LIFE WITH LIAM

Liam's Sleeping Music

2010-06-06T16:23:00.000-07:00

We've recently attempted to remove Liam's night time music from his sleep routine. Liam had 3 albums that he listened to over the past 6 months to help him sleep, and each would play continuously until the morning when he woke. Sadly, it doesn't seem to make a difference anymore and this summer the air conditioner would have drowned out the music anyway, so they've been retired. So as a tribute to his 3 albums, here are my reviews of them. I think I have the best perspective on them anyway, since I've heard them hundreds of times.

Baby Einstein's Music Box Orchestra - Legendary classical songs done in a gentle, baby-friendly style. The music is relentlessly gentle, as formerly powerful songs by Beethoven, Bach and Mozart are performed on toy pianos and high pitched synthesizers. The songs are obvious classics, the CD could not be more baby friendly, but there is not a lot here for adults. 3 out of 5 baby stars

Brian Eno's Music For Airports - This legendary ambient album might seem a little too "hipster" for baby sleep time, but this music is so lulling and gentle that it instantly puts babies to sleep. Most people who have heard of this album haven't actually heard it, but as a quick description it's really sparse piano music with a few slight synthesizer touches. It's a lot easier to take for adults than Baby Einstein, but I still must admit that it's not exactly the most exciting album in the world. 4 out of 5 baby stars

Helios's Eingya - Easily my favorite Liam album. Gentle, smooth instrumentals from a rock band that doesn't really rock. Helios has a traditional band structure (guitar/bass/drums) but blends those elements in a really beautiful, lulling way. While it might have more dynamics as an album than Liam's other bedtime jams, it flows in such a perfect manner that it never once woke him up. Great for babies, great for adults. 5 out of 5 baby stars.

Liam Clapping

2010-05-05T03:05:00.001-07:00

Wow, am I ever behind. I still need to write Liam's 9-month update (we finally have some TEETH!) but for now, I'll leave you with this video:

Toofless

2010-04-09T16:44:00.000-07:00

Phew. What a WEEK! Work and school are both crazy right now, and, of course, there's the teething baby situation. It's one of those weeks where I feel like I deserve a "Mom of the Year" award for dealing with all of it and not having a nervous breakdown, know what I mean?

For those if you who have been wondering, no, Liam does not yet have his first "toof" yet, but it's right there, about to poke through the surface, and surely bothering him. Allow me to explain...

Last Friday, I went to pick him up from my parents' house and I immediately knew something wasn't right. And for the next 36 hours, the "something isn't right" feeling continued. Feverish, watery eyes, sleeping horribly, not napping, refusing food, drooling and spitting up like crazy, wanting to be not just held but carried around 24/7 (thank God for the Moby Wrap), crying at random intervals, hardly smiling, etc. etc. Saturday was awful; he fussed for most of the day and he ran a low-grade fever off and on. I debated whether to bring him in to urgent care. Was it an ear infection? Strep throat? Reflux? Did I want to pay the $20 copay and expose him to loads of germs just to have the doctor on-call tell me it was just separation anxiety? (Believe it or not, that exact thing happened the week before.)

Not once did it occur to me that he could be teething. Not once. Despite the drool, the refusal of food, the constant chomping on his hand, the fact that he's eight and a half months and doesn't have a tooth yet.

Then again, I'm the woman who, at nearly 38 weeks pregnant, had bouts of severe back pain every 4 minutes and didn't even consider the fact that I could be, you know, IN LABOR. I was convinced that the pain meant something was wrong, so I went to the hospital. When the nurse told me I was in labor, I was all..."really? Labor? I'm only 38 weeks!"

Finally, on Sunday afternoon, I thought to put my finger in his mouth for the first time, and while feeling his bottom gums, I ran across a giant, swollen bump.

Duh.

While no tooth has broken through yet and Liam is still gumming everything, his mood has markedly improved. The past three nights he's slept great (only one "fuss" each night, around 4 a.m., and he's gone back to sleep until 6:30 all three times), napped well, and seemed generally happy. I'm still walking on eggshells, though, just waiting for the next bout of teething hell...

A big week.

2010-04-05T03:43:00.000-07:00

Within the past 7 days, the following things have happened:

Liam started crawling.

Liam started pulling up to a stand.

Liam is getting his first tooth. (It hasn't broken through yet, but it's about to.)

I'd love to update you on the first two milestones, but the third pretty much has sapped my energy to do anything, including concentrate on writing a blog entry. I had no idea how bad teething could be until it happened to my poor little guy. I know it's not this bad for ALL babies, but mine seems to do everything in a big way!

The sleep habits of an 8-month-old

2010-03-28T04:10:00.001-07:00

How did my tiny, cuddly little newborn boy turn into an 8-month-old? I never thought I'd miss those sleep-deprived newborn days but now I sort of do. It's going by so fast!

Month 8 has been a true delight. Liam's personality is really starting to come out. He's serious and brooding -- he likes to observe his world and take it all in before participating. He's all smiles and giggles at home and at my parents' house, but it always takes him awhile to warm up to new people. Sometimes he'll surprise you, though, by breaking into a big smile for a stranger at the grocery store. But usually he just gives them a stare that clearly says "who are you and why are you invading my world?" He loves figuring things out and you can just see the little wheels turning in his head when he plays with a toy.

Liam loves to eat, as evidenced by the adorable rolls on his arms and thighs. He can feed himself bigger pieces of food (crackers, teething biscuits, etc.) but doesn't have the pincer grasp down yet for small pieces. He's getting bored with purees -- well, except for the part where he tries to grab the spoon and feed himself!

He is thisclose to crawling. He can launch forward onto his hands and knees from a sitting position and back, but he can't move forward yet, which greatly frustrates him. He can stand while holding onto a piece of furniture and is trying so hard to pull up (especially in the bathtub...yikes). Every day we get closer and closer to mobility. He's been doing the hands-and-knees thing for about a month, so I'm sure it's only a matter of weeks.

He now says mama and dada, although he doesn't know what those "words" mean. He has a special relationship with our usually anti-social cat, Taka. She loves being near him and he gets the biggest grin on his face when she walks into the room. (Our other cat, Danny Boy, is terrified of him!) He also loves the neighbor's dog and will laugh hysterically when she licks his hand or his face.

He is starting to understand cause and effect, particularly when it comes to noises. Our quiet little guy gets such a delight out of banging things together or dropping something on the floor and the resulting noise. Lately he's gotten particular enjoyment out of putting his hand in my mouth when I'm talking. I have no idea what's so funny about that, but then again, I used to find Adam Sandler movies funny, too...

As wonderful as everything has been this month, sleep is still an issue in our house. Liam still isn't sleeping through the night most nights. It's funny -- when he was younger, the first question people used to ask us was "is he sleeping through the night?" How that he's 8 months, they don't bother asking us because, well, he's 8 months. Of course he's sleeping through the night! Sigh. On a good night, he wakes up once to eat. On a bad night, he's up three times (once to eat, and the other times he just wants to be held). We had some success with letting him cry it out last month, but then he got sick and everything went out the window. A lot of people say their bad sleepers became good sleepers around a year, so I'm hoping we can trudge through the next four sleep-deprived months!

Sickness is serious business

2010-03-20T13:28:00.000-07:00

This has been the sickliest winter I can remember. Actually, it's been the sickliest MONTH I can remember. Two weeks ago, Liam had a cold. He passed it onto me (big shocker there - the kid literally sneezed into my eye). On the tail end of my cold, Brad caught some sort of weird minor stomach bug/food poisoning thing. And just as he recovered from that, I got a horrible stomach flu (norwalk virus!) and was the sickest I've been in years. It's been almost a week and my stomach is still not quite feeling back to normal yet.

Having a kid is hell on your immune system. I don't know if it's the lack of sleep or the significant amount of time spent indoors, but I seem to catch everything that's going around. I wash my hands, try to eat my fruits & veggies, take my vitamins, and do my best to get fresh air, but somehow I can't escape the germs. I'm so glad it's almost spring!

Liam (noun).

2010-03-05T03:37:00.000-08:00

When I was pregnant Brad and I swore up and down we wouldn't use silly baby talk at home. We wanted to treat our new addition like a real member of the family, not like a pet! But, as I now know, many of the lofty plans that you make when you're pregnant (cloth diapering? breastfeeding for 18 months? making my own baby food?) become...well...just that. Lofty plans.

We've actually been pretty good about avoiding the baby talk, per se. But without realizing it, we've managed to develop our own little vocabulary for all things Liam. So, without further ado, and a bit of embarrassment, I present to you our dictionary.

Dipe (n): Diaper. I somehow started calling diapers "dipes" right from the beginning, probably because I was so sleep-deprived I couldn't force out the whole word. It caught on fast, and now we don't change diapers -- we "change dipes."

Fuss (n): OK, we didn't invent this word, but we invented the way we use it -- as a noun. When Liam wakes up in the middle of the night, which is unfortunately way too often, we call it "a fuss." As in, "he had a three o'clock fuss last night." or "I'll handle his first fuss." Lately we've been dropping the word fuss and referring to his wakeups like business meetings: "his three o'clock." Our bleary-eyed morning conversation often goes like this. "How many fusses did he have last night?" "He had an eleven o'clock, a one o'clock and a four o'clock. That last fuss was his wakeup fuss."

Butt-pat fuss (n): Sometimes, a fuss only requires a few minutes of patting Liam on the butt to get him to go back to sleep. It also works to rub his back or jiggle his mattress. In context: "I didn't need to feed him during his 3 o'clock. It was only a butt-pat fuss."

Snerf (n): Please withhold your judgement. I realize a kid as cute as ours deserves a sweet nickname like peanut, sweetie-pie, sweet pea, etc. Nope...instead we call him Snerf. Often. To the point where he may think this is actually his name. It all started when he had his first of many daycare-acquired colds, and instead of "the sniffles" he had "the snerfles." (My fault.) Somehow, that evolved into a nickname that Brad and I both latched onto. There are variations like Snerfie, Snerfus, and Snerf-a-gus, but mostly we just use plain old Snerf.

I'm sure I'm missing a few here (Brad?) but those are the ones that immediately come to mind. What about all of you with little kids, or even pets? I KNOW you guys have your own dictionaries. Come on...'fess up!

SEVEN months!

2010-02-27T05:54:00.000-08:00

I can't believe my little boy is 7 months old (as of yesterday). For some reason, 7 months seems so much older than 6 months. I remember my friend bringing over her 7-month-old a few days after Liam was born and I couldn't believe how grown-up he seemed.

This was a big month for Liam. He went from being very quiet to very vocal and now babbles up a storm! He says dadada, mamama, bababa, wawawa, and is very into blowing raspberries. He laughs at everything. He isn't crawling yet, but he gets up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth, which is SO unbelievably cute. People tell me that crawling isn't far away, but honestly, I'm in no hurry for him to reach that particular milestone! He is very into banging his toys together and on the floor.

Food: He's eating a lot more solids. He still loves his milk, but he's also into peas, bananas, plums, apples and pears. We had a bit of an "incident" earlier this month with Earth's Best corn and squash that got him sent home from daycare (let's just say we did 20 diaper changes in 24 hours), so that's off the list. He hates carrots. He likes to gnaw on saltine crackers (with the salt brushed off). Also, he can sort of hold his own bottle - he has the right idea, but can't always lift it high enough. I bought him a sippy cup, but he's definitely not ready for that yet.

Sleep is going much better. He's been sleeping 7:30-5:30 most nights with only one wakeup. We don't feed him anymore - instead we go in and pat his butt or rub his back for a few minutes (really) and he usually goes back to sleep. Occasionally, when he won't go back to sleep, he gets a bottle. And while I'm not thrilled to wake up at 5:30 every morning, it's better than our every-two-hours routine of the past few months.

Liam has turned into such a delight this month. His little personality is emerging and he's suddenly so much less fussy. I can't wait to see what the next month brings!

A sweet video that Brad made.

2010-02-17T16:20:00.000-08:00

Keep in mind that we were too tired to remember we owned a video camera until Liam was about 2 months old, so there's no newborn footage.

We have a babbler!

2010-02-15T17:22:00.000-08:00

Liam finally started babbling last night! It's like music to my ears. Bababababababa. Lalalalalala. Wawawawawa. Love it! Now let's hear it for a mama!

On the mobility front, he can scoot backwards and side-to-side, but doesn't quite have the coordination to move forward, which frustrates him greatly. He's also learned how to push up on his hands and knees and rock back and forth, but can't propel himself forward yet.

And just look at how handsome our little guy is getting. Since when did he stop looking like a baby and start looking like a little BOY? They grow up so fast!

My favorite fashion accessory

2010-02-14T05:30:00.001-08:00

Babywearing: one of the many things I wish I would have known about before having a kid.

For those who are unfamiliar with it, babywearing is carrying your baby around in one of a variety of carriers like a sling or a wrap. It's a great alternative to a stroller when you're walking or shopping. But at home, it's literally a sanity-saver. It lets you "hold" a fussy baby but still get things done, since your arms are free.

I started babywearing after trying out a friend's Moby Wrap. It was one of the many days Liam had been screaming for hours, but as soon as I put him in the Moby Wrap, he fell asleep. Like, instantly. It was almost better than holding him because it snuggled him closer to me than my arms could. So I went out the next day and bought one.

When Liam was asleep in the Mody Wrap, I could vacuum, do dishes, hang laundry, or basically do any household chore that could be done standing up. Unfortunately, once he turned about 4 months, he got really, really squirmy. And because the Moby Wrap is elastic and stretchy, I didn't really feel comfortable holding him in it anymore.

Then I transitioned to the "ring sling" that my very crafty friend Krissy made me (very similar to the picture below). This allows me to hold Liam while he's straddling my hip. He doesn't fall asleep in it the way he fell asleep in the Moby Wrap, but then again, he doesn't fall asleep much these days.

And finally, there's the old standby: the Baby Bjorn. I picked up a used one of these for $10 back when Liam was a few weeks old. I know that many babywearers frown on the Bjorn because it's not ergonomic, but let me tell you -- it's PERFECT for shopping. I feel totally comfortable pushing a cart with two hands when Liam is in the Bjorn, and am never worried about him squirming out. And he loves it.

In short: babywearing rocks!

I am someone's mommy.

2010-02-05T04:48:00.000-08:00

The other day, when I was picking up Liam from daycare, a preschool-aged girl -- probably about 3 or 4 -- stopped me in the hallway and said, "are you someone's mommy?"

I had to chuckle at the question because wow, did it ever sound weird. I am someone's mommy! I have a SON! I know it's not particularly weird to be 30 years old and have a 6-month-old child, but it still makes me laugh/scares me to death sometimes that I'm responsible for raising a little boy. I'm the one who's going to help him with his homework, teach him to drive (OK - that might be Brad's job), walk him down the aisle, and babysit his own children. And I still feel like a kid myself most days. Weird weird weird.

On a less-weird note, Liam has another cold. I figured he was due, since he has made it a whole month without the daycare plague. Aside from the concrete in his nose, he doesn't really seem worse for the wear, and despite waking up every 2 hours last night (which is sometimes a normal thing for him anyway), he's his happy, cheerful self.

6 months!

2010-01-29T03:39:00.000-08:00

Liam turned half a year old on Tuesday of this week! I can't believe that he's already been with us for 6 months (although, according to my due date, he shouldn't have turned 6 months until February 7 -- I still can't believe he came 2 weeks early). This month he started sitting up on his own, and he is trying SO hard to do the army-crawl thing. He can turn himself from side to side, but can't go forward or backward yet. He has also started banging toys on the floor, which is cute. Cute, but headache-inducing!

He's still not very verbal (he coos and squeals, but none of the mamamama dadadada stuff that he "should"(??) be doing, according to my What to Expect book) but I keep telling myself not to worry and that it will come soon. He has his 6-month appointment next week, so I'll be sure to ask the doctor about that. Ahh, the worries of a first-time mom!

He's sleeping a little better at night...usually from 7:30-4 straight, and then a nap from 6-7 a.m. We've tried pushing back his bedtime to no avail (even if he goes to bed at 8, he still wakes up at 4) so we're sticking with the early bedtime to make sure he's getting enough sleep. And yes, we've tried everything -- later naps, earlier naps, dream-feeding, et cetera ad nauseam. I think we're just going to have to accept it for the time being. My saint of a husband usually gets up with him at 4 and stays up with him until 5, so as long as I go to bed early enough, I get 7 or 8 hours of sleep, which is plenty!

Thirty.

2010-01-17T06:10:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was my 30th birthday. Truth be told, it started out as a little bit of a bummer of a day; Brad was out of town for work, and I woke up in a bad mood. But then things improved as the day went on. I got flowers, I got phone calls from all the people I love, and a dear friend offered her babysitting services so I could go to the gym. Then, last night, two of my best friends came over and we watched Twilight, ordered Mexican food, and drank wine. As an added bonus, Liam has started sleeping better thanks to my self-designed "sleep training" (more on that in another post), so I got a decent night of sleep.

A few years ago, I had a very different vision of how I'd be celebrating my 30th birthday, which did not involve a quiet night at home. But you know what? Aside from Brad being gone, it was perfect. Not to brag, but really, who thought my life would be this awesome at 30 years old? I have an amazing, beautiful son who is the absolute love of my life; a wonderful husband who is my best friend; a great family; a fulfilling job; and a perfect home that is still standing (despite our best efforts to burn it down!). I never thought things could be this good.

5 months!

2009-12-30T16:53:00.000-08:00

Wow, am I behind or what? I can't believe I used to be a once-every-other-day blogger. To my credit, work has been crazy and Brad & I were MIA for a week in his hometown. I promise to post more regular updates starting in January.

Liam turned 5 months on December 26th. He is:

-Rolling over like a mad man, making diaper changes close to impossible -- I do them on the floor now to keep him falling off the changing table.

-Sleeping on his stomach. I put him down on his back and he always flips over sometime during the night. The first time I walked into his room and he was fast asleep on his tummy, I freaked out. But there's not much I can do now! (Can you blame him? I hate sleeping on my back.)

-Sitting up unassisted! Well, for about 30 seconds to a minute before he loses balance and topples over, which is why we stack pillows around him (see picture above).

-Eating peas, carrots and sweet potatoes. He seems to love peas the most, which is hilarious, considering that they're the one food I won't touch.

-Teething(??). He has all the obvious signs, but we don't see any teeth poking through yet.

-Not sleeping well at all. He's regressed to 2-3 wakings per night and sometimes has a hard time going back to sleep after he eats. We had to stop swaddling him when he started to roll over, which doesn't help. I also think teething is a factor. I know he's capable of sleeping through the night, so I keep telling myself this is a phase (that's been going on almost 2 months...?)

That's how he rolls

2009-12-19T09:37:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Liam mastered one of his most exciting milestones yet -- rolling over! He's been able to flip over onto his back for awhile now, but I don't know if that counts -- I think "rolling over" really means going from back to tummy, right? He hadn't had much interest in doing it aside from the occasional half-hearted back-arching, so imagine my shock when I got a call from my mom (who watches him on Fridays) telling me that he just did it 5 times in a row!

I joke about putting him through "boot camp" to get him to roll, but we've really been working hard to get him more comfortable on his stomach over the past few weeks, and obviously it's made a difference. Now that he's learned to roll over, the kid won't stay on his back! He's rolled over at least 20 times so far today, both to his left and his right. Of course Brad and I make a huge deal of it every time, so I almost think he's just doing it to get a reaction out of us. Once he pushes himself up on his stomach, he gets a huge grin on his face and screams in delight. It's the cutest thing -- I need to post a video.

Rolling over is the precursor to the milestone I'm NOT looking forward to -- army crawling. Our house is so un-babyproofed it's not even funny!

No words

2009-12-13T07:54:00.000-08:00

...for this cuteness.

We're tired.

2009-12-04T02:16:00.000-08:00

As I said a couple of posts ago, our former good little sleeper is no longer sleeping through the night. For a month or so he was sleeping from 8-6, which was amazing. Then, he got a cold and an ear infection, which put him on a newborn schedule again. But two weeks after the sickness, he's still waking up twice a night and is up FOR THE DAY AT 4:30 A.M. Don't get me wrong, I've always been a morning person, but 4:30 a.m. is ridiculous.

Brad handles the first night wakeup, and sometimes the second, too. But since our bedroom is right next to Liam's, each time he cries, I wake up, too, and it's hard to fall back to sleep. And then I'm up for good at 4:30.

HELP.

I have not been this exhausted since my freshman year of college.

I've done a lot of reading on the four-month sleep regression and it sounds like we're just going to have to wait it out for a few more months. (One of my friends went through it with her little boy, and he JUST started sleeping through the night again at 11 months. Ugh.) Each time he wakes up he's ravenous -- which means he needs to eat. There's no point in trying to soothe him back to sleep.

All I can say is thank God for coffee.

First solids

2009-11-29T07:39:00.000-08:00

Since Liam turned 4 months old on Thursday, Brad and I decided to start him on a little rice cereal this morning. I'd originally planned to wait until 5-6 months to start solids (since I have allergies myself and Liam had eczema as a newborn, he's prone to allergies), but he was definitely showing the signs of being ready. He's starting to act bored with his bottles and many times is more interested in chewing on the nipple than drinking; he puts everything in his mouth; and he's now waking up several times a night, ravenous, and will take down 6-8 oz. in a single sitting. But the real clincher for me is how much he LOVES "eating" his amoxicillin, which is what he's getting for his ear infection. We give it to him in a baby medicine spoon twice a day, and he gets such a kick out of eating off the spoon and "chewing" the medicine in his mouth (it's liquid, but much thicker than formula).

This morning's feeding was a great success! We made a thin mixture of cereal and formula and fed him three small spoonfuls. He seemed to really like it and didn't even make too much of a mess. By the third spoonful he started making funny faces, so we decided it was time to call it a day. But he probably got about a teaspoon and a half in his stomach when all was said and done.

We'll watch him carefully for reactions today, and if all goes well, we'll try another feeding tomorrow morning. This time with pictures!

One year ago today...

2009-11-26T02:32:00.000-08:00

On Thanksgiving Day 2008, I found out I was pregnant. At the time I was too shocked and overwhelmed to be thankful. But one year on, I can look back and see how much I have to give thanks for.

First big scare

2009-11-22T12:05:00.001-08:00

Well, we've survived -- or are surviving -- our first big scare. After a really fussy, grumpy day during which he refused to eat from 1 p.m. to bedtime, Liam woke up in the middle of the night with a 103-degree fever!

I had known something was up all day, but I chalked it up to teething so I wasn't too worried (just exhausted from pacing the floors with a crying 4-month-old all afternoon). But when I heard him fussing at 10:30, I knew something was very wrong. Normally when he wakes up in the middle of the night he's wide awake and very pleasant -- just hungry. But last night when I walked into his room, he was writing around in obvious discomfort with his eyes still closed. I picked him up, and even before I un-swaddled him, I could tell that he was burning up. When I saw 103 on the thermometer, I panicked.

I immediately gave him some tylenol and called our ped's after-hours number. They paged the nurse and told me they'd call back shortly. While I waited for the call, Brad paced the floors with Liam, who was crying weakly and clinging onto Brad's shoulder with one hand and sucking on the other. It was the saddest thing I've ever seen.

By the time the on-call nurse called back, the Tylenol had kicked in and Liam seemed to be perking up. His temp was down to 101 and he took in a few ounces of milk. The nurse told us to give him Tylenol every 4 hours if his fever spiked and to bring him into urgent care the next morning (no need for the ER unless his temp reached 105).

Before long Liam was smiling and cooing -- back to his old self. We waited another hour until his temp was back to normal before putting him back to bed. He then proceeded to wake up every hour for the rest of the night. He no longer had a fever, but just seemed really uncomfortable.

I took Liam to urgent care at 9 this morning and the poor guy was diagnosed with a double ear infection. Ugh! That explained the lack of appetite and fussiness from the previous day. He started antibiotics and seemed to be feeling a little better today, but he's definitely not himself and still doesn't have much interest in eating.

I know this is the first of many sicknesses, but it's so hard to watch someone so tiny and helpless suffer. I know how miserable I feel with a fever and I hate to think of my little guy going through it. I'm just thankful that it was "just" an ear infection and didn't end up being H1N1, which was my first thought.

(OK, maybe he's not so little anymore. At urgent care, he weighed in at 14 pounds!)

Milestones galore

2009-11-08T12:52:00.000-08:00

...this week. Liam is:

Learning to flip over from front to back (although he still looks slightly shocked every time he does it).

Belly laughing like crazy, particularly when you change his diaper (hey, it tickles!)

Squealing at the top of his lungs when he's excited.

Grabbing toys from his Baby Einstein gym and pulling them to his mouth.

As Brad said in his last post, we've been having some big troubles with Liam's tiny tummy lately. He launches into blood-curdling screaming fits after eating that are almost certainly related to belly pain, since the only thing that makes him feel better is holding him against your chest (pressure on the tummy I suppose). I brought him to the doctor last week and she suggested trying a new hypoallergenic formula (yummy!) called alimentum. She gave us a couple samples to test out. It's stinky and it makes his burps smell horrible, but if it isn't working wonders. That's the good news.

The bad news is it's about twice as expensive as the formula he was on before, which wasn't exactly cheap. And the kid is a serious eating machine -- apparently at daycare they call him "little piggy." But what else can you do? Just look at that happy face. Who cares if we have to sell our kidneys to keep him fed. ;)

STTN

2009-11-06T03:29:00.001-08:00

Until Liam was 6 weeks old, I thought I would never sleep again. Most of my friends had babies who slept in 4-5 hour stretches at night from the very start; Liam had never slept more than 3 hours at a time. I loved the kid, but I was miserable. Everyone kept telling me, "It'll get better! He'll be sleeping through the night in no time!" and I honestly didn't believe them. I kept thinking that Brad and I had the world's only baby who would never, ever sleep longer than 3 hours at a time.

Then, one night, at about 6 weeks, he slept from 9-3. I'll never forget it. When he woke up at 3, had a bottle and went back to sleep, I was so excited that *I* couldn't get back to sleep. That was the turning point.

Liam is now 14 weeks old, and he's officially sleeping through the night -- and by that I mean going to bed at 7:30 and waking up at 6:30 with NO WAKEUPS in between. Not only that, but he's a breeze to put to bed at night. No crying it out for this kid. After his bath, we put him down and he's out like a light until morning. He's not much of a daytime napper (yesterday, honest to god, he only napped for 20 minutes all day) but you can't have it all.

I know it won't last forever -- I've heard plenty of stories of sleep regression at 4 months, 6 months, even 10 months. But for now, I feel like I've arrived. We made it through the amazingly sleep-deprived first few months. We didn't die. (Then again, we didn't operate any heavy machinery.) And our kid sleeps through the night. Wow.

First Halloween

2009-11-01T03:12:00.000-08:00

Halloween has come and gone now, and it is November 1st around 6:00 AM. This is only important because Liam got an uninterrupted 11 hours of sleep last night, which counteracts the 4.5 hours of sleep I'm currently working with.

All weekend has been pretty great thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Torreano (my parents), who came all the way from Marquette, MI (about 8 hours) to see Liam for the first time in six weeks. That's about 20 years in baby time, so imagine their shock and amazement to see him smiling, laughing, and making eye contact. The last time they saw him he was a blob of humanity that vaguely acted like he cared we were around, but otherwise liked to eat and sleep. Reflecting on that last sentence for a moment, that description probably fits a lot of adults in our lives as well, but I digress.

Thursday was full of milestones, the first of which was me picking up Liam from daycare for the first time. I usually drop him off, so seeing the room full of babies with busy caretakers scurrying about was very interesting. I took him to our house to see my parents, who happily babysat for the next few hours while I went back to my job.

We got home and my dad SWORE that Liam was grabbing items and pulling them to his mouth. Since this would have been an enormous 3-month milestone that we were not around to see, we treated his statement in the best condescending "Sure, Grandpa." way we could muster. Imagine our shame when within the next day he proved that yes, indeed, Grandpa was witness to Liam's realization that those hands have an even better purpose than sucking on.

Grandma was diagnosed with alzheimer's disease in 2006, and thus the time she spends with Liam has a lot of meaning for all of us. She was having a really good weekend with both her memory and communication skills, and Liam was very generous with the smiles and laughs, resulting in plenty of heart-warming moments between the two. On Halloween proper she had him in hysterics, and that's easily going to be one of my favorite memories of his childhood.

Liam has had his fussy moments as well (we're almost positive he's having acid reflux issues) but Grandma and Grandpa took it better than us, especially Grandpa. You can tell that Liam has a special bond with him (I think it's his huge Cheech-style mustache) and it was really neat seeing the two of them interact. While Grandma had one particularly memorable moment making him laugh, Grandpa had an entire weekend of getting Liam to belly laugh uproariously.

As for the actual holiday, we managed to get some pics of Liam in his outfit, but he really didn't care too much about the carved pumpkin or the trick or treaters beyond catching his interest momentarily. We loved every second of it (Halloween to us is like Christmas to most people) but Liam's got to grow into the holiday. With me as his dad, he'll learn.

So now I sit, 6:30 in the morning, with a fussy baby demanding my attention. I'd love to explain to him that Grandma and Grandpa babysat him last night while mom and dad stayed out late at a costume party, but I think his sympathies are limited on non-Liam events. Oh well. Still the best Halloween ever.

--Brad

3 months

2009-10-27T18:24:00.000-07:00

OK, so I've been bad about the blogging thing. Now that I'm back to work AND school (whose idea was this again?), it's really hard to keep up with anything. Part of me thinks I should ditch this blog altogether, but I know I'll regret not having an archive of Liam's first few months. I've been blogging for years -- now would be a really lame time to give it up! So, without further ado, here's the latest baby update.

At 3 months (as of yesterday), Mr. Liam:

Smiles constantly and belly-laughs when you tickle his neck -- CANNOT get enough of that laugh! I'll have to post a video one of these days.

Loves studying people's faces.

Has a whole new vocabulary. Favorite "words" include "aa-goo," "goo," "loo," and "ahhhh"

Has figured out how to (intentionally) put his hands in his mouth.

Loves grabbing and touching anything he can get his hands on (especially blankets and clothes).

Hasn't started reaching for toys yet, but is completely fascinated by them -- he'll stare, smile and "talk" to them.

Loves his bouncy seat again. As a newborn he liked sleeping in it; from 1-3 months he hated it; now that he's noticed the dangly toys hanging from it, he likes sitting in it and watching them.

Is getting better head control and can "sit" when he's propped up. I've started facing him forward in the Bjorn and he loves to look around.

Has rolled over from tummy to back about 5-6 times, probably by accident.

Usually wakes up once per night to eat, around 3 a.m. But sometimes he'll surprise us and sleep for 11 hours straight, which is incredible!

Now that Liam is three months old, I think I can safely say that we've survived the newborn stage. And, admittedly, it was rough. Those first few weeks were the hardest weeks of my life. I didn't think it was humanly possible to survive on so little sleep and so much patience. Brad and I were laughing tonight about the "dark days" and the (few) things we remember about them. Remind me to tell those stories someday.

But we're out of the woods. Yes, he still has his screaming fits and his fussy days, but most of the time, the good times outweigh the bad. Around 10 weeks, Liam started developing a fun little personality. Brad and I love him more and more each day and can't believe we created this perfect little man!

12 week giggles

2009-10-17T07:42:00.000-07:00

Liam has reached what is possibly his most amazing milestone yet (aside from sleeping through the night)...LAUGHING! It's not quite a full-blown belly laugh just yet, more like an adorable high-pitched squeaky giggle. He did it a few times last week for his daddy, I finally got him going last night, and now he's on a roll. He loves laughing at himself in the mirror, he loves laughing when I dance Elaine Benes-style for him, and he especially loves it when you unzip his onesie before a diaper change (something about the process of getting naked? who knows).

Liam will be 12 weeks tomorrow and the fussy stage is coming to an end. Everyone told me my "high needs" baby would change around 3 months, and they were right. He's turning into a smiley, happy, pleasant kid who now really only cries when he's hungry or tired, or sometimes just really, really wants to be held. And all I can say is, I am in LOVE with this kid. He is my world. I can't believe that he was ever not a part of our family.

Was I ever pregnant?

2009-10-10T08:51:00.000-07:00

I was going through the archives on our Photobooth this morning and found these pictures, which I don't remember taking.

Based on the date, this was taken at about 10 weeks pregnant. I remember thinking I looked HUGE. And I felt miserably sick and exhausted.

This, on the other hand, was taken at 36 weeks. It's the last preggo picture of me that exists. I was well past miserable at this point, for different reasons.

And this was taken a few weeks ago. Proof that all that misery was worth it. :)

First day back -- SUCCESS!

2009-10-06T17:41:00.000-07:00

Today was my first day back at work, and it was...well...

Fantastic.

Yes, for all the worrying I did about how I'd feel leaving my little boy, I now feel almost GUILTY because I enjoyed work so much. Let me tell you, I forgot how wonderful it was to talk to adults...and eat my lunch sitting down...and think about something other than diapers and swaddling blankets. I picked up right where I left off -- BUSY -- and it sure did feel good.

And the best part? Picking up Liam from daycare at 5:30. I'd looked forward to that moment all day, and it was even more awesome than I thought it would be.

I guess I never realized how stir-crazy I was while home on maternity leave. And, let's face it, toward the end of each day, Liam and I got a little sick of each other. Now that we see each other less often, the time we spend together is more fun for both of us.

The second-best part? Liam napped for THREE HOURS today. At home? Kid doesn't nap. Seriously. He fights going to sleep with every fiber of his being until both he and I are cranky messes into the evening. But today, he was in a fabulous mood when I picked him up, and even gave me a few big smiles (which usually doesn't happen in the cranky-pants late afternoon).

The third-best part is that Brad and I have a pick-up/drop-off schedule worked out that allows me to go to the gym in the morning, so I had a fantastic workout before work today.

So all is good with the world. And now, the baby is tucked snugly into bed -- time to cuddle with my man and drink a glass of wine!

Two months

2009-10-03T08:13:00.000-07:00

Liam had his two-month appointment last week (even though he was almost 10 weeks old). The dirt:

12 pounds, 7 ounces (75th percentile)
23 inches long (50th percentile)
Head circumference = 75th percentile (a big head like his daddy!:)

He also had his two-month vaccinations (one oral and three shots), which weren't as bad as I expected. He screamed from the pain but calmed down immediately after I picked him up and rocked him. He was cranky and fussy that evening, but that really is fairly normal evening behavior for him, so it's hard to tell if he wasn't feeling well. I gave him a small dose of Tylenol in the afternoon and he didn't run a fever at all.

He was also diagnosed with exactly what I and Dr. Google have suspected for the past month: torticollis. His head is tilted to the right as a result of tight muscles in his neck, and has caused him to favor looking to the right -- which, in turn, makes the tight muscles worse. (You can see the right-tilt in the picture above.) It's fairly common in babies, apparently. Dr. M. showed me some stretches to do with him a few times a day to help loosen his neck. If it doesn't improve in a month or so, Liam will have to go to physical therapy, but I think the stretches are already helping. Surgery is required in a few severe cases, so let's hope we can cure his torticollis naturally!

Dr. M. also said Liam needs more tummy-time to strengthen his neck muscles and help with his torticollis. (We try to do tummy-time a few times a day, but he gets so annoyed that it never lasts long.) After 4 days of a rigorous tummy workout schedule, I think we're already seeing results. Liam is holding up his head much better when he's on his stomach, and even rolled over on his own yesterday!

PS -- does this guy totally look like his mom or WHAT? He has Brad's hair and forehead, but he definitely has my eyes and nose. I love it!

Fussy

2009-09-21T07:38:00.000-07:00

Smiling during a rare moment of daytime happiness....

According to all of “the books” (which everyone tells me to stop reading), fussiness/colic peaks around 6 weeks and gets steadily better until 3 months, when it disappears completely.

Hahaha ha ha ha. HA. If I weren't so frustrated, I'd actually be laughing instead of laughing sarcastically (and crying a little too).

Until 5 weeks or so, Liam was a fairly chilled-out baby during the day, but woke up every 2-3 hours at night. But as the the yin and the yang of parenting goes, as soon as he started sleeping well at night, he started getting increasingly fussy during the day. As his sleeping has gotten progressively better, his fussiness has gotten progressively worse. Now he sleeps anywhere from 6-8 hours at night (and when he sleeps for 6, he usually goes back to sleep for 2 or 3 after his bottle and diaper change). And, best of all, putting him to bed is the easiest part of our day. After his bath and bottle, he's so exhausted that he's usually sound asleep within 30 seconds of hitting the crib. I've heard stories of parents having to let their kids “cry it out” for an hour to get them to fall asleep at night, so I have nothing to complain about!

But as easy as the nights are, the days are rough. On the weekdays, when I'm home alone, I spend most of my day attempting to soothe a crying baby. Some days all it takes is putting him in his Moby Wrap and turning on the vacuum to get him to stop screaming. Other days, I try the Moby, the swing, the bouncy seat, the Baby Bjorn, walks around the neighborhood, rides in the car, and every other trick in the book (my book, not THE book) until he's so exhausted he screams himself to sleep. There is not much that keeps me going on those days aside from the unadulterated love I have for my son and the knowledge that there's no such thing as a colicky high school student (in other words, it has to get better EVENTUALLY).

Right now Liam's sitting in his bouncy seat in the bathroom with the water running and the fan on; after an hour of crying and fussing, he's sleeping, so hopefully today won't be “one of those days.” One of my friends, who has a 5-month-old daughter, told me that her fussy baby girl turned into an angel right around 12 weeks (which means a little less than 4 to go for us). I can handle another month of this -- RIGHT???

BIG news!

2009-09-14T02:37:00.000-07:00

It's been an exciting few days since we last posted. I never thought I'd be so happy to wake up at 5 a.m., but I'm now pleased to report that our little boy is sleeping through the night at 7 weeks!!! (Yes, that deserved a triple exclamation point.) Friday night he slept from 9:30-4, and Sunday night he slept from 9-5 -- 8 hours straight! Sadly, mommy was up at 3:30 and checked on him several times because I was so worried that he wasn't breathing. I'm really hoping this isn't a fluke. I never have good luck with anything, but it actually seems like I won the baby sleeping lottery. I mean, how many kids sleep through the night at 7 weeks?!

Saturday night was kinda rough (he slept 4 1/2 hours and then basically fussed until 7 a.m.), but his grandparents babysat him and his bedtime routine was really off, so I'm hoping that was the problem. And we're also hoping that lack of sleep was why he was super fussy all day yesterday. Ugh.

Smiling

2009-09-07T19:54:00.000-07:00

Liam is only now learning the art of smiling, and it's probably the coolest thing he's done to this point. He's a generally nice baby but he has seemed so serious up to this point. Considering his father's jovial attitude towards most things, it always seemed weird that Liam didn't just shoot out of the womb with a huge grin on his toothless face.

But no, we earn these smiles through trial and error. Sometimes, just appearing after not being around him for a while will inspire a pleasant smirk. Other times, tickling his belly while goading him on ("Does Liam have a smile for daddy?") is all that's necessary. Sometimes you can sit in front of him trying to get a smile for 40 minutes, only to have your spouse simply walk into the room and cause him to beam with happiness.

Regardless of the reason, Alison and I are now addicted to making him smile. Even the fussiest gas face can be mistaken for a smile in our desperate attempts to see the next one. Alison had an especially hilarious encounter this morning, when she hovered over Liam anticipating a smile. He stuck out his face, opened his eyes, the corners of his mouth twisted, then BLART!!! He filled his diaper with a sound so unexpectedly loud that we both locked eyes for a quiet moment before bursting into laughter.

Anyway, we will obviously continue to document the growth of his emotions (spoiler: he's mastered fussy) but expect more updates about his smiles because that's the stuff we're most interested in as well.

Brad

Getting better all the time

2009-09-06T08:29:00.000-07:00

Lately, dare I say it, things have been pretty good in the sleep department. Up until five and a half weeks, the little bugger had never slept longer than about three and a half hours. Last Tuesday night, though, we were in for a big shock -- he slept from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. -- FIVE WHOLE HOURS! When Brad woke me up to tell me it was time to switch shifts, I was so excited I had trouble going back to sleep.

I thought it might be a fluke after he returned to his normal schedule on Wednesday. But then, Thursday night, he slept from 8:30-2 (five and a HALF hours)! Friday and Saturday nights the big chunk of sleep was more like 4 1/2 hours, but hey, at least things are getting better. The other clue is that when he's woken Brad up for his 2 a.m. feeding for the past few nights, he's been really sleepy and barely takes in two ounces -- and then when he wakes me up at 4, he's ravenous and gets so excited at the sight of a bottle that he can barely get the nipple into his mouth (which would be cute if it weren't at 4 a.m.). This makes us think that it may soon be time for him to drop the 2 a.m. feeding and sleep straight until 4, which technically would be considered "through the night" (8:30 p.m.-4 a.m.). Hey, I'll take what I can get.

Good night

2009-08-27T07:14:00.000-07:00

Last night was probably our best night so far. Brad and I only had to get up once each time with Liam, who slept in 3-hour stretches. It was divine.

The secret, I'm convinced, is the bedtime routine we've been working on. We try to keep him awake after dinner, bathe him (kid loves his bath!) around 8:30, turn on the red lights after bathtime, feed him, and put him down at 9. He's usually out immediately. Than Brad feeds and changes him at 12, and brings him upstairs, where he sleeps in the Pack N Play. then I'm up with him at 3:30ish, and he sleeps until early morning.

Rainy Wednesday

2009-08-26T10:35:00.001-07:00

Oy. The weather is crappy and we have had a bit of a tough day over here. Liam fussed all morning, which is very unlike him. The fussing is the worst -- he'll grunt and writhe and whimper and nothing seems to make him happy. He felt a little warm so I took his temperature, but it was normal. (My first time using a rectal thermometer. Oy again.)

Then we met my friend Jill for lunch, which I was sure was going to be a disaster, but he fell asleep in the car seat on the way to the restaurant, slept through lunch, and has been sleeping for about 2 1/2 hours now. He woke up briefly to eat but wasn't terribly interested in food.

He seems pretty gassy when he's awake, so I'm wondering if that's the problem and am thinking of switching his formula to something that's gentler on the tummy. I wish babies could just speak English. :(

In other news, our little boy is definitely smiling now. He's flashed a couple of 1,000-watt grins at me and Brad, which are absolutely priceless!

Not sleeping like a baby

2009-08-25T07:34:00.000-07:00

Brad and I have been blessed with someone we think is a pretty chilled-out baby. We've heard many stories about babies who scream non-stop for the first few months, and Liam doesn't really cry much, unless he's really upset about something specific. And as soon as we figure out the reason, we can always get him to stop crying within minutes.

He has his "fussy" moments (when he's grumpy and seemingly inconsolable) a few hours a day, but most of the time he seems to be happy and content.

There is one big problem and that is SLEEP.

Seriously -- our kid doesn't believe in sleep. He will sleep for one longish (3-4 hour) stretch early at night, like from 8-midnight. And he usually takes a 1.5-2-hour nap during the day. But for the rest of the day and night, his sleep schedule is completely erratic and a stretch of sleep never lasts longer than an hour or so. It's completely exhausting and I want to kick myself for spending half of my pregnancy constantly poking my belly and drinking OJ to get him to move!

When he wakes up in the middle of the night, I change him, feed him and try my damnedest to rock him to sleep and put him back in his Pack n Play, but it's usually an hour-long process and when I put him down he fusses and grunts and carries on until dawn. The only, and I mean ONLY thing that will get him to sleep soundly is to bring him to bed with me. I've done it a couple of times, but definitely don't want to get into the habit of it for various reasons.

I know that he's capable of sleeping for 4 hours, so I'm hoping that we can slowly lengthen that first stretch of sleep until it lasts 7 or 8 hours. I don't even mind getting up at 4 a.m. with him!

The Actual First Post

2009-08-24T17:33:00.000-07:00

I actually wrote this last week when I first tried to get this blog off the ground, but Alison's making me re-post it so it doesn't look like she wrote it: It was meant to be the first blog posting for this site.

Liam was born three weeks ago today. We call him Fusser, Frogger (he sits like a frog), Sweet Pea, Lil' Boy, Baby, and of course, Pooper. It is the first and last nicknames that actually mean the most, since when he is awake he's usually fussing (this is new parent talk for "acting insane for no obvious reason") or pooping. Often both. We are in the stages where he shows us very little gratitude, and getting him to roll his head around with a half smirk for 5 minutes is about as rewarding as it gets.

My wife and I haven't slept in the same bed together in weeks. We've slept in the same room, we've slept near each other, but we're in a loop right now where I take Liam for the first half of the night, and she takes him for the second half of the night. This ensures that we each get about 4-6 hours of sleep and I'm not a zombie at work. It almost seems normal now, which is why I'll be grateful when we can finally put him in his own room, but he's simply too new and fragile to chance that right now.

We spend an enormous amount of time trying to figure out what to do next, and our impulses simply cannot be acted on without factoring in which one of us will watch the baby. At times, he's easy to deal with and can be thrown into any old baby-related sleep area while we do the dishes and watch movies. There are darker moments, like when he decides that at 1 AM the only way he'll stop crying is to be tucked deep into his father's armpit where he radiates heat and snores his Mogwai-like baby snore.

Before this baby, we were extremely active and social. Friday night we'd hit a restaurant and then sip drinks in a fun date ritual, while Saturday was often a wilder time when dancing or going to a friend's party was on order. We could hit concerts on week nights and not suffer too badly, we could drive to Detroit on a whim if we felt like eating some barbecue downtown, and in general we were free spirits who supported one another's outside activities.

With Liam guiding our lives now, we are definitely trying to figure out what life is becoming for us. That lifestyle is now buried, perhaps to be exhumed once our child is out of college and we're much too old to go dancing every Saturday. We can go back to some of it thanks to the support of grandparents and friends, but it is obvious that we're on a new, more "adult" path now.

Alison, who has always been the mature one in our relationship, is settling into this lifestyle a bit easier than I am. I, on the other hand, am trying to figure out how old my son can be when he sees his first summer blockbuster and remembers it, or when he'll reach the stage where we can play in the backyard together without worrying about diapers and feeding times being lined up perfectly. In short, I am hoping my inner child and his literal child can meet up sooner than later.

But don't let me sound like being a father is a downer. I love that kid more than you could ever imagine, and seeing these minor developments in him is more amazing than any flavored martini or ear-splitting concert. But to know the whole story, you must understand that we're both transitioning from a very different life into whatever this next life is... but we're very excited for this next life to begin.

Anyway, that's my POV on where we're at right now. I'll chime in again soon enough, but hopefully that's a decent introduction to where we're at.

- Brad

One month

2009-08-24T07:45:00.001-07:00

Welcome to our blog. We're a little late getting started; yesterday, Liam turned one month old. But as the rest of you folks with kids can understand, blogging is on the priority list somewhere below sleep, food, changing diapers, and shopping for more diapers; and somewhere slightly above going to a keg party and staying out till 6 a.m.

Liam is doing absolutely wonderfully for a 4-week-old kid. In the past week or so, he's become so much more interactive, less like a fetus and more like a real live baby! Here are some of the milestones we've reached recently:

He's given us a few tentative grins. They're not the full-face, eye-scrunching smiles we're waiting for, but he's definitely smiling AT us. He also smiles in his sleep quite a bit.

He loves staring at lights, whether it's sunlight or the colored lights on his Baby Einstein toy.

He no longer screams bloody murder every time he gets his diaper changed (only about half the time :).

He LOVES baths. He makes cooing noises and moves his head from side-to-side when he's in the warm water. He hates being taken out of the water!

By our unscientific weighing method (weighing ourselves while holding him), he's about nine and a half pounds -- almost three pounds above his birth weight. He's nearly outgrown Pampers Newborn diapers and is moving on to size ones!

His hair is falling out in patches. :( I'm assured this is 100% normal, but it's still sad because he was born with a beautiful head of sandy-blonde hair like his daddy. When it grows back, there's a good chance it will look completely different.

Sleep is still very much a challenge. Where are these 3- to 4-hour stretches of sleep that newborns (especially formula-fed newborns) are supposed to enjoy? Occasionally he'll sleep for three hours, but it's usually two at night and one and a half during the day. The plus side is that sleep deprivation no longer feels like deprivation. I'm definitely getting used to surviving on 5 or 6 hours of sleep a night!