Nathan the Builder

I found this blog post from the 20th that I started putting together and never finished.  So here's to finishing a slightly out of date but too cute not to share post!

Nathan and I have lots of fun playing with his blocks.  Our usual modus operandi is that I'll build towers and Nathan will help me by knocking them down.  However two weeks ago Nathan decided to mix it up - HE wanted to start building the towers.  And the new favorite block he's chosen is probably the most difficult to balance upright, especially since he insists on standing it up this way instead of on the other end.

Very carefully placing the block upright, only to have it topple over...

But once he got a good base to work from, Nathan was good to go!

In the next day or two after I took these pictures, all three of us were in Nathan's room and he was practicing his building some more, still concentrating on the same block in the same orientation.  Brian showed Nathan how to stack one of the small cylinders on top of his first block, then handed the cylinder over to see if Nathan could do it.  It took quite a few tries (Nathan kept getting his ring and pinky fingers caught between the blocks as he tried to stack them), but then success!  Brian and I were both super impressed with his dexterity!

Little Bits of News

It's bedtime, but don't want to leave everyone hanging, so real quick...

Nathan's feeling much better, but we're still having some night wakings... as in last night he was up for 1.5 hours!  After rocking and patting and shhhh-ing for 40 minutes to no avail, I gave him Tylenol.  Then after another 50 minutes of the same I finally got fed up and stormed out of the room to tell Brian it was his turn.  The Tylenol had definitely kicked in by then, what in the heck was my son still doing awake at 4:30 in the morning?  Then Brian said, "Did you feed him?"

Did I FEED him?  "Moron!" I said to myself, "No I didn't feed him!"  That would have been way too logical and the thought had never crossed my mind in those 90 minutes that Nathan could be hungry!  So I scooped Nathan back out of Brian's arms and nursed him back to sleep.  Thank goodness that God decided kids needed two parents, because sometimes one can be completely oblivious (especially this one, and most especially in the middle of the night).

Anyway, Nathan (and I) ended up sleeping past 8 to make up for our middle of the night fun (but again, no rest for the weary resident who told me tonight that he woke up every time Nathan made noise during those 90 minutes, which was a lot!)  I had a super productive day, going to Walmart, making soup, doing lots of laundry and general cleaning that hadn't been accomplished while Nathan was sick.  Nathan didn't want to take a morning nap and only took a short afternoon nap (relatively short considering it was his only for the day), which left us with a little bit grumpy boy this evening.  But he went straight to sleep for us at 7, leaving me lots of time this evening to catch up on my bible study and surf the internet.  Why I left the blog update until the last minute, I'm not sure...

Tonight I found out that Jennie has strep, and since Nathan and I hung out with her lots yesterday, please say a prayer that neither one of us gets it!  Nathan's so much more fun when he's feeling well!

Feeling Pitiful

What a pitiful face!  We had a pretty good night of sleep last night, and for most of the day Nathan's been feeling ok.  But then we had this face.  Poor little guy!  He's taking a nap now and hopefully he'll feel better when he wakes up.

(By the way, if you noticed the greasy smear around Nathan's nose in the picture, its Vaseline, not snot!)

Sick Kid, Round 2

Nathan is sick again.  For the 2nd time in two weeks.  Probably another virus.  Bummer.  That means no date night tonight and more rough nights of sleep to come (he was up about every 2 hours last night).  The fortunate thing for me, though, is that Brian is home and gets to share the sick kid responsibility.  Certainly not how I want his days off to be, but it is nice to have reinforcements.  Please pray for a quick recovery and good nights of sleep.

The End of an Era

The jumper has been removed from the doorway between the kitchen and dining/living room and relegated to our new downstairs storage closet.  We probably should have done that weeks ago when Nathan first started scooting because it has gotten used about three times since then.  I have to be thankful for that jumper, for the (probably) hundreds of hours of entertainment (for Nathan) and peace (for me) that it brought us!  It was worth more than its weight in gold!

In other news...

So much for our thought that letting Nathan play on the carpet downstairs will encourage him to crawl rather then scoot.  He has a ridiculous looking rug burn on his left leg to prove us all wrong!  I just hope he doesn't have a permanent mark from it! 

Brian has a few days off after working 10 days straight - HOORAY!  We're working on the house, enjoying family time, some free time for Mommy and probably a date night tomorrow night (oh, and two nights in a row of Cook Out milkshakes!).  It's just a preview of the great times that await us when Brian has a WHOLE WEEK off starting next weekend!

Time for a Nathan-Sized Fork

What do you think, is this kid ready to use a fork?

One night when we were all eating dinner together about a week ago, Nathan wasn't interested in eating very much of his food.  I used my fork to stab some of his finger food, trying to tempt him to eat a few more bites and he did.  He seemed to really like eating off a fork!

Today I accidentally left a fork on his tray at lunch time and he picked it up and stuck the tines in his mouth.  So I speared a banana chunk and handed it back over.  Nathan loved it!  I realized that I didn't have any baby forks so I've added that to my shopping list.  He's growing up so fast!

Nathan's Monologue (Complete with Dramatic Interludes)

Open and Close, All Done and Fun Time with Daddy

For your viewing pleasure, here are a few videos from before The Sickness.  I uploaded them all Tuesday or Wednesday, but never got around to finishing the post until now.

Here's Nathan playing open & close the door with me before bath time.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Nathan has developed his own sign for telling us he's "all done"!

Here are Daddy and Nathan being goofy after dinner.

Mystery Veggies

Can anyone identify these two veggies that my Chinese neighbors gave us?  I was told that the skin is edible but you have to take the seeds out (at least for the white one).  They are not sweet and my neighbors chop and sauté or steam them.  Anyone?

Sucker Punched by Teething... or Is It Something Else?!?

Nathan's newest teeth peeking through his gums.  

We were sailing along, teething was going pretty well.  The trip down to Savanna while he was cutting his first tooth was a little difficult, but not the terrible-ness that I was expecting from teething.  Then we saw his two upper teeth coming in.  The first one cut through with little to-do, with the second hot on his heels.  Then... BAM!

Wednesday night Nathan developed a fever and ended up waking 4 times during the night.  Brian and I took turns rocking him back to sleep, dousing him with Tylenol or Ibuprofin at the appropriate times.  He slept a little late Thursday morning and woke up in a pretty good mood.  I thought the worst was over, and the "worst" wasn't too bad.  Nathan didn't eat much breakfast, but he had nursed well, so I wasn't too concerned.  We headed off to our bible study, and I warned the nursery workers that we had been up a lot of the night with teething pain and I wasn't sure how he would do for them.  When I went to pick him up, he was asleep but they said that he had been fine.

We hopped in the car and headed home to nurse and eat lunch.  Again he nursed well but didn't eat, then went down for an afternoon nap.  Awaking early from the nap, the rest of the afternoon went downhill quickly.  Nathan was super fussy and I could tell he felt horrible.  I held him for hours, through fussy periods interspersed with cat naps.  The ordeal left us both grumpy and sweaty!  Unfortunately Brian was having to work long hours this week because the hospital was full of patients, leaving us all exhausted at the end of the day.

Thursday night was a repeat of Wednesday, with Nathan waking up and needing to be rocked back to sleep multiple times.  Friday day was slightly better then Thursday, but Nathan still felt pretty crummy most of the day.  That evening after he got home, Brian caught a glimpse of the back of Nathan's throat and thought he saw something.  So I held Nathan down while Brian took a closer look.  Definitely spots on Nathan's tonsils, could it be strep?  We called the on-call nurse for our pediatricians and she said call back in the morning.  We hoped to make a Saturday morning appointment to get a rapid strep test and, if necessary, antibiotics for Nathan.

Friday night was another bad night, however Nathan slept until 8:00 am this morning, allowing us both get a little extra (and much needed) sleep.  Brian had to get up early to go into work - no rest for the weary resident.  I called the ped's after hours number again and got Nathan an appointment to see the on-call pediatrician at 9:40 this morning.  She examined Nathan and took the throat swabs for the strep test, but said the lesions on his tonsils looked more like blisters indicative of hand, foot and mouth disease .  The strep test was negative, so HF&M seems like the culprit for our misery.

The bad news is that we've had a very tough few days.  The good news is that this ridiculous-ness is not due to teething and is not going to haunt me for the next year plus.  The other good news is that Nathan has felt much better today, though not 100%, and has been fever-free since this morning, meaning that he won't be contagious by tomorrow morning.  And we're praying for a good night sleep tonight and a happy, well baby in the morning!

Sweet Things to Remember

I think these may be one of my favorite post types, helping me to remember the adorable little things about each stage of Nathan's life.  Here are two quick ones for today.

Kisses/Raspberries
Nathan and I both find hilarious!  He will lean in to give me a kiss on my cheek, and then blow a raspberry instead!  It usually catches me off guard (unless its the 4th or 5th time in a row) and makes me exclaim and giggle!  And he cracks up too!

Patting on the Back
Whenever I put Nathan down for naps or bed, we'll read some books, then rock/sing in the rocking chair, then I pick him up, he puts his head on my shoulder and I pat him on the back as I walk the four steps to the crib.  As he rests with his head nestled on my shoulder, he now takes his hand and pats ME on the back.  Too cute!!

Nathan, Computer Guru

I took this video 2 or 3 weeks ago, but I thought it was too cute not to share!

The Progression of "All Done"

Almost a month ago I wrote this post, all excited because Nathan had signed "all done" for the first time.  He signed it twice after eating that day, and then in the next day or two he signed "all done" after nursing.  And then... nothing.  For days and days I kept waiting for him to sign to me again, but he never did.

I decided to try and encourage him to start signing more.  After meals, I would sign "all done" and then take his hands in mine and wiggle them back and forth (if you don't know the sign for all done, here is a little video, just search for "all done" or "finished").  After a while, when I would ask him if he was all done, HE would grab MY hands and wiggle them back and forth.  PROGRESS!  I would clap and tell him what a good job he did!

A little while later, Nathan came up with his own sign for all done.  It was a modified clap (or to almost everyone but me, it would probably just look like he was clapping, but really he's mainly clapping with his right hand while his left hand stays mostly still).  I guess when I started clapping to celebrate when he would wiggle my hands, he associated that with "all done".  But even now he had his own sign, he would only do it after I would ask him if he was all done (which usually followed Nathan squealing, scrunching up and turning his face away from me and shoving arms straight out in front of him, his other way of communicating "all done" to me).

But today he FINALLY signed his "all done" sign without prompting again!  So maybe we are closer to him signing more on his own initiative.  Hooray!

Two More Teeth!

Nathan is working on two more teeth to add to the right lower front that he already has.  Brian spotted the two upper teeth through the gums yesterday.  Today the right upper cut through and I bet the left will come tomorrow.  Nathan has been a little fussy but no where near as bad as I would have imagined for two teeth coming in at once!

Thoughts on the Other Night

Just so I don't leave everyone hanging on the Nathan crying thing, we have not had a repeat as of yet.  Tuesday night he started crying at 9:00, but I just waited to see if he would settle himself down and he did in about 5 minutes.  Then last night we didn't hear a peep from him.  Hopefully tonight goes as smoothly, but thank you God that we have not had a repeat so far!

Now that the horrible night is behind me, I can think about the situation with the logic that flew from my brain Monday night.  As my grandmother mentioned to me tonight on the phone, just because something happens once doesn't mean that a new habit has formed.  And this applies both to habits that Nathan (may or may not be) starting as well as habits that I might or might not introduce.  Should I have gone in and rocked or patted my baby until he fell asleep the other night?  Maybe.  I didn't do it mostly because I WAS worried that I would create a new bad habit and in one night I would undo all the work that has gone into having him fall asleep on his own.  Is that what would have happened?  Probably not.

I feel so silly when I think about how naive I was about parenting before we had Nathan.  Everyone says parenting is hard, but I thought "how hard can it really be, what in the world are they talking about?"  I'm beginning to learn what "everyone" is talking about.  I know now that parenting is full of big and small decisions that you have to make everyday when you're possibly tired or stressed or annoyed, and you just have to hope and pray that you make good decisions most of the time.  And I'm certain I have so much more to learn!

Still Screaming...

Nathan has been crying for over an hour.  Screaming bloody murder is more like what it sounded like at some points.  I think its separation anxiety, it could be teething, or probably a combination of the two.  Brian is at work tonight, so I'm by myself trying to figure out what is the best thing to do for my little boy (but we've chatted on the phone, so thank you God for some support!).  For so long Nathan was great going to sleep, only needing minimal assistance.  But in the last two weeks, as he's falling asleep in his crib,  he'll pop his head up and checking to see if someone is still in the room in before settles back down.  He does this multiple times as he tries to go to sleep - I've stood over him and watched him.  He'll be drifting off, and then he'll twitch a little, and then again, and then twitch enough to wake up and look up to see if I'm still there.  And if I'm not there, he screams.  But for right or wrong, I guess I've decided that standing by his crib for minutes or hours isn't going to be something I can or should do when he has trouble falling asleep.  Tonight he fell asleep nursing because he didn't take a second nap, and I thought I was home free.  But as I was getting in bed at 10:30, I heard him starting to make some noise, and the fun for the night began.  I always struggle with how much comforting I should give him.  Tonight, every time I would go back into his room to comfort him, when I left it seemed like he was screaming and crying harder then before I went in.  I gave him tylenol just in case it was the teething, but the sobbing continued.  So at some point I decided to stop going in and just let him cry it out, which just makes me want to cry!

He has finally cried himself to sleep, which means its my turn to try and fall asleep.  I hate how I get so anxious about stuff like this that I then have such a hard time winding down myself.  It's like I keep expecting him to start crying again so I can't relax.  But I must try.  Goodnight.

Lovin' Life in Savannah

BREAKING NEWS!!  Nathan cut his first tooth!  Gran gets the award for noticing (feeling) it first.  I tried to get a look at it, but Nathan wouldn't cooperate at all with me.  Papaw hasn't given Nathan his first dental exam yet, but maybe tomorrow...  I wonder if that tooth is why Nathan was so grumpy on our trip yesterday?  

Ok on to pictures of Nathan, Gran, Papaw, Jennie and me in Savannah today.  Probably more to come, but its getting late and I'm ready to hit the sack after lots of walking today.

Too Many Pictures Yet?

I hope not because this is just the beginning...

Today I received the second lens that I ordered for my new camera.  This new lens will allow me to take much better pictures inside (low light) and with shallow depth of field (blurry background).  So I popped it on my camera and Nathan and I were off to take more pictures.  With only a one hour nap under his belt for the whole day, he was a pretty cooperative subject.

I am super excited at how good this inside shot looks with the new camera and lens combo, plus it's a great Nathan smile!

I don't purposely give him a leaf to hold in these pictures, he just ALWAYS seems to find one when we're outside!

In this picture, I think Nathan has a slight resemblance to little Jimmy (James).  Is it just me?