He also holds his gaze on people much longer. My favorite time is when we stare at each other and he smiles and giggles and looks so delighted just to be a live and looking at Mommy!
Wednesday I had a three hour rehearsal for a gig and he did amazingly well. He is entertained a little my music playing, but toward the end he just wanted attention. I’m finally feeling like I might be able to play the gig this month without too much stress.
I’m grateful that with all the pain behind me and with adjusting to sleep deprivation I’m finally feeling like I can bond with my baby. The first month was sadly more like just getting through it because I had to. I had no energy for that overwhelming love everyone talks about. It’s wonderful to be able to enjoy Joseph and to see that he loves me despite me not being able to be too attentive in the first month. Babies are strong!
There are new pictures up.
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Category Mommy: [first]
This weekend was the best weekend yet with little Joseph. We got to be together as a family the whole weekend and we got lots done and had lots of fun!
We no longer sleep in on Sunday morning for obvious reasons. Joseph is always ready for some entertainment much earlier than we would like, but it has the added benefit of leaving us with lots of time together before church. This time we went up the hill behind our apartment and watched the Basel flight club launch and fly gliders.
We didn’t have time for a ride, though . . .
In the picture below you can see our apartment and the pool I swim in. They almost fly over our place! (More)
But I started this post saying some days are wonderful – and they really are! Today was one such day so far. It’s the little things that make life so exciting. My daily run is starting to have a very positive effect on my energy level and emotional stability. It’s starting to be my favorite time of day not just because I can work up some energy, but also because it means swimming time!!! Joseph has picked up on the pattern. He smiled big smiles when I put him in the trailer this morning and he smiled big smiles as I undressed him for bath time. He knows what’s coming! Grossmutti arrived just in time to see Joseph swim and she got to see how excited he was to go in the water, too. (And Joseph doesn’t yet have stage fright.) She also saw how Joseph is learning awareness of his bodily functions. I always give him a chance to go on the “big potty” i.e. the toilet (I hold him over it – he’s not sitting yet . . .) and he had a little pooh and started to fuss. I thought that meant he was done so I took him away and he screamed bloody murder. Ask Grossmutter. He was one mad little boy. I put him back on and sure enough he had to pee and afterwards was perfectly content to come off the potty. Now, if Mommy can only learn the difference between “I’m fussing because I have to go” And “I’m fussing because I’m DONE WITH THIS STUPID POTTY!”
Yesterday I passed the “I’m covered with fluids but I don’t really mind” test. This test was invented by someone who wasn’t quite thinking. You have to hold the baby on the potty while sitting on the bed and nursing at the same time. I had the foresight to be sitting on a water-proof pad so the bed was spared everything but the spit-up. I had decided his fussiness was because he didn’t want to be on the potty and had just taken the bowl away when he let out the real reason why he’d been fussy. Targets: the cloth diaper I was holding under him, my hand, the water-proof pad and my pants. Somehow the bed survived. While recovering from the shock of the explosion and kicking myself for taking the bowl away, little one baptized everything listed about plus my shirt with a shower. I decided things were as messy as they could get and brought naked Joseph up to my shoulder to burp and calm him. Soon after I wasn’t sure if he was peeing or I was just leaking . . . And lastly came the spit-up on the bed. Hurrah! I passed that test in record time – less than 30 minutes.
Today was the “run a bunch of errands with baby in tow” test. The tests are cumulative, so I had to first demonstrate my proficiency at the above test before embarking on this one. I did this by getting pee on my pants and poop on my shirt shortly before departure time and deciding the pee would dry and the poop would be covered up by the Moby wrap so I didn’t have to change.
After that Joseph was such a good little boy to me. (Speaking of good little boys, he gave me two consecutive stretches of three hours of sleep last night. I was positively bouncing around with the energy it gave me.) Joseph was sleeping when we took off for the doctor’s office and stayed sleeping as I put him in the Moby wrap. [Some grandmas might want to know that he was having a routine ultra sound to check the development of his hip sockets. I assumed it would be fine so didn’t bother looking into it much. He’s almost fine. The right side is 58 degrees and not 60 or more (whatever that means) so doctor’s orders were to keep wearing him with the wrap and come back in a month. It will be fine then, I’m sure, but prayers don’t hurt.] Back to the test: I decided to define “bunch” as “three” and planned two stops after the doctor’s visit. The doctor took an hour and Joseph was only fussy while scheduling an appointment with the receptionist. If you can have a tradition after two times, he’s made a tradition of being an angel for the doctors and fussy for the secretaries - is he a “somebodies and nobodies” snob already? Anyway, awake for the tram and bus rides, Joseph fell asleep just as I arrived at the bank. I closed my student account without trouble – only the grocery store left to go. Amazingly he stayed a sleep even through checkout and only started fussing once we were outside in the sun and heat face-to-face with the bus we had just missed. Eight minutes of standing in the sun at the end of a trip with a sweaty squirmy boy strapped to my chest is not my idea of fun so I walked to the next stop hoping he’d fall asleep again. No such luck but he was happier and we arrived just in time to catch the next bus home. Miraculously he was asleep again by the time I need to haul the rolling shopping bag full of groceries up the four flights of steps. This enabled me to hoist the bag and go up the steps without fear he would through his head back because when he is awake he will not stand to have his head tucked in the wrap – it must be out and he must look up!
I arrived home thrilled at my accomplishments and was convinced I had “tooled” the test. I was just starting to wonder if I might achieve “Super Mom” status after all when I . . . well, let’s just say I should quit blogging and do some Kegels.
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Category Mommy: [newest]
He weighed in at 5.450kg (at the top of the curve), has a big head and is right in the middle with length. His eye has cleared up (he just had a little ‘sleep’ that can mean various things with babies) so that’s fine and everything else the doctor checked was “tip top.”
Now for an afternoon with Grossmutti!
He also loves to look at the ceiling no matter where we are. It’s not just a matter of his head falling back. He purposely pushes his head back so he can look up and then stares with big eyes. He insists on doing this even while in the Moby Wrap, so usually I have to have one hand supporting his head and I’m still one-handed unless he’s a sleep and then I can tuck his head away and work with both hands – a rare privilege these days.
He gets better and better about holding his head up when on his tummy. He kicks like crazy and if you put a hand behind his feet he’ll launch forward since he often holds his head up and kicks at the same time.
He still only sleeps 2-3 hour stretches even at night, but at night he’ll go right back to sleep after the eat/change, so that is a great blessing!
It’s fun to watch him grow and change!
At the very least it’s more entertaining for me . . .
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Category Switzerland Adventure: [first] [previous]
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Quite a few months ago I made yet another attempt at getting my life organized and while looking online for the best filing system I read about Getting Things Done by David Allen. It intrigued me and after reading the summary on Wikipedia I thought the ideas worth a try. I implemented a few and it all but revolutionized my life. I’m talking big life changes such as always having a clean desk as opposed to always having stacks of unorganized papers collecting – and it was so easy! I’ve been trying my whole life to keep a clean desk, so this was major for me. I annoyed all my friends talking about how wonderful and amazing it was. So with all the excitement over results I figured I’d better get the book and read the whole thing. It turns out the university business library has it, so I got it out of the library.
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