Happy 2 Month Birthday!

Well, James is two months old today. Wow. He had his two month checkup on Tuesday afternoon. Here are the stats:
Length: 22 inches (25%)
Weight: 10lbs 7oz (25%)
Head: 15.5 inches (40%)

He impressed the doctor with his ability to lift his head and shoulders off the table. I tried to capture that image here, but didn't really get it at the right time. You can admire his airborne feet, however.

Unfortunately, she did hear the murmur and state that they may order another echo cardiogram when he's 6 months old (if they still hear it then) to see what's going on. Also, he has a hernia by his formerly attractive bellybutton which is causing it to now appear as an outie. Boo. It is supposed to heal on its own (I hope his belly button goes back to its cute flat self.).

We received some exercises to do to help James get over his tendency to look to the right (no political jokes, please). He defaults to looking over his right shoulder, so we have to force him to turn his head to the left to loosen up those muscles. This will also lessen any head shape issues. He isn't a huge fan of his drills, but he doesn't protest much.

The traumatic part of the check-up was when James had to receive his immunizations. He screamed rather loudly and turned a violent shade of violet. Some moms in my Thursday group told me yesterday that they immediately breastfed their babies after the shots, and that really calmed them down. Well, the advice was two days too late for this round, but I'll definitely do that next time!

Thus far, to celebrate his 2 month b'day today, James has pooped across the changing table in the wee hours of the morning (I caught it with the diaper--impressive), "eaten" a lot, taken a trip to CVS to buy his TriViSol baby vitamins, napped, and donned his cute monogrammed bib in an effort to thwart future spit-ups from causing wardrobe changes. By the bye, this is his first wearing of a bib, and I honestly cracked up when I put it on him!

Well, the cutie-pie has awoken. Must go.

Thanks for Proving Mommy Wrong!

So, yesterday James was a good napper. He napped in the morning on our way to and for the beginning of the Moms Group (aka Breastfeeding Support Group). He then napped on our way home. He napped for a while in the afternoon (before and during a 45 minute walk in the Maclaren). Then in the evening he napped again.
He even went to bed at a decent hour. Crazy.

This has continued into today. I put him down for a morning nap in his cradle, and he slept between 45 minutes and an hour. Now he's down again, this time in the Pack & Play. I'm sure that now that I've commended this development, it will end...

Giving things up

Well, every year since about 1987 I have given up sweets for Lent. Sometimes I was a little easy on myself, for instance allowing diet sodas (they don't have sugar, right?) or eating non-chocolate items, but for most of the last 21 years it was all-out no sweets. No chocolate, no sodas, no candy, no desserts, no syrup (therefore no pancakes or French toast because, really, why bother?)... Some years I would crack open a soda before sunrise service Easter morning. Or a chocolate bar. Anyway, after a few decades, this became less of a challenge for me, so last year I gave up caffeine in addition to sweets. That was tough. I missed coffee so much more than dessert. My mother-in-law gave me a Starbucks card for my birthday on Good Friday, knowing I could hardly wait to cash that sucker in...

Well, on Easter morning I found out I was preggers, so 9 more months of no caffeine (although I did resume enjoying sweets). Now that I'm nursing, caffeine is still taboo. As is booze for that matter. And broccoli. Come on.

So, all of this is to say, that this year I did not give up sweets. I figure I'm giving up enough foods and beverages as it is. I decided to give up daytime tv instead. Now that I'm home with the napless wonder (although he has napped today, and is napping right now, in fact), it is all too easy to plop down in front of the tv while nursing to watch "Ellen" for an hour each day and countless other less-wholesome shows ("Real Housewives" anyone?) when I could/should be making faces at/reading to/ playing with the cutest baby ever. So that is what I'm doing instead. I've got to say, it is far more entertaining.

Baby Not-so-wise

James hates naps. Seriously. The boy doesn't like to go to bed until as late as possible with Dan & I going to bed as well. No napping.

The exception is that sometimes he'll nurse himself to sleep. However, if you try to put him in bed in such situations, he often awakens. Furthermore, today I read in Babywise that babies should follow this routine: eat-wake-sleep.

This made for a miserable day. James cried more than ever today as I tried to make him take naps. It was AWFUL. I was doubting when and how often to feed him. More crying. I wanted to cry too! I had myself believing that I'd ruined him by letting him eat-sleep-eat-wake-eat-eat...

This evening I did some internet research about Babywise and found that it is not very well respected in the scientific realm. Great. Now I feel like an even worse mom than before!

Bottom line: I am going back to following my instincts: feed him when he's hungry. Let him sleep when he wants to. I'll ask the pediatrician about his lack of napping when we go on Tuesday.

Pooptastic

Yesterday morning was truly pooptastic. James (and I) had been gassy; probably from the chili I enjoyed during the Super Bowl. Anyway, during his bath he tooted. No biggie. THEN, the toot was followed with poop. Lots of it. Into the bath. Nice. I yanked him up out of his poopy bath and put him into the basin of water for a rinse. The basin then got poopy, so I sprayed him off with more clean water then promptly got a diaper on him. I washed his hair over the sink (I was going to forget about that, but it was greasy...) then got him dressed and cleaned up the poopy bath scene.

OK, fine. So later on he pooped again. This time I was too quick to change his diaper. After I removed the poopy diaper, but before I could get the clean one under him, he had a blow out. Nice. All over the changing table and his clothes. He was none to happy to have me remove the poopy onesie from his (previously) freshly cleaned body. Somehow I kept calm and got him cleaned off and diapered and dressed in another outfit. Then I started a load of poopy laundry.

After those episodes, the poop out the back of the diaper at 3:30 while nursing this morning was nothing. I got that one cleaned and redressed and we were back in bed, no problem.

Unexpected Visitors

On Friday, I got a call from my BFF in SC, Christine. After asking about how James is doing, she said, "I'm going to see him on Sunday." WHAT?! Well, due to unfortunate circumstances (a funeral of a friend who lost the battle with cancer), she and her husband Jim were coming to Long Island for the weekend. They squeezed in a quick trip to NJ this morning and we thoroughly enjoyed brunching with them and showing off our cute (and tiny by their standards) baby. At seven weeks, James is clocking in at 9lbs15 oz which was the birthweight of their first! (By the by, that weight for JML is after he'd eaten and whilst wearing clothing...)

After they headed back to Long Island, we made the most of a gorgeous afternoon by taking a lil' walk around Maywood. James looked SO cute in his bear coat from Nana and took a much needed nap in the Maclaren. Note: he doesn't like to sleep during daylight AT ALL!