My brother Jim got married in our backyard on Saturday. When we found out he was getting married a few months ago, we knew Aaron would only be 2 months old and figured that it would not only be fun to have a family wedding in our backyard, but it would be convenient to have everything we'd need for Aaron on hand. If we had gone somewhere else for a wedding, we would have had to lug a diaper bag with us and would have had to hold him the entire time. This way, we were able to put him down in his crib when he was tired.
Thom officiated my brother's marriage to his fiance Barbara. In California, anyone can be Commissioner of Civil Marriages for a fee. The honor is bestowed for a three day period for a specific couple. Jim served this role for our wedding, so Thom simply returned the favor. Jim and Barb limited the guest list to their immediate families, which is part of what allowed us to hold the wedding at our house. Since Jim and Barb each have 4 siblings, it was still a good sized crowd. It was a simple, beautiful wedding and the weather was perfect. It was a little hectic as hosts with the baby, but my mom, sisters and sister-in-law helped out quite a bit.
Even my new niece Elizabeth helped out with Aaron. When I was putting on makeup before the ceremony, I had Aaron in his bouncy seat between the two sinks in the master bath. Elizabeth sat on the floor next to him, talking to him and using hand gestures. Every time I glanced down at him, he was just staring at her, enthralled. I had been worried he might have a melt down since he was really tired, but he seemed to be very taken with his new cousin. Barb even offered to babysit Aaron when she's not at work, and I can see us doing some reciprocal babysitting. Before Aaron was born, I remember Barb telling me that Elizabeth would be a big help with the baby if I babysat her kids, but until I saw it in action, I couldn't believe that a 6 year old could really help out.
I've included some photos in my blog that my Dad took. You can see the rest of his photos from the wedding here.
When I am not doing all of the things I chronicle on this blog (or blogging about those things), I spend time working on Childengineering.com.
It was an idea I had earlier this year when I was trying to think of a website I could start that maybe hadn't been done before and that would suit my interests and areas of expertise. But I was also specifically looking for something that might generate some income through ads and affiliate programs. Since I noticed that as software engineers, Thom and I approached parenthood a little differently than other parents (Thom had to research baby monitors to make sure we got one that wouldn't interfere with our wireless home network) I thought there might be a place for a website devoted to engineer parents.
My goal is to provide links, information, and product reviews that are of interest to other analytically-minded parents. I've hooked up Google ads on some of the pages and signed up for Amazon.com's affiliate program and link to products on their site when available to try to generate some revenue. Since I created the site with Google's free Page Creator program (yes, another Google plug), it was free to set up, aside from registering the domain name childengineering.com (which wasn't strictly necessary).
I still don't know if there will be significant interest in the site, but it has been fun to work on. I have found that I really enjoy writing book reviews. I've added one on a parenting book I just finished (Secrets of the Baby Whisperer) and a couple on children's books we own. It will be interesting to see if anything becomes of the site.
(By the way, I use Google Analytics to monitor traffic on the site - another free service by Google. I also use it to monitor traffic on this blog and was interested to see that in the past month, I've had visitors from China, Australia, England and a number of states in the US - some of which surprised me since I don't think I know anyone in those states.)
We took Aaron in for his 2 month checkup this morning. He weighed in at 14 lbs and was 24" long. The doctor said this put him in the 90th percentile for height and 90-95th percentile for weight. But she said this doesn't mean that he will necessarily be tall since babies grow at varying rates. By 18 months, though, Aaron will settle into a growth pattern and at that point, she said you can usually predict if he will be short or tall. Since Thom is 6' (slightly taller than average for men) and I'm 5'2" (shorter than average for women), we might expect Aaron to be somewhere in the middle.
The doctor confirmed that the new rash we've seen on Aaron's arms the last week is eczema. We were told to start putting some fragrance free, non-comedogenic lotion on him (Cetaphil and Eucerin were two she recommended). Rather than drying him completely after his baths (as I had been doing), we are supposed to slather him up with lotion while his skin is still damp to help seal in some of the moisture.
Aaron also got his first immunizations today. 2 shots in each leg, and one oral dose of a rotavirus vaccine. (Rotavirus causes severe diarrhea and vomiting in small children and can lead to hospitalization for dehydration.) The shots he got were for Polio, Hepatitis B, Hib (Haemophilus influenza type b), DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (Whooping Cough)) and pneumococcal disease (the leading cause of bacterial meningitis in the US). We gave him some infant Tylonol after his exam and about 10-15 minutes before the nurse gave him his shots. Thom held him during the shots, which went surprisingly quick. I nursed him as soon as the shots were done and he was already starting to calm down before we got started.
I expected the experience to be worse, but he seemed to take it pretty well. He fell asleep on the way home and after an extensive diaper change, he is now napping in his crib. Hopefully he doesn't have any delayed reactions.
Sunday was our first Father's Day. I couldn't match Thom's Mother's Day gift of pearls, so I opted for a more reliable approach. I got him geeky stuff. Thom owns more t-shirts than anyone I know. So I got him a t-shirt with "Dad" written in binary (a series of zeros and ones). And to go with it, I got Aaron a matching t-shirt that has "Kid" spelled out in binary. I also got him the first 4 volumes of Make magazine which has projects that he'll be able to do with Aaron someday.
We went over to my parents' house in the afternoon to celebrate Father's Day with my dad. My sister Lia was there and my sister Theresa and her family. We got some photos of my mom and Mattea holding Aaron, which I posted in a Father's Day web album along with some photos of Thom I took in the backyard after we got home (I love these long summer days).
I am also posting a slide show at the end of this blog entry of the photos from the web album. It is a feature from Picasa that I didn't know about until my dad showed it to me once I got him hooked on Google's Picasa service and software. Yesterday, he was showing Picasa to my sister Theresa and her husband Ernie, trying to get them hooked as well. My friends think I work for Google or something because I am frequently touting various Google services. But the fact is that they have great products and services that are free and most of them work better than the other free options out there. By the way, move your mouse over the slide show for options.
OK, that is the end of my Google plug for today. I hope everyone had a great Father's Day. If you are reading this, leave a comment telling me what you did for your Dad this Father's Day (or what your kids did for you).
Although Aaron has his fussy moments (or days), overall, he's remarkably good-natured. He started smiling at us nearly two weeks ago and we get smiles on a daily basis, now. This photo doesn't do his smiles justice, but it was the best I could capture on camera.
He may not be the happiest baby on the block, but he is very good at entertaining himself. He can go for long stretches in his bouncy seat just looking around and listening to himself make noises. He especially loves to look at his mirror our friend Ernie gave him which we have sitting where he can see it from his bouncy seat. He can stare at it for 10 or 15 minutes at a time. The way we have it, he can't see himself, so I'm not sure if he is staring at the reflection of the room in the mirror, or the colorful decorations around its border.
And speaking of noises, he is starting to make new ones. Yesterday he said "ga" for the first time. This may seem like a small thing, but up until now, his primary forms of communication have been grunting, crying and wailing. He has also recently been heard to coo. On the road to verbal communication, these feel like major milestones.
Thom and I have always enjoyed throwing dinner parties with our friends and I wasn't sure how it would go once we had kids. But Friday night, we had 5 friends over for a potluck dinner (it should have been 3 couples, but Aaryn's fiance was stuck back east for work). When Lon and Melissa showed up, Aaron was awake and entertaining himself in his bouncy seat. When he started to get fussy, I fed him, which was when the rest of our guests arrived. After his evening feeding, he is generally ready for bed, but we let a few of our friends hold him before putting him down. We knew it was a gamble because if he got over-tired before we put him down, there would have been crying and screaming and it would have taken a long time to get him calmed down again. But Thom managed to whisk him away before he reached that point and he went to bed without too much fuss.
I'm sure when he is older he it won't be so easy, but it is nice to know that as much as our lives have changed with the new addition to our family, we can still enjoy some of the activities from our old life.
Today, I met my friend Karen for lunch at Panera. It was the first time I had taken him out to a public place. So far I've only taken him to doctors' offices, other people's homes, or the office. But Karen lives about an hour away, so we met somewhere in the middle. I hadn't seen her since I was pregnant, so it was great to catch up.
I was a little nervous about taking him to a restaurant, but he did fine. He slept for the first hour and when he woke up hungry, I fed him in public for the first time. Karen is very supportive of breastfeeding in public, which made it easier for my first attempt. I covered up with a blanket so no one could see anything, but it was still awkward trying to feed him in a booth without a pillow on my lap. It was good practice, though, and now that I know I can do it, I will probably venture out in public with him more.
In 8 weeks, we've taken Aaron out quite a bit. He's been to my brother's house, my parents' house, my friend Heidi's house, my office (twice), my doctor's office (for my 6 week checkup), his doctor's office, my friend Jessica's house, two baby showers, and now Panera. So far he has done really well when he is out of the house, usually even better than when he is at home. I think maybe he likes having new things to look at, or maybe he just likes sleeping in his carseat stroller (which is mostly what he does). I just know it makes the day pass so much more quickly for me when we get out.
When Mont and Jessica and Gabe first came together to see Aaron, he was about 3 weeks old and Gabe was 10 months. I remember thinking that Gabe still couldn't talk or walk and it seemed that at 10 months, babies still can't do very much at all. I felt like it would be forever before Aaron could do anything.
A week or two later, our friends Bulent and Biriz came over with their 7 month old Alara. She was all smiles and since Aaron was sleeping, I got down and played with her a bit. Already my perspective had changed. Instead of noting the things Alara couldn't do, I remember thinking "Wow, she can smile, she can sit up on her own and she can grab the rattle when I hand it to her. I can't wait until Aaron can do those things!"
Now, at almost 8 weeks, I am marvelling at each tiny milestone. Aaron has started to smile and each time we coax a tentative smile from him is a cause for celebration. Then yesterday morning, when I was changing his diaper, Aaron stuck his thumb in his mouth and I was thrilled. (He hasn't done it again, but he is trying so hard to learn to suck his thumb, which we are excited about since he frequently refuses the pacifier when he is having a meltdown and wants to suck on my pinky finger instead. I guess skin tastes better than silicone. It will be much better when he can suck his thumb and soothe himself.)
Every week it seems like there is more he can do. But until I had my own baby, I couldn't appreciate the small milestones. Now I know that there are a million things a 10 month old can do that Aaron has yet to learn.
As my last post revealed, some days with Aaron can be a bit challenging. Of course, I realize that I could have it much worse. I know Aaron is a pretty darn good baby as far as babies go. The problem is that I'm still adjusting to life with a baby, which seems so different than my old life.
But the more I think about it, it's not so different. I get frustrated when I am trying to get something accomplished and Aaron wakes up early from a nap. At work, I would get frustrated when I was trying to get something accomplished and I got sidetracked by a client's technical support problem. Taking care of Aaron is like doing tech support. I'm busy all day long, but at the end of the day, I don't feel like I've accomplished much. Other than keeping a cranky client satisfied, which is rewarding in its own way.
To give you a glimpse into life with Aaron.. (Warning - this posting is long and tedious, but that is how my day went and I wrote this to vent my frustrations. I have since edited it down a bit.)
I fed Aaron just before 11pm last night, put him to sleep in his crib and headed for bed. I woke up around 3am to the sound of Aaron stirring. I got up, went down to his room, decided that he was definitely waking up and decided to feed him.
I took him out of his crib, unswaddled him and took him to the bathroom for a diaper change. I have found that changing his diaper after the feeding seems to make him to spit up more so I try to avoid it unless he soils his diaper during the feeding. I changed him quickly, before he could get too upset about the delay in being fed. I fed him and got him back to bed around 3:30am (which was unusually quick since sometimes I'm up over an hour during his late night feedings) and went back to my own bed where I slept soundly until about 5am.
For some reason, Aaron seems to have trouble sleeping after about 5am. Maybe it is because dawn is just starting to break and a faint amount of light is coming through the window shade. On the days he eats just before 5am, he has a hard time going back to bed. But this morning was one of the first times that he was sleeping when 5am approached and I had hoped he would sleep through until the next feeding. But he must have some kind of internal alarm clock set to 5am since almost on the dot, he started to fuss.
I turned off the monitor and went down the hall to his room. But Aaron was asleep. So I crawled into the guest bed and slept a bit more until Aaron woke up crying around 6am. I got him up, unswaddled him, changed his diaper, and fed him. Thom was up at this point, so I had some company and I considered staying up and having some coffee, but doing the math in my head, I realized I had maybe a total of 6 hours of sleep and I would regret not taking the opportunity to get a little more before Thom headed into work. So I went back to bed and slept for another hour. And it was a good thing I did.
When I got up, Thom was holding Aaron in the office, trying to get some work done from home. I stumbled into the kitchen, got a cup of coffee and made something to eat. When I was done, I took over while Thom went to grab a shower. Since Aaron was sleeping, I was able to start dinner in the crockpot. I was about half way done when Aaron woke up around 9am. I turned the crockpot on, planning to finish up after his feeding. During his feeding we said goodbye to Thom who headed off to work.
Now, since Aaron had been up a good chunk of the morning, I expected him to sleep between 9am and next feeding. Not so. He did let me put him down in his bouncy seat though (where he hangs out and sleeps during the day), so I was able to finish preparing dinner. Once I was done, I gave him some attention, still expecting that he would fall asleep shortly. After awhile, though, he started fussing and I had to pick him up.
Pretty much from about 10am until noon, I either held Aaron (who kept falling asleep in my arms) or I had him in the bouncy seat for no more than 15 minute intervals. While I was holding him, I got on the computer and browsed the web, reading other mother's blogs for entertainment.
I knew he'd be hungry again around noon, and since I was getting pretty hungry myself, I wanted to eat lunch before that. I put him down and started making something for lunch when he woke up again. Since it was almost noon, I decided to go ahead and feed him so I could eat lunch afterwards. Again, I figured since he had been awake so much, he would probably fall asleep after eating and I could finish making lunch and eat. Not so.
After feeding him, I put him back in his bouncy seat where he was awake, but content to look at his pictures and "talk" while I responded to him from the kitchen. I finished making lunch and sat next to him to eat so I could talk to him. This was OK for about a minute, but then he started to cry. So I picked him up, thinking I could eat one handed. But he wasn't content to sit still. He wanted me to walk around. So I left my lunch to get cold and walked him around, talking to him. He was still fussy, so I decided to change his diaper (which I had been trying to postpone until after I ate since at this point I was getting light-headed with hunger).
So I went to change him and he quieted down. He had a poopy diaper. With my left hand, I was attempting to hold his feet and cover his penis so he didn't pee on himself. With my right hand, I was trying to clean his bottom. As I was doing so, he started pooping some more. So I did my best to keep it from hitting the walls (not an uncommon event around here) or getting on his clothes. I heard a gurgly noise and looked down to see that he was spitting up, so I held his feet with my right hand (so he wouldn't kick them into his dirty diaper), grabbed the spit cloth with my left hand and wiped the spit up off his face. Then he gave me what looked a little like a smile (something he is still working out how to do) as if he saw the humor in it all. And of course I have to laugh at these moments because it is funny in a way.
Finally he finished expelling fluids from his various orifices and I resumed cleaning him up, only to discover that my attempts to save his jammies from being soiled have been in vain. I tried to position him on the disposable changing pad so that there was a clean spot beneath him so I could get a new diaper under him. Not an easy task by myself (which is why Thom and I usually do diaper changes together when we are both home). Once the new diaper was on, I removed his PJs and took him to the changing table in his room to put on a clean onesie.
OK. Now he was fed, had a clean diaper, clean clothes, surely he would sleep so I could eat my cold lunch. Not so. But this time, he was content to sit still in my arms so I could finish eating.
After lunch, he continued on about the same as he had in the morning - going down for a slightly longer stretch, then needing to be held (at which point he would fall back to sleep). Fortunately, my parents arrived shortly after 3pm and my mom took over holding Aaron so I could get his laundry in the wash and finish this blog entry.
Although most days Aaron sleeps longer stretches and isn't as fussy, this is not an atypical day. This gives you a pretty good idea of what our days are like. So when someone asks me if I "love being a mom", it is hard to answer. I love Aaron and I'm happy to be a mom, but I do look forward to easier, hopefully more predictable, days.
My brother Jim got married in our backyard on Saturday. When we found out he was getting married a few months ago, we knew Aaron would only be 2 months old and figured that it would not only be fun to have a family wedding in our backyard, but it would be convenient to have everything we'd need for Aaron on hand. If we had gone somewhere else for a wedding, we would have had to lug a diaper bag with us and would have had to hold him the entire time. This way, we were able to put him down in his crib when he was tired.
I've included some photos in my blog that my Dad took. You can see the rest of his photos from the wedding here.
