Happy Thanksgiving

We had a really nice Thanksgiving dinner with our friends Shelby and Dave. The food was excellent, and we are totally stuffed. Xander enjoyed playing with Shelby's mom. We also met Laura and Simon, who were very cool. I can't wait until next year when Xander can have some of the Thanksgiving traditional cuisine.

Dad gets the parent-of-the-week award!!

Saturday, Sunday, and Monday nights we observed some strange behavior from Xander. He just would not go to sleep or stay asleep without being held. Even when he was held, he was squirming and trying to wake up. This is unusual behavior for him. Normally, he falls asleep with a pacifier and only wakes up to eat and then fall back asleep again. In addition, his day caregivers said he was unusually fussy and they could not figure out what he wanted. Finally, he was having a hard time eating. He would take two sucks and then delatch, then repeat over and over. It was almost like he couldn't breath through his nose but I was unable to suction anything out. We couldn't figure out what was wrong, but we were exhausted from staying up all night trying to get him to sleep. We needed a solution.

Since he had been coughing and that wakes him up, I decided to take him to the pediatrician. I stayed home with Xander and after 45 minutes on the phone finally got an appointment. The doctor checked him and ruled out teething, pneumonia, bronchitis, rashes, and ear infections. He said that Xander was very congested and that all we could offer was saline drops and a vaporizer for the congestion. He also suggested elevating his crib to improve drainage.

The rest of the day, Xander was perfectly normal. He was happy, ate well, and took good naps. Then, as we got close to bed time, he started with the fussiness. He fell asleep but when he drifted out a deep sleep, he woke up almost screaming. As soon as we picked him up, he would stop crying and fall back asleep. Nothing else would stop the crying though.

Then, Dad decided they maybe we should try swaddling because he seemed to be flailing his limbs a lot. We had transitioned him from swaddling to a sleep sack a little over a month ago and he had no problem. We only have one receiving blanket (a homemade hand-me-down from 10 years ago) that is big enough for Xander. We tightly wrapped him up and victory! He quickly feel asleep and had a normal remainder for the night.

I can't say that I understand why Xander wants to be swaddled again. Maybe it is just something we need to do while he is sick or for a little while. The important thing for now is that it works. It is amazing that 2 and 3 hour sleep increments feel so much better than 30 min. to 1 hour increments. I can almost say that I feel refreshed today.

All roads lead to Xander's mouth

All things end up in Xander's mouth:
1) The phone rattle
2) The monkey lovey
3) His hand

Who needs sleep?

"Who needs sleep? Well you're never gonna get it. Who needs sleep? Tell me what's that for." Every time that I think about the sleeping challenges of new parenthood, that Barenaked Ladies lyric pops into my head. Am I ever going to get it again?

One of the last purchases that we made before Xander was born was this side-car mini-crib. If you'll notice in the picture, he has grown to almost the full length of the crib.

Soon he will outgrow this, which has me wondering what is the next step. Will he move to his big crib in his own room? Should we move the big crib into our room? Should we move into his room?

So far, I have taken a laid-back approach to developing his sleep habits. We try to make bedtime a routine and he has fallen into the habit of going to bed at roughly the same time every night. Neither he nor I are ready for any sort of cry-it-out methodologies to get him to sleep through the night. I'm not sure that we will ever be. I'd much rather we just get there when we get there.

Until that time comes when he sleeps longer, I've gotten into the habit of bringing him to bed with me after his 1am wake up. This makes life easier for me. When he wakes up to nurse, I just turn my body, get him to latch on, and then fall asleep. I really don't see an alternative given the amount of times that he likes to wake up between 3am and 6am. I think I would be miserable if I had to sit up and be awake that whole time.

It's possible that Xander will outgrow his side car crib before he outgrows frequent night nursing. I'm not sure what we'll do then. Maybe we'll just put him straight into our bed at night.

Exersaucer

Grandma and Grandpa Therrien gave Xander this exersaucer at the baby shower. We have been dying to get Xander into it. He is just starting to sit a little bit so we decided to try it out. Dad assembled all the parts, but we are still shy a few batteries. This thing takes 10 AAA batteries. I think this is Xander's contribution to excessive energy consumption in America.

He liked looking in the mirror and the hanging objects. He also liked all the noises that the various pieces make. I'm sure he is really going to grow to love this toy.

Upside down

Xander seemed to enjoy playing with Daddy upside down.

The outfit he is wearing is size 6 to 9 months. Our little 3.5 month old Xander isn't very little anymore. I think his growing is starting to slow down a little bit thankfully. I remember during his 3 week and 6 week growth spurts that I could visibly see a difference in size from one day to the next. Now, he is growing much more gradually. We'll see what happens when he hits that 6 month growth spurt.

The Dogs and Xander

People are always asking about how our older children, the dogs, are with Xander. Aside from the bulb syringe fiasco, they are quite good. Here are a couple of cute pictures.

Copper snuggling with Xander and Mom


Peanut trying on one of Xander's bibs

Something Xander learned from day care

Xander has been taking bottles of breast milk while he is in day care. Dianna mentioned to me that he could hold his bottle a little bit. Last night, I went out for a girls-night-out. Dolphin tried to see if Xander could hold his own bottle. He could for about 10seconds and not necessarily at the right angle to get the milk out.

BTW, the girls-night-out was quite fun. We went out to dinner and then to see "Twilight". It was a cute little movie. It was the longest that I had gone without nursing or pumping, and perhaps a little too long. By the time, I got home I thought my breasts were going to explode.

Hook 'em Horns

Dolphin surprised me this morning when he suggested we wanted to go shopping for more clothes for Xander. Dolphin? Shop for clothes? It just started to turn cold in Austin. While we were at Baby 'r' Us, we saw the section of burnt orange long horn and red aggie outfits. We are not football fans at all but couldn't resist. We bought 3 warm outfits for him and a couple of miscellaneous items.

While we were there, we saw a couple of types of baby seats that are supposed to help babies sit up. We were tempted, but they are really expensive. He's been doing well sitting with the support of a boppy so we'll stick with that.

At the checkout, an older lady (grandma maybe) was buying an enormous stack of clothes. There's no way that one baby could wear all of the clothes before he outgrew them. Then, we noticed that she was actually buying two of every outfit. Twins! A few minutes later, mom showed up with the twins in a huge two-baby stroller. I can't imagine how hard it must be to drive around.

Bulb syringe drama continues

Yesterday morning, I left the bulb syringe out and instructed Dolphin to clean out Xander's nose before taking him into day care. He decided that Xander did not need it, and the bulb syringe was left out. Last night, I was looking for it and could not find it. We suspected the dogs were involved, of course. So, Dolphin looked outside in the backyard. Sure enough, they had destroyed it. I still needed to suction Xander's nose so I drove to the near by CVS to get a replacement (in fact, I bought 2).
This morning, I set the new syringe down for just a minute while I dressed Xander. In the just the second that I looked away, Copper grabbed the syringe and started taunting Peanut with it in the other room.
I'm convinced it is the smell of the rubber that makes the dogs think that the syringe belongs to them. We by racket balls in bulk for them to play with. Usually, they play fetch, but sometimes Copper destroys them. The smell is similar. They stay away from all of Xander's other plastic toys.

I spoke too soon

So much for baby memories, Xander has started to recognize the evil blue bulb syringe. He started crying when he saw it this morning.

I had to use the nose drops and bulb syringe this morning to clear out his nose. He was having problems eating because he couldn't breath through his nose. The nose drops that his day-caregivers recommended really do work well. Xander hates them and screams when I use them, but it is necessary evil. I hate doing it though. I really, really hope he gets better soon.

BTW, speaking of the bulb syringe, I think I need to buy some more. Our dogs are fascinated by the syringe. I don't know if it is the smell of the rubber or the shape, but they treat it like a ball. Both of them have tried to steal it for a toy, and I saved it just seconds before it came to a chewed destruction. It's hard to wash the dog slobber off, too. For now, I have to remember to put it up on a high place. I should have some backups though in case they succeed in destruction.

Poor sick bean

Little Xander-bean has been suffering his first cold the past few days. He has a pretty bad cough and a runny nose. Fortunately, he still seems pretty content and has no fever.

At the recommendation of one of his day caregivers, we bought some of the saline nose drops. I absolutely hate using them because Xander screams. He doesn't like it at all. The drops do help clean out his nose though and he is always much happier afterward. Giving him drops has proven to me that babies his age really do not have good memories. As much as he hate the drops, he never anticipates it.

The cold is making nights pretty exhausting. He gets up more than usual, which is not that bad in isolation. He seems to have a harder time getting back to sleep. This morning, we could not get him to go back to sleep with Dolphin while I got ready for work. (His normal routine). His nose didn't look blocked but we tried suctioning anyway. A lot of mucus came out, and of course, he started crying a lot. With the trama of the suctioning, I thought he was awake for good. However, we popped in a pacifier and he went right back to sleep. It seems like the stuffy nose was keeping him awake. Tonight, I might try suctioning him when he gets up to nurse to see if that helps him stay asleep longer.

First Entry

OK. I am being unoriginal. I saw a friend's blog for her family, and stold the idea. I've had a couple of other blogs before, but I haven't updated them in a while. One blog covered the building of our first home. The second recorded the beginnings of my photography hobby. Now, I am trying to share the story of our family.

Dolphin 'n' Amy (DNA) recently added a new addition to our family, Xander. Born in August, Xander impacts everything about our lives every day.

Welcome and enjoy!

Amy