Month #4

I realized I should hurry up and write a blog about Gordon Lee's 4th month before it is gone.  It seems the 3rd month just FLEW by! My little boy seems to be getting so big and learning so much every day!

During the first 3 months when he had colic, it seemed like a long time! However, as soon as that started to go away, life with him started getting a lot easier and a lot more fun.  So, I think that's why it seemed like all I had to do was blink and now he is 4 months old.

I started him on rice cereal, which he just loves.  My husband was laughing last night because he couldn't believe he was so exciting about eating it! This has really helped us because before this, he wasn't sleeping as well due to digesting milk so fast.  He was eating a lot.  He was tired; I was tired and I really think I wasn't producing as much milk or as good quality milk due to this.  After the rice cereal, he started going longer between feeds, doing better while feeding, sleeping better, and I seem to be making more/better milk as a result.  He is doing great with eating from a spoon.  I tried to tape him, but he wanted to stare at the camera. HA! Here it is anyway in case you want to see his rice cereal eating skills (I don't blame you if you don't).

He is now rolling from his back to his tummy on a regular basis.  He is getting very good control of himself while on his tummy, and he pivots himself around with his arms on the floor.  Just today he realized he could support himself while grabbing for a toy on his tummy and he seemed pretty excited about that.

As far as the sleeping goes, you know, I'm starting to wonder if being able to sleep well is as much a part of development as grabbing for toys, rolling, etc.  I may have done something that lead to him learning to put himself back to sleep and nap better; however, I kind of think it's just part of him being old enough to realize he can self soothe.  I don't want to speak too soon on whether or not something is working.  But the past 2-3 days, he has been doing better and better about just going to sleep when I lay him down and putting himself back to sleep when he wakes up briefly.  He took 2 hour long naps in his crib yesterday.  This morning, he went down for 1 hour, woke up and fussed a little but then put himself back to sleep and continued napping for another hour.  I seriously do not believe this is from anything I did.  I think he just did it.  He is now on his second nap which has been going on for almost an hour.

I'm hoping this is signaling a new trend as just a week ago if  I laid him down in his crib without him being totally asleep, his eyes would pop open, he'd freak out, start crying, and nap time was an endless cycle of waking up after brief periods of sleeping.  It just happened two days ago that he suddenly was okay with me laying him down while sleepy but not asleep and drifted off to a nap without help.  So, like I said, maybe it's just one of those things that happens as they get a little older.

He is also babbling away all the time, I took him to Target today and he attracted tons of attention because he just kept babbling and talking the whole time we were in the store! Thankfully, people thought it was cute. :) 

It's just amazing how fast things have been going! I feel like he will be a year old before I know it.

Expecting when You're Least Expecting

On this day last year, I found out I was pregnant. Results were inconclusive, however, as the only test that gave a positive answer was the clear blue easy digital test.  The next morning, all tests were positive.  So, I took them into the doctor who ran their own test that came back negative.  However, they took a blood sample and it confirmed what the rest of my tests had told me.


We were so shocked.  I was excited but very nervous because I wasn't really ready to have a baby yet.  But God was ready for me to have a baby.  I remember during this week last year, I was a panicked mess hoping my "little bean" was growing well.  I was also freaking out because we really hadn't planned the baby at all, so I wasn't taking prenatal vitamins, I was drinking some alcohol, drinking lots of coffee--things that I wouldn't have done if  I had thought I stood a chance of getting pregnant.  


My husband was in such shock and disbelief that he said he wouldn't believe it until the blood test came through.  After 3 blood tests with the number more than tripling each time, he STILL wasn't completely convinced.  I don't think he really believed it was true until he saw the 12 week ultrasound!


Thinking on these things today, I have to say life has changed tremendously! And we are blessed that our little boy is plenty healthy and certainly growing well!

This-a-Way or That-a-Way

I had a college professor once who said she couldn't stand it when someone said, "I like kids." Being one of those people who said that, I was somewhat offended.  However, I had to admit she had a point.  Her problem with the statement was that, to her, it was the same as saying, "I like people."  Not all kids are the same, so how can you make such a broad sweeping statement that you like them?  True True.  I still hold, however, that there is a creativity, innocence, and care-free attitude in many children that would lead to that statement.


I have found, after reading articles, books, etc. that there are many people who claim to know about babies.  And they all (for the most part) have a vast amount of experience with many babies to lead them to make their claims.  However, the stark contrast in opinions on what to do, how to do it, when to do it is pretty intriguing.  There are opinions so opposite on one topic that I almost feel there are democrats and republicans of the baby rearing world.  One camp says, "Hold the baby all the time; it makes the baby feel secure and cared for."  While the other camp says, "No, that will spoil the child and you will have more problems later on.  The child needs some independence."  Each side has its own reasons for doing things that way, and both reasons hold a lot of value.


Yet, to say, "do this with babies; it works" is to me one of the most ridiculous things a person can say.  Most of the sources that I'm starting to take information from now are the ones that admit all babies are different!

For example, take this picture of Gordon Lee and his buddy Jericho (same age).

These are their personalities in a nutshell. Gordon Lee--"Where's the action? I want to be in it!" Jericho-- "Life is good.  I think I'll nap."  My baby has a very outgoing personality and will talk to, smile at, and be held by almost anyone.  Jericho is a bit more reserved and much calmer.  These are just their personalities that were hard-wired into them before they were even born.

So something that works for our neighbor's baby might not work for ours.  And I've been reluctant to listen to advice from any source who claims to just "know" about babies.  While they may have many things in common, they will not react to the same thing.  If you have been or are a teacher, you know this just from the students in your classroom.

As for my baby, I'm finding myself somewhat in the middle of the polar opposite points of view.  I'm still figuring out a plan for getting him to nap better.  As I have said plenty of times before, I moved him into his own bassinet at night now.  The first night I was nervous because I thought he wouldn't sleep well.  But I was totally wrong.  He slept great!  It's funny because at the beginning he used to sleep better in the bed, but after about 2-3 months, he started sleeping better on his own.  I suppose it is easier when you don't have somebody else next to you squirming or moving in their sleep while you are trying to sleep.  I had thought that his poor napping habits may have been from being too used to sleeping with me.

However, after over a month of sleeping great on his own at night, he is still not napping well at all.  If I let him cry, he just wakes himself up so much that he can't go back to sleep at all.  Then, I have an overly-tired and very cranky baby to deal with.  While some people say keeping at this method for a couple of days will pay off, I just don't think it is working with him.  I've also read advice to lay him down when he is sleepy but not yet asleep so that he learns to go to sleep on his own.  When I do that, he just wakes up immediately and I can spend hours trying to get him to fall back asleep.  

So far, the best routine for getting him to nap has been to put him in as dark of a room as I possibly can during the day.  The sun rises by my bedroom window in the morning and I noticed he won't sleep more than 1-2 hours once the sun comes up (this is with dark blackout curtains on the windows).  I've started going back and forth between laying him down in his bedroom and our bedroom depending on which room is the darkest and when, which is where he will nap for the longest.  He has a fan and white noise machine going. I can't turn the house into a cave, though.  Another thing that has helped has been a mobile.  I purchased one for his crib because I noticed that when he looked at his teddy bear mobile at night, it was some kind of "reassurance" to him that helped him go back to sleep when his eyes opened.  We are only on day 2 of the crib mobile.  He really seems to enjoy looking at it, so I hope that will help him there also.

Other than that, I've been trying to go into his room before he wakes up too much to help him settle back into a nap.  I KNOW he knows how to get himself back to sleep because I hear him doing it at night.  Now, it's just a matter of figuring out how to get him to do it during the day.

Priorities

There's no denying that children definitely do change a marriage.  You have a lot less time for just the two of you, and things you once did--like say just picking up and going somewhere whenever--you can't do anymore.  My mother and a friend of hers were mentor moms for MOPS (mothers of preschoolers), and one thing that they were repeatedly trying to drive into the heads of the mothers there was that they needed to put their husbands before their children.


Both of them having had kids of their own and having been married for a long time, they saw the ill effects of what happens when you put your children first.  And, oddly enough, as has been attested to by their own husbands, most husbands won't say anything but just go along with what the wife is doing all the while feeling neglected.  My mom admitted that when my sister and I were little she became guilty of putting us before my dad, and she said it was really hard on the marriage. Only after she shifted her focus back to her husband did things get better.


My dad said that the majority of women after having children tend to fall into this pattern.  And it makes the husband feel as if his wife is saying "well I got you for what I wanted you for..now that I have my kids..you can just take the back burner." Whether or not the woman intends it, he says this is a feeling given to the men by their wives actions.  


BUT the thing is (that I actually wondered about without asking my mom)--what exactly does putting your kids before your husband look like? And who would really knowingly just cast her husband aside for her kids? I'd venture to say almost nobody.  Answering the first question, it is hard to describe what this looks like.  Plus, with hindsight being 20/20, we often do not see this until after the fact.


Let me put myself on the chopping block here because only recently did I realize that I, in fact, had begun to put the baby before my husband.  Now, I was entirely unaware of this--and I want to make this point very clear because I don't think we are aware when we're doing it.  I had actually been making strides toward ensuring my husband and I had time together.  For example, I moved the baby out of our bed; I put him to bed earlier so we could have time by ourselves; I also utilized whatever spare time I had to do things that I knew would make him feel good.  
Still, I was missing something huge.  Whenever the baby was asleep, I would get frustrated because I felt my husband was being so loud and I would repeatedly ask him to please be quiet.  Most of the time, I was doing this thinking about how tired I was, how I didn't want the baby's sleep getting messed up, how I'd read this book and that book and I wanted to do what would help the baby.  But I wasn't seeing that I was making my husband feel awful because I was so focused on making sure things go a certain way for the baby.


And, after having realized this, I changed my habits.  I also feel a lot better too.  The baby will adapt.  I have a husband who loves his child and doesn't need to be made to feel like he needs to do things a certain way.  Ultimately, he needs to feel comfortable in his own home and supported and loved by his wife.  I'm not saying the baby needs to be forgotten.  However, he is not the be all and end all, and if things don't go a certain way according to something I read or heard, that's okay.  Because I've found we are all a lot happier this way.

Halloween: A New Perspective

Halloween is a controversial holiday among the Christian community.  I remember 2 short  years when I went trick or treating.  The last year I went, I was dressed up as big bird and only my mother and I went because my sister was too afraid to knock on strangers' doors for candy.  Having a polar opposite personality, I did not have that take at all.  I was eager to go around the neighborhood collecting all the candy my plastic pumpkin bucket could carry.  I read a story to my students every year called Halloween by Jerry Seinfeld, and it usually leaves my students erupting in laughter.  In one part of the story he says, "What? Everyone that we know is just giving out candy? Take me with you! I can wear that! I'll say anything I have to say.  I'll do anything I have to do to get the candy from those fools who are so stupidly giving it away."  As a child, that was exactly my perspective! :)


Shortly after that, I was told I was not allowed to go out trick or treating any longer. I'm not sure the reason for it--it could have been that since Megan didn't want to go, it was easier to keep us both home; it could have been that my parents didn't want us having all that much candy; it also could have been that Halloween was purely a secular holiday.


No matter what the reason, that was the beginning of the time that I pretty much stopped celebrating it for an extended period of time.  We did give out candy, but I never wore a costume or did anything else.  I actually started becoming afraid to sleep on Halloween because I was afraid some witch somewhere was up to no good (laugh all you want; it's okay).  


Once I got to be a teenager, I started going to more organized events where I would dress up in a costume again.  I love dressing up in costumes--always have.  So, I felt happy to go to a church party in my costume.  I still wasn't big into celebrating Halloween due to influences from several different directions that taught me that Halloween was a bad thing.  Trick or treating was bad, carving a pumpkin was bad, using the word Halloween was rooted in evil as well.  I wasn't sure why they were bad, but I was told that they were so I just went along with it.  I was told that carving a jack-o-lantern went back to people putting human heads on their porch.  So, don't carve one because it is linked to something wrong.  After years of not carving pumpkins, I desperately wanted to one year, so I did and I didn't feel the least bit evil in doing it.


But this year, for the very FIRST time, my entire perspective on Halloween changed drastically.  First, I became educated on the origins of Halloween finding out that carved pumpkins have nothing to do with heads.  In fact, the custom is from the Celtic New Year when they carved out turnips, which became pumpkins when they came to America and pumpkins were more plentiful and easier to carve.  
Actually, most customs from Halloween are a random combination of various celebrations that kind of morphed into what the holiday is today.  However, one thing that remained true throughout history is that Halloween is a holiday that the church was continuously trying to reform.  It started as a pagan holiday turned into "All Saints Day" due to the church wanting to shift the focus from celebrating death to honoring saints.  Then that made the day before it "All Hallows Eve" which just turned into the word Halloween--merely semantics.  Trick or treating was originated by the church in an attempt to keep children from going out into the streets at night and getting into trouble.  


And no matter what holiday you have, whether it is blatantly seeming wrong or not, people will do wrong with it.  Are there people doing wrong on Halloween? Yes.  Is Halloween associated with bad things? Yes.  BUT I think the church was pretty successful in their reformation.  No matter how hard you try, you can't change the world.  People will do what they do.


But this year I saw things in a completely new light.  Regardless of associations with death, ghosts, graves, bats, vampires, etc., there are wonderful things going on during Halloween that scarcely go on at any other time during the year.  And here is my new perspective--agree or disagree, take it or leave it--this is how I am going to view it from here on out.
1.) When do you see people being so generous? Going out and buying things to give to complete strangers without a second thought? Hmmm...generosity is a Christian practice, is it not?
2.) When do you see parents spending so much time with their children..walking up and down the streets with them, smiling, teaching them to say "please" and "thank you" at each house? 
3.) Children are happily and gleefully walking up to houses being polite and respectful.  Yes, they are after candy.  But even with the hoards of children who came to our house, not one of them was greedy.  Each one said "thank you." I said "Happy Halloween" and they said "you too."  It was a night full of saying "thank you" "have a great night."  People were being kind to each other, respectful, pleasant! That, to me, is a wonderful thing.  Too often, we see the opposite even at Christmas (a holiday rooted in Christianity) when people fight over toys for their children and other such nonsense.
4.) We turn on a porch light, or also carve a pumpkin and put a candle in it to let people know "You are welcome to this house."  We are letting our light shine in a display of generosity and friendliness.


So, I now believe that Halloween is in fact just as much Christian in many ways as other holidays.  No matter what the origin.  Why don't we look at the way things are now? Is the act of carving a pumpkin evil? I say no.  It's fun and can be viewed as shining a light of care to others.  Is giving out candy or other treats wrong? Is it wrong for kids to dress up in fun costumes and say please and thank you?  Who cares if at one time they were in costumes to pull pranks.  By and large, they aren't doing it anymore...so I say that's something to be celebrated.


Plus, I enjoyed interacting with trick or treaters as my own little "baseball player" helped me pass out candy.

Missing Children

As many people may know, there are two children that have gone missing recently.  One is the baby named Lisa whose mother was drinking one night when she went missing.  The second one is an autistic boy named Robert who ran off in the woods on a walk with his father and has been missing since Sunday.


Both of these stories break my heart.  In the case of the baby girl, it's hard for me not to be upset with that mother as she had the full capability to keep her daughter in her sight and didn't.  However, I'm sure she is feeling bad enough about that now.  The little girl is supposed to turn 1 soon, and it must be devastating to have no idea where she is.


As for the autistic boy, his parents are separated and his mother wasn't with him when he went missing, and I can only imagine how she must be feeling right now.  From the articles I've read, I haven't heard about any statements that have been released from his mother.  The articles have just said that he lived with her in Ladysmith, VA and that he was with his father walking through the park when he went missing.  As a mother, that must be extremely hard to handle--knowing that your baby went missing and you couldn't be there to go after him.  I am sure it is equally hard on his father who tried to chase after him but couldn't catch him.  I have been praying for this boy and his family ever since I heard the news of his disappearance on Sunday.  Being day 6 since he went missing, things are beginning to look a little disappointing.  Still, I just hope they find him. I keep thinking about what I would do if I was in that situation, and I don't think I'd even be able to eat or sleep.


Knowing these things, I'm just holding my little one extra close and praying for these families.  I hope their children are found soon!


Baby Lisa's story is pretty wide-spread.  However, if you haven't heard about Robert, here is an article on the most recent news about him.
http://blogs.fredericksburg.com/newsdesk/2011/10/28/update-in-the-search-for-robert-wood-jr/


Good news! Robert was found alive and they believe he will be okay! Now still praying for baby Lisa!

Gordon Lee in Month # 3

Gordon Lee is 3 months now (has been since October 8th), and this month is shaping up to be a pretty good one so far.  Yes, he still has fussiness every now and then.  However, the colic is vanishing being replaced by more smiles and laughs.  

As you can see in the above picture, he is starting to sit a little bit.  He likes to sit up and can last for a few seconds.  He seems to be VERY focused on getting this task under his control.  So, I'll be interested to see when he is officially sitting up independently.  Apparently, they can practice for months before mastering it, so I won't be holding my breath.

He's also into rolling.  He can roll from his back to his side, from his tummy to his back, and he is desperate to get from his back to his tummy.  He just hasn't totally figured out how to get the hand that is under him out of his way so he can complete the roll.  Here's a video of him having some success rolling.  Even though he can do it every now and then, he hasn't quite figured out the exact science of it to have the skill mastered.

He has gotten very much into picking up his head as well.  It used to be that if you placed him on  his tummy, he'd put his face in the mat and start crying (even though he knew how to pick his head up).  Now, he just automatically picks his head up and he grins as if he is so proud he can do that.  And, oddly, it was like he suddenly just figured this one out on his 3 month birthday!

He has taken an interest in toys and will grab or bat at them.  At first, I thought that he wasn't totally sure he could do this all the time.  But I later discovered that he only grabs at things if he feels like it and no coaxing will get him to grab at something he doesn't want to.  I figured this out when he was lying on his playmat and he wouldn't grab at his toys, but as soon as I put my hand above him, he looked right at it and deliberately grabbed my finger. lol 
This video is of one of the first times he discovered he could interact with his toys with his hands.  

He is talking and babbling A LOT! For awhile he seemed to do it only with certain toys. Now it is just with anything or anyone.  My sister said she feels like he is an extrovert, and I agree.  He loves to be with people and he loves to "talk!"

Those are the major milestones so far.  I  can't think of anything else that he is doing.  It's so exciting, though, because it seems as though his development has picked up at an even quicker pace now that he has hit 3 months.


I started writing this blog at the beginning of his third month and wanted to wait until I had a change to finish it! Now, it's hard to believe his third month is almost over.  It just flew by! I suppose that's because he started playing a lot more and crying a lot less and just started doing so many new things so quickly!