Lessons baby boy has been learning from the doggies

Evidently the boy thinks he's a puppy.

To be fair, he and the doggies move on all fours instead of two legs, so he might have a point.

Lessons the boy has picked up from the doggies:
1. An uncovered toilet bowl is for playing and, ideally, for splashing water onto the formerly clean and dry bathroom floor.
2. If the doggies congregate at the door Grandpa is home. Paying attention to you is Grandpa's only purpose; make sure to remind him as loudly as possible should he neglect to pay attention to you the minute he walks through the door.
3. An open door is an opportunity to escape. Never miss an opportunity to go through the open door for dirt and wonderful things to roll in are on the other side.
4. The fridge is a magic place where food comes from. Should a two-legged open the fridge door, make sure you hurry so you can take a peek inside and possibly claim something for yourself.
5. Food found on the floor is the best food.
6. Packaged food left on the table is just waiting for you to grab it and breach its packaging. This applies to both foods you are normally given (crackers) and food Mommy keeps away from you (bouillon cubes). Wait until Mommy's back is turned for maximum impact.
7. Bathroom doors are never to be closed. Ever. Someone attempting to use the bathroom by themselves is clearly rejecting you.
8. If it's not edible, it's chewable or bite-able. No exceptions.
9. If your food does not come from Mommy or Daddy's plate, you're being denied adequate nourishment. Complain loudly. Conversely...
10. If it's in the dog feeder, it's clearly edible and tasty. After all, the other four-leggeds eat it and they're fine.
11. If a two-legged should eat at the table without you, make sure you go beg with the other four-leggeds.
12. Dirty pots, dishes, and leftovers left on the floor are up for grabs. Make sure you hurry so you can attempt to push the other four-leggeds away from whatever they're eating.

 And yes, the fact that he hasn't been bitten for attempting all of the above is proof that we have the most awesome dogs ever.

Mel

We Are A Musical People

6 Months Old and We're in Trouble

Baby Chris turned 6 months old on Saturday.

Yes, it has been that long. No, we don't know where the time went either, other than mostly to sleep deprivation. Which isn't as bad since he's now sleeping through the night... most of the time.

So remember what I said about Baby Chris being a lot like his father?

... Yeah, just a little bit.

Daddy's foot is fascinating.

And so is Mommy holding a camera.

Christopher Byrne V entered this world at 6 lbs 15.8oz, 18 in, and with a head circumference of 13 in. He started out in the 25th percentile for weight, 5th percentile for height, and 10th percentile for head circumference. That didn't last long.

He's now 19 lbs, 29 1/2 in long, and 17 1/2 in head circumference. He's now up to about 85th in head circumference, 60th percentile in weight and... well I can't get a percentile for length, because he's literally off the chart. He's as tall as the average 12-month-old.

Somebody's been busy eating and sleeping, sometimes at the same time.

This growing stuff is hard work.

In fact, we had to start him on solids early because he could no longer be satisfied with the liquid diet. Now he's up to 4 solid meals a day (with bottles in between of course) and he will snub the bottle if he wants "real" food. He has not once snubbed solid food, and while most babies need to be encouraged to eat from a spoon (at least sometimes), he's been known to attempt to take the spoon out of my hand if I'm not moving fast enough. He's eating between a 1 and 1 1/3 cups a day of baby cereal, about 3/4 cup of baby food (of all sorts, it's all good to him), 3 oz of yogurt, and 30 fl oz of formula.

That's approximately 1000 calories a day, 53 calories per lb. And no, we're NOT overfeeding him, if he's not fed until he's full (which he indicates VERY well by stopping his requests for more food) he will either fuss or, if he's fallen asleep eating, will wake up an hour later screaming.

So my theory that I could not gain weight while pregnant because he was stealing all of the calories I ate (plus more)... more or less proven.

So where is all of that food going?

There are some other, less used measurements that tell the story.

Yes, that is a normal shopping cart.

Neck: 10 in

Chest (around): 18 in

Wingspan: 27 in

Bicep: 6 in

Calf: 7 1/4 in

He's just a little like his father. Just a tiny bit. We know grown women with smaller necks, and his calves are bigger than my wrists.

Speaking of the physical stuff... he's almost mobile. He's figured out how to crawl backwards somewhat (and therefore give me heart attacks).

What, you want me to KEEP my fingers and toes?

And he's perilously close to the "going forward" part.

Yes, he is quite expressive.

How about the rest, the mental and emotional and social development. Well...

The first observations total strangers in the store make about him usually are:

"He's so alert. I've never seen a baby so alert."

"He's so calm. I've never seen a baby behave this well in a store."

"He's so happy. What a cute smile!"

This kid doesn't miss ANYTHING.

Watching his first football game.

He's also remarkably self-occupying for his age.

His attention span is also longer than that of many ADULTS, as well as his patience.

He developed a signal that he wanted to be picked up about a month and a half ago; he puts his arms straight out to his sides and waits. My 93-year-old grandmother won't pick him up because she's afraid of dropping him. He doesn't understand this though, so he'll sit there for 5 minutes, staring at her from his exersaucer, with his arms straight out waiting for her to pick him up. For 5 MINUTES. Then he'll fuss until I pick him up instead.

He doesn't have patience if he's hungry though. Food is the one thing he will not wait for.

He's also quite calm.

He doesn't really cry much. If he needs something he'll fuss, and if he fusses too long he might cry. Even the pain of teething doesn't cause more than the occasional fussing and crying usually signals pain. Outright screaming? That's only if he's fallen over or something equally disturbing to him.

This even applies to frustration. He can be attempting to crawl and get frustrated with his lack of progress and not fuss for a long time. Even once he starts fussing he won't give his signal to be picked up... if you go to pick him up he gives you a look like, "no, I got this." It will take him a good 10 minutes of frustration to ask to be picked up.

He's also quite happy.

Happy seems to be his natural state. And he's always looking for more reasons to be happy.

So this combination of natural innate happiness, alertness, long attention span, and ability to self-occupy makes it possible to do something I'd never dreamed of doing with a baby before: taking him out to dinner in public with friends.

Or spending all day at a friend's place, or taking him to a gaming event or... you get the idea. As long as we've got enough food and diapers with us, almost anything is possible.

It doesn't hurt that he's also extremely social and expressive.

"Wow Mel it sounds like you lucked out. You have an obscenely healthy, happy, well-tempered, easy-to-handle baby. You've got it made."

HAH.

This smile and what it does to people keeps me up at night.

Sometimes infancy isn't the parental challenge presented to you. Sometimes it's every OTHER stage.

Chris V is uniformly advanced for his age. He's 2 months ahead on almost everything. This is a strong indicator of hyper-intelligence. Combine that with his temperament, attention span, patience, high frustration tolerance, sociability, expressiveness, and general level of cute and you have... a shameless flirt. Extremely shameless, extremely effective flirt.

He's almost figured out that he can manipulate people. Almost. I give it another month, max. He's already showing signs.

And his innate curiosity and interest in the world is rather all-consuming. If he's bored, he will MAKE his own entertainment. Right now that means pulling on Jayne's ears. Later it might involve chemicals or explosives. Constant supervision is a must, and will be until he figures out how to NOT kill himself with his own curiosity. Some of LawDog's stories from his childhood come to mind.

Raising him is going to be... interesting and challenging.

But we're up for it and glad to be here, enjoying our baby boy.

Mel

Oh, but he is a precocious one...

Yes, despite all reports to the contrary, I am still alive.

I've just been... occupied. Occupied with recovery, and occupied with precious baby boy.

Turns out in many ways mini-Chris is, well, mini-Chris. Almost a carbon copy from head to toe, and in many ways in personality as well.

Baby boy is very, very precocious. We knew he'd be more physically mature than normal (early ultrasounds showed more bone development earlier than normal, and he was VERY physically active in the womb) and we knew he'd have a higher metabolism than normal due to how much I had to eat just to stop losing weight.

We didn't expect him to come out with far more head control than normal. We didn't expect him to almost be able to support his weight on his legs already. We didn't expect him to almost be able to roll over from birth. He's very physically precocious.

He's also mentally precocious; when he's awake he's fully awake and alert and he spends all of his time focused on what's going on around him. And make no mistake, he is focused and taking it all in. He's also extremely calm while he's doing it.

He's an extremely calm baby overall. He only cries when there's a reason; he's either hungry or there's some other easy-to-determine discomfort.

He also fusses and cries when he's not being suitably engaged. He wants to look around, he wants to move around, he wants to examine everything in and out of his field of view.

Therein lies the problem. He knows for a fact there's a lot of stuff in the world that he can't see or interact with, and he can't keep his head upright and still, sit, stand, crawl, or walk yet. He needs someone to hold him upright while he looks at the world and make sure he doesn't hurt his neck. If he's awake and not being fed, he wants to be upright, moving, and taking in the world. He can stand the bouncy seat for about 20 minutes, the swing for a little longer, but they don't move and he wants to be moving.

This would be mostly fine and manageable, if it weren't for another trait he inherited from his father: baby boy doesn't seem to believe in sleep.

Most 1-month-olds sleep for 15-16 hours a day. He sleeps for 11. Blessedly 8 of those hours are in 2 4-hour intervals at night. However, the other 3 hours consist of very short daytime naps.

It's not that he doesn't need the sleep. He's overtired and cranky by the end of the day. The problem is that he's intentionally keeping himself awake. If he's being held or cuddled he'll stay asleep longer but if we keep that up too long that causes its own issues.

So we're working on sleep training, and getting him into a sleep and nap schedule of sorts. Right now he's fussing and letting me know I had no right to put him down for a nap instead of either cuddling him or keeping him occupied. He's a bit opinionated and stubborn.

Just like someone else we know.

And we shall call him mini-Chris...

Mel