The problem with swaddling blankets

What a difference 3 months makes

Grabby Baby

Aaron has finally figured out how to use his hands and there is no stopping him. I took this picture yesterday when he was smiling and cooing. Yes, he does have bed head.

He's playing with his favorite toy - his burp cloth.

Today, I met my sister for lunch. We went to a new Italian place near where she works and Aaron sat in his stroller quietly the whole time, although he was getting more and more fidgety as time went on. On the way home, I heard him smacking and figured his pacifier must have fallen out and he was sucking on his fist (which is his new thing). I could also hear the handle of the pacifier clacking as if it was bouncing around in his car seat. But when I got home and took him out of the car, I saw that he had been playing with his pacifier, holding it by the mouthpiece. When I picked him up, he tried to put it back in his mouth, without much success.

Here's a short video clip I took towards the end of an episode of cooing and generally being adorable.

Playful Baby

Aaron is about 3 1/2 months old now. In the past couple of weeks, he has finally taken an interest in the play yard's hanging animals. When he moves around in the bassinet, the animals shake and he seems to like this. He is very talkative when he is in the bassinet, too, just jabbering away at his animals. Part of our daily routine now involves spending time in the bassinet. (By the way, that dinosaur outfit is labeled 3/6 months and he is about to outgrow it.)

Aaron is also starting to touch things deliberately. We have a touch and feel animal book and he reaches his little fist out to the textured part of an animal and then awkwardly unfurls his fingers to try to touch the fabric with his finger tips. The other day, he was also reaching out to touch a little frog toy I was dangling in front of him. This is more hand control than he had even weeks ago.

But his favorite toy is still his burp cloth, which he likes to grab with both hands and try to smother himself with.

This is a great picture of Aaron with his Grandma. You can really see how big he is getting - he's going to outgrow Grandma's lap before long.

Although my hair starting falling out in handfuls a few weeks ago, it looks like Aaron's is going to stay. And it looks like he is going to be a tow head like his dad was as a kid. His roots are very light, unlike the darker, coppery hair he has on top. In a few more months when he needs his first haircut, we'll see.

In other exciting news, Aaron has been sleeping longer stretches again. In fact, his longest stretch was 7 hours - with 8 hours between feedings. That hasn't happened again, but he has been going about 6 hours or more pretty consistently in the last week.

And he is starting to sleep more often with his hands out. He usually manages to get his left hand out of his swaddle pretty quick, so most of the time we just leave it out so he doesn't spend 10 minutes struggling to get it out. In fact, he usually falls asleep faster when we leave it out. Later, he will wake up and try to get his right arm out and if it is during the day and we hear him making noise, we'll go in, let out his arm, put in his pacifier, and he goes right back to sleep. This morning, I even put him down without swaddling him and he went almost immediately to sleep. Granted, he didn't sleep nearly as long as he normally would, but it is progress. Right now, he is swaddled and sleeping peacefully.

Swaddling

Thom took this picture of Aaron sleeping two weeks ago when I was at work and e-mailed it to me. Aaron had been sleeping for well over 3 hours and Thom wondered if he should wake him up. Although Aaron had been waking up more frequently at night, he wasn't staying awake after I fed him, so I didn't feel like he needed to be awake more during the day. The only time I wake Aaron up is when I'm ready to go to bed and it has been more than 2 hours since he last ate or during the day if we are going out.

You can see the Miracle Blanket in this photo that we swaddle Aaron in. It truly was a miracle for the first 2 months or so, and still continues to be a big help. But more and more he works his arms out of it and wakes up sooner because he is not swaddled. I think they need to make this product in bigger sizes. But it still works to help get him to sleep. I've tried a few times to put him down unswaddled, but he either can't get to sleep or he wakes up within an hour.

I recently bought a SwaddleMe wrap which uses Velcro to secure the baby. It comes in 3 sizes and I bought the large one. He still manages to get his arms out, but not as easily and not as often. I know that one day soon we are going to have to deal with getting him to sleep without being swaddled. If anyone has had to deal with this and has some pointers, let me know!

Earlier today, we had been playing with Aaron on the back patio on a blanket. He must have gotten overly tired or over stimulated, because he went from completely mellow and staring at the pattern on his blanket to all out screaming like he'd been burned with a hot poker. No fussing or anything else to warn us that he was getting tired. So we took him in to get ready for a nap.

Since swaddling him sometimes makes him cry harder when he is tired, I just took him into his room and held him while sitting on the guest bed. He was crying and screaming and arching his back. I tried to soothe him and get him to take his pacifier, but he wasn't calming down. Finally, I put him in his SwaddleMe blanket and picked him up again and he quieted down within a few seconds. It is really amazing what swaddling can do.

New babies!

Yea! Our friends Jenny and Chris and Mark and Jill had new babies in the last two weeks. The gender of both babies was kept a surprise and they both ended up with baby boys. (Of our Order Fusion friends who have babies born within the last 18 months, only Sandy and Shannon have a girl, the others all have boys. We expect little Audrey will be in charge when we have get-togethers.)

Jenny and Chris had Oliver on July 11th. Once they knew they were going to to be late (due date was 7/4) I think they were hoping Vladamir (Oliver's per-birth code name) would arrive on 7/7/07 (they were married on 2/2/02). But 7/11/07 is a pretty good birth date, too. Maybe they can try for a little sibling to arrive on 8/8/08 or 9/9/09..

Oliver was born a healthy 7 lbs 9.5 oz and 21" long. We got to see little Ollie on Sunday, but didn't take our own pictures, so I am reprinting (without permission - hope you guys don't mind!) this one from Chris's e-mail. Mom and dad are doing great and seem to be adjusting well to their new life. Jen's mom is still in town helping out, so I'm sure that makes a big difference, too. She seemed to have a magic touch with baby Oliver.

Mark and Jill had baby Grant (code-named Peanut) two days after Oliver was born on Friday the 13th. He was a whopping 9 lbs 10 oz and 23" long. We got to see and hold Grant on Sunday, too. He slept during our entire visit, although they tell us that that isn't all he does.

Despite their lack of sleep, they also seem to be handling parenthood well. We didn't take any photos at their place, either, so I "borrowed" this photo from Mark's online photo album.

Although Aaron is only 3 months old, it seemed like it had been ages since I had held a newborn. I thought I would feel experienced at it, but when I held little Grant, he seemed so tiny and fragile, I realized that I had very quickly acclimated to Aaron's growing size. It almost seemed hard to believe that Aaron was ever that tiny (and since Grant had a pound on Aaron at birth, I know Aaron was even smaller at one point).

We are so excited about these new additions to the Order Fusion family! We are going to have some fun gatherings ahead of us.

All these new babies inspired me to put Aaron's birth pictures online. I didn't want to put them all on his blog and I didn't have a Picasa account at the time to post them to. The pictures from the c-section were taken by my anesthesiologist. If you are really squeamish, you might want to skip these, but I don't think they are too bad. The set also includes a few photos from the recovery room. If you are interested, here they are.

Liz's Last Day at Work

Friday was my last day at work. My boss and friend Raoul organized a BBQ lunch and invited Thom and Aaron to join us (you can see Aaron on my lap in the back of the picture). My friend Linda organized a "farewell card" from everyone at the office that was a series of cards enclosed in one of our 3-ring product manual binders. Each page has a picture of a co-worker and a personal note from them. She also put together a shadow box of pictures and mementos from my nearly 9 years with the company.

I was sad to leave, but I know I'll get back to visit everyone. It's funny though. I knew I'd miss everyone at the office, but over the weekend, I realized I will also miss the source code I worked on. It just dawned on me that I'd never work in that code again.

More pictures from my last day are here.