He finally found his thumb...

...with consistency!

This has made our lives a lot easier, especially when putting him down to sleep. He can't seem to figure out how to keep a pacifier in his mouth, so our go-to when he needs to suck for comfort has unfortunately been our own fingers. When you've got a baby that's overtired and needs to suck to be soothed, bending over his crib with your finger in his mouth for 5 minutes (or longer!) does not a happy Mommy or Daddy make.

He hasn't been able to give up the sucking on our fingers entirely quite yet. When he's really worked up he doesn't seem to think to find his own thumb. But if we can get him to calm down a little (maybe 20 seconds on our finger) he'll usually find his thumb and quiet himself the rest of the way. It's also been a great sign that he's starting to get tired, which is helpful because he seems to have a pretty small window between "I'm not tired enough to nap so I'll throw a fit if you try to put me in my crib" and "I'm too tired now and I'll throw a fit when you put me in my crib".

As you can see from the picture, his way of sucking his thumb is a little funny, with his palm pointed up and all of his fingers around the side of his face, but at least he manages not to poke his eyes, which he had done when he was trying to suck his thumb a couple of months ago. He also does tend to put his other arm up near his face, especially when he's in the crib trying to fall asleep. Sometimes the other arm even goes over his eyes.

Oh, and it's always the left thumb. Another indication he's going to be a lefty?

Uppa Baby saves the day!

I have a very cool cover for Steve's car seat. It's made by Uppa Baby (they call it a "cabana") and it's basically a mesh cover with an additional reflective flap to block the sun. I use it all the time while we're walking, to keep the sun out of Steve's face, and I almost always use it when we go out on errands, partly to keep the sun out of his eyes in the parking lot, and partly just to keep him in his own little zone of quiet. I have had a lot of people comment on how cool the product is.

Anyway, I mostly love the product for its ability to block the sun while, thanks to the mesh, still being breathable. The mesh part was also touted as a bug screen, but I'd never really thought that would be much of an issue. Well, last week it did its job...

Yes, that is a bee mere inches from my sleeping baby's face.

milk drunk

Mom sent me this picture from the California State Fair--little piglets in a milk stupor...

Steve doesn't get milk-drunk so often nowadays, but still does every once in a while when he's missed a nap or had a shorter nap than usual prior to eating. I caught one about a week ago...

I'll only let him stay sleeping on my lap like this if he's really had a rough day and needs the sleep. Otherwise I'll sit him right up to burp and have some activity time. We have managed to separate eating and sleeping rather effectively--maybe too effectively. When he was less than 2 months old he would invariably fall asleep during his last feeding of the day and we would just carry him sleeping to his crib and put him down for the night. Then for a while he would fall asleep during his last feeding and we would sit him up to burp him and he would wake up just a little bit as we did that and carried him to the crib. Now, though, he's so used to having awake time after eating (it's what we do during the daytime of course) that he usually has to be awake for at least a half hour if not an hour before going down for the night. If we try to put him in the crib before he thinks he's ready it becomes quite the ordeal. We're all learning, though. Last night we started doing our bedtime routine (diaper, jammies, singing, story, prayer, bed) around a half-hour after he ate and by the time we were done he went to sleep with a minimum of fussing and no need for us to return to the room. And not to make any other new moms out there too jealous, but the last 4 nights he's slept 11 hours straight! No feedings in the middle of the night. Of course, I usually still wake up at some point during the night, and I often check on him just because I know I'll sleep better if I do, but as this continues hopefully I'll be able to get a full uninterrupted night and be better rested in the morning.

Tummy time smiles

I finally managed to get some pictures of Steven smiling while he's actually looking at the camera. I think I tricked him with the first few by smiling at him and then bringing the camera up at the last second, but then I think he actually just looked at me with the camera and figured it was OK to keep smiling! Yay! Some are blurry, of course, because he kept moving. When he's propped on his tummy over the Boppy his objective seems to be to propel himself forward, up and over. Once when Mike stopped watching him long enough to grab a soda from the fridge Steve managed to face plant on the other side. No harm done, but that is why you don't leave a baby alone on the Boppy!

Pardon the slew of photos, but this mom can't pick just one cute one. I think the first and last are my two favorites!

The newest addition to our family...

Introducing our brand-new car!!

A practical family car, no?

Ha! We really got a Rav4.

We got a crossover/SUV mainly because of the clearance and ability to go into 4WD. During our winter of 80+" snow in Minneapolis (AKA Snowmageddon) my poor little Corolla couldn't make it over the piles left by the plow at the end of our driveway*, and I vowed that my next car would be better able to handle a rough Midwest winter. We still have my '99 Corolla and will likely be putting it up for sale on Craigslist. With at least 6 colleges in town I'm hoping we won't have a problem selling it. It would be a perfect car for a college student to motor around town in, and it handled 10 other Midwest winters well enough!


*Although, given that the piles left by the plow were sometimes 2 feet deep and 3 feet wide, I doubt the Rav4 would have made it over, either!

"The Cockpit"

The other day while I got dinner ready Mike took Steve upstairs while he changed out of his work clothes. Normally when I take Steve up to our room I just put him in the middle of our queen-sized bed. He is only just starting to roll over, and even when he does he can't go very far (he doesn't continue to roll!), so the middle of the bed seemed safe enough to me. I guess Mike had other thoughts, as evidenced by this elaborate set-up he christened "The Cockpit":

As a follow-up to my previous post, I did get a chance to weigh and measure Steve last week. Last Thursday (7/12/12) he weighed 13#, 12 oz, and on Friday with Mike's help I measured him as best as I could (and certainly as well as they do at the pediatrician's office!) and he is just a bit over 25" long. This puts him at the 78%ile in length and the 42%ile in weight for a 3 month old boy. Long and lean. But he's got chubby cheeks and he's getting some chubby thighs and calves, so he's doing fine! I have a couple of University of Michigan onesies in size 3-6 months and they are clearly for shorter and chubbier babies--he's almost too long for them and they just hang around him at the neck and have all sorts of loose fabric in the torso! Carter's clothes seem to fit him the best, as they are a bit longer and cut more slenderly through the body. And Disney has a very smart "grow an inch" extra row of snaps on their onesies, which will increase their lifespan.

3 months today!

Steven turned 3 months today. I'm going to try to weigh him on Thursday to see how big he's getting; I haven't weighed him in almost 3 weeks. I may also try to measure his length if he'll hold still for me long enough! He's been out of almost all of his 3 month clothing for a couple of weeks now, and even some of the 3-6 month clothes are getting a little short for him, depending on the brand. I think he's going to be quite tall when he grows up; everyone who met him on our California trip commented on how long he is!

Here are some pictures I took today--it's amazing when I look back on earlier posts and pictures to see how much he's changed!

This hat was given to him by Gram (my mom). We brought it to California but forgot to get it out for him to wear when we were there! So here's the picture for her. So cute!















His new favorite activity is to start off reclining on the Boppy and then sit up using just a couple of fingers to hold onto. He's getting very strong abs! He's even able to sit pretty well when he lets go of one finger.

He's still having some camera shyness / curiosity when he is aware the camera is pointed right at him. But rest assured, he does smile frequently, and sometimes we manage to catch it on camera...

OK, this is the only picture not from today, but it's only 2 days old!

Sometimes when I'm done eating I'll look up and give Mommy a big grin. Tonight it turned into a giggle fest!

CA pics from Gram

My mom sent these to me--so cute!

It was chilly at the cabin, but Nana smiled at me and that made me happy.

Mommy's family loves playing cards so I thought I'd learn the game early. Unfortunately I don't know how to spell yet.

Steve's California Adventure

Last week we went to California to visit family and attend the wedding of a friend. It was Steve's first big trip of any kind and man was it a baptism by fire. Planes, cars, a 50+ temperature fluctuation, meeting lots of new people, and 4 different places to spend the night. He was a trooper and did very well considering his age!

On the way over it was a full flight and so he was an "infant in arms" the whole way. It was about a 4.5 hour flight and he got a little bored and cranky. We had to change him twice on our laps because there are no places to change a baby in the bathrooms on domestic flights--there's barely enough room for an adult to turn around! He did fall asleep a few times for brief periods, and towards the end he did fall asleep on my shoulder...

He had been fussy enough that I thought the people around us would be upset, but once the plane stopped and everyone got to stand up, we had a little flock around us praising how good he'd been. I guess everyone is so plugged into their earbuds that a fussy baby gets a little muted!

We flew into SFO and my dad picked us up. After lunch in San Francisco where Steve got to meet his Aunt Kristin and Aunt Katie (and got some really cute outfits, too!) we headed up to the cabin where Steve got to meet his great grandma Gladys (Nana). We took some four-generation pictures; Mike snapped about 30 in a row trying to get at least one or two where all four of us looked good. I think we had a few!

It was very chilly at the cabin. Luckily Aunt Christa had bought Steve a tomato hat. He tried it on but it's still a little big. It will be perfect by the fall, though!

It got particularly chilly at night, especially since the wood burning stove isn't going then. We had Steve in both a sleeper and a fleece sleep sack, plus mittens and his Stanford hat. He mostly wiggled out of the hat, but he got it back on in the morning when we went to wake up Grandpa...

On Tuesday we got to see my Aunt Virgina, cousin Chris, and cousin Laurie and her husband Darryl and little boy David who is almost one. Unfortunately it seems we didn't take any pictures! But it was nice to see them, if briefly, before we headed down to Sacramento for a couple of days. We visited with some friends and took a nice walk along the American River bike trail, and we got a lot of laundry done--how fun!!

On Thursday we headed down to Fresno. Up until this point Steve had been fantastic in the car, sleeping almost the whole way on every trip. Unfortunately he didn't make it to the planned stop at the rest area before he wigged out and so we made an unscheduled stop in a Costco parking lot. We had rented a car, which turned out to be a crossover-SUV type of vehicle, and we had a mini-adventure changing him in the very back and then I fed him in the backseat. Not terrible overall, and the parking lot was large enough we parked far away from everyone else for privacy, and under a tree for a bit of shade. Half an hour later we were on our way to meet my parents at the rest stop and then on a bit further to lunch at In N Out burger, which we try to hit every time we're back in California. Steve slept all through lunch and most of the rest of the way to Fresno. After a meal and a bit of activity, Steve and Daddy took a nap on Nana's bed...

Don't worry, Daddy's not really sleeping!

We got to see my cousin Annie and her husband Bill, and my cousin Amy and Uncle Ted. More pictures with Gram and Grandpa...

We went out to dinner with Amy and Uncle Ted and again Steve slept through the entire meal. I was so impressed with his ability to fall asleep on this trip--he's not that good at home!!

Friday we headed down to Los Angeles for the final leg of the trip. It was a longer car ride and Steve didn't quite make it to the hotel before he woke up and started crying. Unfortunately at that point we were stuck in bad LA traffic and there wasn't anything to do but keep on going. So we had a crying baby in the car for 45 minutes or so. Daddy reached into the backseat to provide a finger to grasp or suck on and that helped for a bit. Once we got to the hotel we did manage to get two adjoining rooms with a door that connected them, which was the perfect set up for the following night when Gram and Grandpa babysat while Mike and I went to a swanky black tie wedding...

Steve was very good for Gram and Grandpa. They went for a long walk and later Steve fell asleep on the bed all on his own while watching the Olympic trials. Again, his ability to nap on this trip amazed me--he would NEVER fall asleep at home if there was something around as distracting as the TV!

On Sunday we headed back to Michigan. It was a VERY long day as we were up before 6:00 to get to the airport by 7:00. After waiting in a line for 40 minutes just to drop off our bags we made it to our gate about 10 minutes before boarding. After everyone boarded we sat on the plane for another hour while they tried to find a part to fix a broken relay in the cockpit. When they couldn't find one they had us deplane so they could take the plane to the hangar to fix it. Long story short, 6 hours after our original departure time, after changing terminals and gates, we finally took off for Detroit. Fortunately enough people had rebooked that there were lots of empty seats...

The trip back was much better for all of us, as Steve slept much better in his car seat than he would have in our arms. We did have to do one diaper change, but again the rebooking helped us, as there was an empty row behind us and we could easily lay him down across it. After experiencing one flight with a lap child and one with him in the car seat I have to say that unless we're on a very short flight (maybe GRR to MSP) I would be willing to pay for that extra seat on the plane!!

Since we got into Detroit so late we spent the night in Ann Arbor with cousin Joan before driving back to Ada on Monday. It's good to be home. Steve's not quite back to his old sleeping routine, which had been thrown off pretty significantly by the trip, but hopefully that will come soon. Now to plan our Midwest tour for August!