
it while he's trying to do said thing anyway.

But this morning I got something new. He's transitioned from signing
"more" to saying "moe" pretty consistently. He wanted some more food
as I was getting us out of the car to go into the gym. So I told him,
"Just one minute. [the sitter] will give you more food."

And he said, "Moe. Naaaaaoooooowwww!" He wasn't shouting. Just
ennuciating and trying to make sure I understood the word. I'm like,
are you for real? He's getting the concept of immediacy??
Greeeeeaaaaaaattttt. That's just what I need in life. Yeah, it's
progress, and it was damn funny, but I see the greater implications
and a whole new set of tantrums and demands to defuse. Wish me luck!!

Sent from my iPhone

Catching up. Cuddle monkey

Can't believe how sweet this kid can be. I went on an overnight trip and when he finds me at home we spend 10 minutes snuggling and rubbing our faces together. I get to smother him with all the kisses I missed, as though he was waiting for them.

When we get to the gym, where he spends 6 mornings a week, he was freely giving hugs all around. J.A., his favorite guy friend at the moment, never knows what make of all this hug business, but tollerates it well enough. And after two days having breakfast at day care where he's forced to feed himself, DJ happily brought the gym sitter the food, the fork, and he chair he sits in so that she could feed him. It was seriously funny.

All that's missing is for the men at the gym to come around for their requisite fist bumps. LOL.

Sent from my iPhone, on the elyptical machine

Baby Oral HygeIne

This baby is so funny. He loves to brush his teeth. And now he's flossing. Well, ok. He's putting the floss in his mouth, but he leaves it dangling out and seems to be trying to pull it through. It's hilarious! He's been trying to brush his own teeth for maybe a month, but the flossing just started yesterday. How did I get my 12 month old to have such great habits already? I didn't plan it necessarily. It started innocently enough. When DJ was about 6 months old, he started grabbing things and we tried to give him toys small enough to grab. One of my sitters suggested kid sized toothbrushes. He loved them. Still plays with them. So when I started brushing his teeth with a real toothbrush (no more finger brush. Too much biting.) he was ecstatic. He always wanted to brush his teeth and recently he has started to try to do it himself.

But how did we get to flossing? Well, our morning routine includes my higiene needs. I potty (I read it's good to show them even before you start training), put in my contacts, floss and brush. Then, I change into my gym clothes or put on some house clothes. We've this routine for a few months now. I remember to floss nearly everyday. He reminds me by playing with the floss container. So he's been watching this for a while now. So, yesterday I happened to cut an extra long string. He started playing with it, very curiously. So I cut him a piece about four inches long. He put part of it in his mouth, smacking at the minty taste. But he didn't put it all in his mouth and try to eat it. He seems to understand the principle of how to use the floss. This kid is ALREADY too smart for me. Damned perceptive. It's pretty awesome.

First Taste of Cereal

Well, on Monday I decided I would try feed the baby some cereal. At the 7 pm feeding I tried and it went ok. It was supremely messy and a little difficult. I was hoping he'd take to it like my nephew did. Not so much. According to the box (and the web site that went along with it) I should keep the cereal really runny to get him used to the new texture (and let him play with it. YEAH RIGHT?!?!). I tried the runny cereal part. He wasn't feeling it. On Wednesday, my mother's helper accidentally gave it to me super thick, more like conjealed oatmeal. He liked that consistancy much better. So now I make it nice and thick and he takes it down. Today, second feeding of the morning, he took down all two teaspoons of food that I gave him. He has gotten really good at it in just 5 days (4 really, since I started late on monday). So now I'm wondering if I can feed him some bananas or something since I'm going to be out and about for the next feeding. Hmmm...We'll see.

Sleeping almost all night

So, last night the sleep went pretty well. The evening started out with me running late for the 7pm feeding. It was more like 7:20 pm when I finally got the boob in DJ mouth. After feeding him we went out to a local, hopping fish restaurant. It took us at least 15 minutes to circle the parking lot like vultures looking for a space but we got one right near the front. Then it took them another 20 minutes to seat us. Considering that the walk in wait was probably 2hrs by that point, I suppose we did well.

DJ slept through dinner relatively well. The place was rather loud, and clanging plates tends to make the boy jumpy. The sling they had to hold the child seat worked brilliantly, though, and had enough give to it to allow us to jiggle him back to sleep. We showed him off to the people around us and they oooooh-ed and aaaahhh-ed at him. I'm not surprised any more. I'm just proud. He started out cute, but I keep him well fed and nicely dressed.

He slept all the way home and even passed back out in the swing when we got there. It was LATE when we got home, so I didn't get to my pre-bedtime nap until 10:30 or so. It was rough. So I let him sleep till after 11am. I fed him upstairs with barely enough mental capacity to stand without falling over so it was necessary. It's a good thing B was there to help. Unfortunately, mostly for him, DJ was sneak and pooped on the changing table, mostly missing the new diaper that B had just put around his butt. It's been a long time since he's pooped on the table. I try to wait after each feeding so that he is all done by the time I get him up there. B didn't have the chance. I needed DJ changed before the feeding so we wouldn't get poo on his clothes. Oh well.

After the feeding, he took a while to get down. B was holding him and using the pacifier and couldn't get DJ to sleep. I think it was because B had him cradled so that DJ was looking up at him. Daddy is much more interesting than sleepy time. I tried to feed him again and after my nipple started to cry foul even through the nipple guard, I switched to the pacifier. DJ was out shortly there after.

I woke up at 3, and DJ was sound asleep. At 5 am, he started talking to himself. The scheduling book said he might do that for up to an hour. After 10 minutes he started whining so I stuck the pacifier in his mouth. It fell out a minute later and you could almost see the line of "z's" trailing away from the baby's head. At 6 am we had a 30 minute rough spot where he was wiggling and whining, the pacifier only settling him down somewhat. He would fall asleep and then wake up whining five to 10 minutes later. Then suddenly, we were both asleep.

I opened my eyes and looked at the clock. I was shocked to read it was after 7:30am. I jumped up, thinking crazy thoughts about the baby being dead. I put on my pj pants (as if you need pants in a situation like that), and peeked my head in his room. Just as I looked into the room, he shook his head from side to side, stretched his arms, rubbed his eyes and started to whine a bit. I walked over to the bed, said good morning and smiled at him. He smiled back. It was like, "Ok, the service is here. I can stop fussing now." This is the second morning he's woken up happy. Hopefully we can just get rid of these little rough patches at night.

Scheduling Update: Night Time Sleep Patterns

Well, DJ is halfway through week 12 and according to the book he should have been sleeping through the night by now. Well, I was starting to get worried about that 3:30am - 5am feeding because it didn't look like it was going any where. I thought I was going to have to use the "Baby Snooze Button" (putting the pacifier in his mouth and hope he goes back to sleep) to kill it. Well, last night I woke myself at 4:30 wondering what happened to the baby. I had to check on him repeatedly to make sure that he was ok and wasn't dead or something. Paranoia, I know, but whatever.

So he slept till near 6 am. I had to use the baby snooze button at that point, but that's ok. I had to keep waking up because DJ kept stirring. I look at it as an investment. A little lost sleep today will mean 7 hours of straight sleep this weekend. WOO HOO!!! He even woke up happy and smiling. It's so exciting.