I (heart) Henry

I'd read that new parents often experience the sensation of falling in love with their children, but I think this is one of those experiences you can't quite fathom until in the midst of it yourself. There is no question that I loved Henry the moment he was born, if not before then. And as such I would have done anything imaginable for him. But in the past few weeks, I would say that this has evolved into something more intense, like the almost palpable, all-consuming feeling of falling in love. Henry is all that I think of or talk about. I'm amazed and awe struck at the tiniest little thing I notice about him. Each move he makes is a miracle in and of itself. And even when he's upstairs sleeping I look lovingly at pictures of him. I feel like that friend who disappears suddenly when she meets someone new, spending every waking moment with him. And when she's with you, all she can talk (or gush) about is him. I'd say I'm that girl; all Henry, all the time.

The little wonder child is sleeping in his swing right now. For the second day in a row, he's fallen asleep there on his own. It's a good development, to see that he's learning to put himself to sleep more easily. Though he still fights pretty hard against sleep. He fusses and forces his little eyelids open until the last gasp when sleep overtakes him. I guess there's too much fun to be had with momma to bother with sleep.

Here's a recent pic of Henry that I love. Brian posted this on his blog too, so sorry for the repeat for dual readers. I just couldn't resist, though. It captures Henry's recent obsession with sucking on his fingers.

Working hard and playing hard

Henry's got a lot on his plate right now. As you can see in the video below (which I referenced in my last post), he needs to focus and work quite hard to reach for and grasp items within his range. He loves doing it though, and has a lot of fun playing when he can actually get his fingers around his toys. It's great watching his development.




We're also working on many sleep-related projects. The first is having Henry take naps in his crib, as opposed to snuggling with me or in his car seat. At this moment we're 45 minutes into a crib nap, which is a record. This is not only hard work for Henry, but also for his momma. I often enjoy holding him while he naps. He's entirely serene, warm and cuddly. How could I not enjoy that? Well, here's how...there are times when I want to blog for example. Or eat lunch. Or simply have my arms free. But still, it's hard for me to break the habit of holding him all the time when he and I both enjoy it. Another sleep task is getting Henry out of the car seat and into the crib at night. For those who don't know, Henry has been sleeping in his car seat during the night for almost all of his 11 weeks with us. At first, it was in response to the fact that he had reflux. The pediatrician recommended propping Henry up, and this seemed to work well. Now, it's been working well for probably 9 weeks or so. While I hate to rock the boat and mess with a good thing, I would like my son to be able to sleep through the night in something other than a recliner-like position. Here's how we've been working on this change:

Step 1: Move car seat from Pack 'N' Play beside parental bed into Henry's room. Check! Step 1 accomplished.
Step 2: Move car seat from the floor of Henry's room into his crib at night. Check! Step 2 accomplished.
Step 3: Take naps in crib. Work in progress.
Step 4: Attempt night-time sleep in crib, sans car seat. Pending completion of step 3.

We're simultaneously making gradual changes to the bedtime routine. Each night I try to get Henry to sleep a few minutes earlier, so that his bed time moves up without a big jump that he'd notice and reject. He's a smart cookie and can tell when I try to sneak him upstairs early. All in all, we've moved up from a regular 10 pm bed time to a regular 8:55 bed time. If we could get him to 8 I'd be happy. Earlier would be glorious. In addition to the time change, I'm going to begin doing the bedtime routine upstairs in Henry's room, as opposed to downstairs while the TV is on. As much as Henry likes John Stewart and Stephen Colbert repeats, and as witty and intelligent as these programs can be, I think we'll wait to expose him regularly to political comedy until he's a little older. In the meantime, we'll substitute this with some infant massage. I've been massaging Henry at night for the past several weeks, and I sincerely believe it's made a difference in his sleep habits and general ability to relax. Even when he starts out the massage a little fussy, he usually ends up smiling and relaxed by the end.

To those who don't have children and have never attempted establishing good sleep habits, this may all seem a little crazy. But I think those who do have kids will understand. Or maybe Brian and I are just a little crazy with all of this.

6 is the new 10

It's 8:15 am and Henry is still sleeping! After waking up to eat at 5:30, he went back to sleep. And I got up for the day feeling refreshed and full of energy. Somehow in the process of becoming a parent, my need for sleep has decreased and my preferred sleep schedule has shifted such that rising at 6 am feels like 10 am used to feel. Not that I can complain. So far Henry has been sleeping like a champ, and I feel thankful for every good night of sleep. In the almost three hours that I've been up, I have: showered (yes! score one for me! it's the new mom's badge of honor to fit in a shower.), applied makeup and brushed my hair (bonus points for achieving those things after the shower), eaten breakfast (including a still-hot bowl of oatmeal and equally steamy cup of coffee...steam still rising from my coffee as I drink it--unheard of these days!), done some cleaning (cleaning? what's that?), prepped for dinner (so what if it's 7:30 am? why not chop onions and peppers? you take every minute you can get when your life is ruled by an unpredictable baby who might be appearing as mr. cranky pants today. or might not. you never know.), downloaded some pics and video (see below), and am now blogging. Will wonders never cease? Oh yes, I have also crept quietly up the stairs several times to make sure Henry was still breathing (he was), because it seems hard to believe that he's still asleep.

I tried (twice) to post a video of Henry reach for one of his toys, but for some reason it wouldn't process. I'll try again later if I have a chance. It's pretty amazing to watch him focus intently on an object and do his best to make his hand reach for and grasp the object. He loves to lay under his play mat and reach for his toys, and has been showing a preference for reaching with his left hand. He primarily uses his right hand for self-soothing sucking. Sometimes he multitasks and uses both hands--little over achiever in the making.

Just shoot me

Henry had a somewhat traumatic visit to the doctor today, and the poor kid didn't see it coming. All smiles and coos as the doctor examined him, he didn't recognize the pointy instruments sitting next to him as the pain producers that they proved to be. Yes, it was time for some vaccinations. To which I couldn't help but respond with the thought, "I wish they could just shoot me with the vaccines instead of him." At least I'd be able to understand what it was for and deal with the discomfort. Surely, there must be some futuristic manner in the research stages to miraculously deliver vaccinations via the mom. I'd do it for him in a heartbeat.

Luckily, Henry's a trooper, and he's been attempting to cope with his pain in the best way he knows. By rabidly searching for and sucking on his hand. He'll settle for any part of it, really--wrist, fingers, whole fist, whatever. The solitary thumb has still not quite found it's way into his mouth. But when it does, boy will that be an exciting day. In the meantime, Henry's working on the realization that instead of launching his entire body in the direction of his much sought-after hand, he can instead move the hand to his mouth. It's an unreliable work-in-progress, and his hand-eye coordination is sometimes quite literal. Henry watches his hand with his eye, until Bam!, his hand hits him in the eye. Our patient little baby spends upwards of an hour attempting this feat of moving his hand to his mouth regularly, while Brian and I watch in wonder (and try not to laugh too hard) at his developmental growth.

Speaking of growth, he continues to show a good propensity for it, as we learned today at the pediatrician's. At 10 weeks Henry weighs 14 pounds, 2 ounces, and measures 25 inches.

Family and friends

This weekend we spent some time with both sides of our family. On Saturday Jess and Tim hosted a delicious lunch for us and my parents, and on Sunday Brian's parents hosted an equally delicious lunch. Henry appears to find a lot of visiting to be taxing (who doesn't afterall?), because while he was quite the charmer on Saturday, Sunday's visit found him more fussy and clingy than normal.
After a great night of sleep, however, Henry rebounded and was ready for more social time today with one of our New Moms' groups. Adoring mothers that we are, when one of us suggested taking a group photo of the babies, several cameras magically appeared--including mine. I've adopted a never-leave-home-without-it policy with the camera, since you never know when a cute photo op will arise. Like today. This is Henry with some of his new buddies.

Bumbo baby

Today we put Henry in his bumbo seat for the first time. A fun new development!

No mo' moo for you!

It's now official: no more dairy for me.
I'd been pretty certain this was the case for several weeks, but yesterday sealed the deal. Early on, our pediatrician had suggested that Henry might have a sensitivity to the protein in dairy products, based on some symptoms he'd been having. An initial trial of me abstaining from dairy (I'm nursing him, so the dairy comes from me) seemed to have no effect on the early symptoms. Or so I thought. Rather hopefully. A few weeks down the road I decided to try eliminating dairy again, based on some new symptoms the little guy had. And voila, he seemed to be doing better after two weeks. But an ice cream loving voice in my head kept whispering that maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe eliminating dairy merely coincided with some other changes. So I had a little dairy, and noticed some little differences for the worse. But maybe those were coincidences, too, I thought. And then on Tuesday I watched as the Starbucks barista ignored (or maybe misheard) my request for a soy latte and instead poured a venti (medium for you non-Starbucks folks) sized serving of skim milk. Mmmm, real milk. Dairy milk. Soy milk and rice milk are decent substitutes, but I'd been craving the real deal. So I didn't correct the barista, and thought, "well, we'll see what happens." This is the largest portion of milk I'd had in about three weeks, and boy did I see what happened. Sheer hell broke lose, that's what. Less than 24 hours after my indulgent venti latte Henry's sensitive tummy revolted. I had not seen this crabby, inconsolable version of my baby in weeks. No amount of bouncing, cuddling, singing, begging, pleading, or bribery could calm the poor babe. He was miserable. Period. This was one of the primary symptoms that had led the pediatrician to think Henry might have a dairy sensitivity to begin with. I'd have to say, after that little "experiment" with a full-fledged return to dairy land, I will be abstaining until further notice with the exception of very small doses. Never mind that it's ice cream season, it's simply not worth the misery it invokes for me and Henry.

Speaking of ice cream, in an uncanny bit of timing, Henry and I were pursued by not one, but two ice cream trucks during our walk yesterday. No joke. One of them followed at a short distance for about half a mile, making frequent stops for the gleeful neighborhood kids. Just when I thought I'd escaped from the tempting truck, I heard that siren's call of cheesy music and saw a second truck. How many ice cream trucks do they need within a mile radius? Two apparently. At the same exact time of day. While my child wails in pain because his mommy drank milk and now has to swear off her beloved dairy. Needless to say, it was torture. Good thing Henry's even more beloved to me. And there's always Rice Dream and Tofu Pops, right???

Better yet

Sure, photos are great. But video is even better yet.

Today I experimented briefly with the video capabilities of my camera. Unfortunately, Henry was less cooperative than the camera...he became distracted whenever I moved in close and tried to record him. Here's a clip of the best I was able to get. More videos to come in the future. :)

Great grandparents

Henry and I went on an unplanned (but very welcomed) trip to Pittsfield this Wednesday. It was a treat for us to spend more time with my parents, and also to see my grandparents, Henry's great grandparents. Here's Henry with his great grandmothers.