Mommy's Little Valentine

I've had a lot of great Valentine's days, but none beats this one. Not only do I have one great man to share it with, but I now have two! In actuality I really had three because I got to see my uncle, as well.

Seth is doing great. He's eating baby food well now and he really likes peas! Good for him, because I'm not too big into veggies. We're going to try green beans on Tuesday. This little experiment with food is going to be a fun one. I love watching his expressions when he tries something new. I have the sneaking suspicion that he will like most foods.

Tummy time has become a bit more interesting lately. Seth still doesn't move his arms or roll over on his own, but if he has something solid by his feet, he'll push himself off and can move between six and eight inches. He also likes to reach out for things more now, mainly the wipes box (it's bright red).

Seth has been fairly fussy this past week or so, which at first I attributed to his vaccinations, but that time has come and gone. Then he was keeping a slight fever, and I thought that may be the reason. Michael and I now think that he's teething even though he doesn't seem to be too sensitive about his mouth yet. So who knows, maybe we'll see a tooth soon.

Other than that, not much has been going on. When he's happy, Seth can crack me up with his giggles. This is the first picture I was able to take that captured one of his happy moments. In most of his other pictures he's so serious, but he really does laugh and smile a lot - I'm just not fast enough to catch him.

Bibs, Bottles, and Baby Food

This Saturday Seth will be 20 weeks old; I can't believe it! When I was 20 weeks pregnant we were just finding out he was a boy!

Not a whole lot has changed in the past few weeks. Seth has progressed in some areas, stayed the same in others. He coos a lot more and when I tickle him he actually giggles for a few seconds rather than one little giggle. We practice every day with tummy-time, rolling over, and sitting up. He hasn't quite figured out how to position or move his arms during tummy-time, so I have to prop his arms correctly. He will roll onto his side for rolling, but won't go all the way over. So, I roll him over, too! Now sitting he seems to be doing pretty well with on his own. He sits in the Bumbo and in my lap and doesn't usually need much support except for his lower back.

Sleeping is still an issue, although I'm sure it will be until he's a teenager! Then I'll never be able to wake him up. He'll go for a night or two sleeping really well and only waking up a few times. But then other nights he'll wake up once an hour or more. Now he will go right back to sleep once I give him his pacifier, so that's a blessing. I feel bad because we're kind of in a tight spot. Seth can't go to sleep without being swaddled. We've tried it and he will rub his eyes and face constantly (which he always does when he's tired) until he starts crying and screaming. When he's swaddled, he'll fall asleep within five minutes or so. What's funny is that throughout the night he wakes up and he'll somehow manage to pull an arm, or both, up out of the blanket so that he can touch his face or suck on it. So, Seth needs to be able to soothe himself back to sleep when he awakens, however, he also needs to be wrapped up to prevent himself from keeping himself awake. I'm not really sure what to do with that just yet, but since he is improving, I'm not going to worry about it. His naps are a different issue. He'll usually do alright during his morning nap. Sometimes he'll only wake up twice, other times he'll wake up every 15 - 20 minutes. His afternoon nap is always much more difficult. If he's going to cry while going down, it's during this nap. And he never sleeps for more than 15 minutes at a time. Today I gave up after the eighth time of going in there in less than 40 minutes. I'd rather him get his rest in my arms than not get it at all. It's absolutely amazing how well he sleeps in my arms. He doesn't stir, touch his face, or wake up. He slept for an hour and a half in my arms and I actually had to wake him up three times before he would stay awake.

We did have a slight set back on his sleeping due to his four month vaccinations. He didn't fare as well this time with them. All the first and second day he kept a fever of 101 despite the Tylenol. He was pretty miserable then, so I let him sleep as much as he wanted. Well, it took us the rest of the week to get back on track after that.

One more fun bit o' news is that Seth is starting to eat baby oatmeal. Tomorrow will be his sixth day trying it and he's been improving every day. He went from screaming and not wanting anything to do with it to actually trying to eat it today, although he's still confused as to what to do with his tongue. I added just a little drop of apple sauce to the oatmeal and that really excited him. He actually cried when it was all gone. He's only eating about a teaspoon and a half right now until he gets the hang of it. Then we're supposed to move on to spinach, peas, and green beans. The doctor recommends him starting on green vegetables to help with his constipation so he won't have to rely on the prune juice every day. We're also cutting back on his formula. At his three month check up the doctor told me to start giving Seth seven ounce bottles because he was so small. I told him I thought that was too big of a jump because we had just been doing good with the five ounces, but he insisted that Seth needed to gain weight. Well, he certainly did - nearly four pounds in a month! So this doctor says we need to cut back and start adding in baby food so that he'll balance out at his next check up. I guess I was actually right, go figure!

Anyway, that's about all I have. It's a lot of rambling to say a few things, but at least it looks like I'm making up for the missed blog.