Adjustments

Mom and Caleb wrapped up the first week of school today (today being the fifth day of school thanks to Tropical Storm Fay...the first full week of school is this week). The first week of school required an adjustment on Caleb's behalf which he seemed to handle quite well. Of course, being a baby, just about everything in life is an adjustment for Caleb and he just keeps rolling with the punches because he doesn't know any better. I'm sure there will come a time when he doesn't take changes to routines too well, but for now, he handles them just fine.

Anyway, Caleb had a different for the first week of school. Miss J decided she needed to earn a little more and got a different job. Fortunately, Mom had someone in mind who could easily step in and take over. Mom asked the new sitter what she would want Caleb to call her and she said Nanny. So Nanny has been keeping Caleb these first days of school. By all accounts she adores Caleb and enjoys being with him. As far as Mom is concerned, she is adjusting to being away from Caleb for several hours at a time, but I know that the best part of her day is when she goes in to the nursery to feed Caleb and he gives her a big grin.

Sleepy Boy

For the first time since we started sleep training at the end of July, Caleb did not sleep through the night last night. He woke up in the middle of the night quite unhappy and cried for quite some time. Mom went into the nursery every few minutes to try and soothe him, but he did not go back to sleep for quite some time.

Being up part of the night makes for a very sleepy baby. Mom had intended to run some errands in the afternoon but did not do any of them because Caleb fell asleep in the afternoon. That meant that we all had to go out to the grocery store after dinner. When I got home from work, Mom and Caleb were waiting out front for me with a nice, warm greeting. Mom took my things and I took Caleb. I played with Caleb while we finished dinner and made a grocery list. But once we got into the car to head to the grocery store, Caleb fell asleep in his car seat.

Caleb has pretty much outgrown the Boppy sling and now rides exclusively in the Bjorn carrier. For the longest time, the Boppy sling was the preferred method of transport while at the grocery because it allowed Caleb to sleep while we shopped. Now that he rides in the Bjorn carrier, it's harder for him to fall asleep even though he is pretty cozy in there. He does sleep in there, just not as often.

Unfortunately, tonight, he woke up from his nap when Mom moved him from the car seat to the carrier. While we shopped, it was obvious he wanted to go back to sleep, but there was too much catching his eye. It was almost bath time when we got home from the grocery store. He went down pretty easily tonight and I'm pretty sure he was quite relieved to do so.

Que Lindo

Que Lindo. That's Caleb's new Spanish nickname. It means "how cute." Several Spanish members at church come up to him and say that. It took a while to understnd what they were saying, so we finally asked someone and he exlained what it means. Ever since then, we've been able to overhear total strangers say it as they pass by and glance at Caleb. He still gets a lot of attention and may people will use the phrase as they pass by. Today, we were out to lunch with some good friends from church and one them had a visitor and she also said "que lindo" when she was talking to Caleb. So we decided that that just might have to be his new nickname.

This afternoon, after Mom and Caleb took a long nap, we took a drive around town before heading to the church building for a worship service and fellowship meal. One of our stops was at Baptist Hospital where Caleb was born. The hospital has a duck pond in front of the building and I like to head over there whenever we have old bread to feed the ducks and the Ibis. So we stopped by today. The birds are very used to people and will crowd around my very tightly in large numbers. So Mom and Caleb stayed on a bench away from all the commotion. After all of my bread was gone, a couple of birds wandered over to Mom and Caleb to see if they had anything to offer. Caleb was watching those birds very intently.

After we returned home from church this evening, I had the opportunity to change Caleb's diaper. Since it was close to bath time, I didn't put any clothes back on him. It was close to bath time, so Mom considered an early bath, but he was pretty wired up, so Mom decided to spend a few minutes playing with him before the bedtime routine. We brought a quilt into the living room for him to lay on as well as one of his rattles. This quilt is part of the decorations in the nursery. Since you aren't supposed to put babies in a
crib with any kind of blanket, it seems rather frivolous. So we started using it tonight as a floor quilt. Caleb had a fun time rolling around on the ground wrestling with his crocodile
rattle before getting a bath and finally going to bed.

Ambivalence

Saturdya mornings are welcome for Mom and Caleb, especially now that school has started and they both have to get up so early. They get to sleep in a little on Saturday mornings. Dad has started running and has a group run on Saturday mornings, so Caleb and Mom get some one on one time on Saturday mornings. Usually, Mom gets Caleb out of the crib and brings him back to bed with her. She'll nurse him and then they hang out to play and talk. Mom took this picture after nursing him. Note the three fingers in the mouth. Caleb likes to put things in his mouth and his fingers are just about the most common thing we find in his mouth.

After I came home from my run, I took a shower then I took Caleb so Mom could take her shower. Caleb and I hung out on the bed. Caleb was content to just lay there and look around the room. I was surprised when Emma jumped up on the bed. When Caleb first came home, Emma was scared of Caleb and did not want to have anything to do with him. If she approached him at all, it was very apprehensive. After four plus months of Caleb, Emma is no longer afraid of him, but she still does not really have anything to do with. She'll approach him now and she no longer shows any fear, but she still does nothing more than give him a long sniff then saunters off. That is what she did this morning. She jumped up on the bed and was surprised to find Caleb there. She gave him a long sniff then went to the end of the bed to lay down. I wasn't fast enough to get a picture of the sniffing, but I did move fast enough to get both of them in the frame. As for Caleb, he watches Emma when she is nearby, but he doesn't show much interest in her either beyond that.

More of the Same

As a follow up to yesterday's picture, I thought I'd share with you another picture of Caleb in his crib. This was taken this afternoon while Caleb. This picture is remarkable for a couple of reasons. First, the picture did not wake him up because there was no flash. Second, it is unusual for Caleb to nap in his crib. He usually naps with Mom, in his swing or the bouncy seat. He's used to sleeping in his crib at night when it's dark and he can easily fall back asleep. Invariably, when we lay him down, it causes him to stir. During the daytime, it's too bright in there and usually wakes all the way up. However, today he stayed asleep and took a nice nap in there.

We had made plans with some people from church, so when I got home from work, we were waiting on them to get in touch with us. I got some nice play time in with Caleb before dinner.
First, we read a little book. By read, I mean Caleb listened for a second then took the book out of my handed and proceeded to chew on it. It should be interesting when he gets a little older and we have to teach him to distinguish between his books (chewable) and my books (non-chewable).

I also spent a few minutes with him playing on the jungle gym. I was dangling one of the toys in front of him. He was pretty excited by this game. So excited in fact that he kicked off one of his socks.

Caleb is fun boy. Seeing him when I get home from work is definitely one of the highlights of my day.

Thursday

One of the side effects of school starting is that Mom is not with Caleb a big chunk of the day. That means that less pictures are taken giving me a smaller selection of pictures to put here on the blog. I now realize that really busy days for Mom are going to be a blogging challenge.

Today was a really busy day for Mom. After school, she and Caleb went home, but Mom was not feeling well so she and Caleb just hung around the house for a few hours. It wasn't long before Mom had to go back to school for open house and a meeting with the Board of Directors. I went straight to school to pick up Caleb and take him home. I stopped to get something to eat and by the time we got home, the skies had opened up a heavy rain. The rain was blowing sideways and when I opened the door, it hit Caleb in the face and I could see him wince a couple of times. That's not a sensation he is used to yet. So I hurriedly got him inside the door and got frazzled in the process.

I ate my dinner and then played with Caleb. Mom came home from here events just in time for Caleb's bedtime routine. She hadn't taken any pictures and asked if had. Sure enough, we had no pictures today. To compensate, I took a picture of Caleb lying in his crib since his learning to sleep has been a big achievement in our lives that has been chronicled by words, but not really in pictures.

That was a mistake. Following the advice we had read on putting Caleb to bed, Caleb goes through the same routine every night. The last step in the routine is a bedtime snack for Caleb. When he is tired, Caleb falls asleep while nursing. However, the experts all say to put the baby in the crib somewhat awake so that they will learn to fall asleep in the crib on their own. This is also beneficial for us because Mom is trying to teach Caleb baby sign language and he needs to be awake so he can see the sign for sleep.

Laying Caleb in the crib awake has not been a problem so far. However, taking a picture of him was too much. Caleb was crying as we left the room and Mom was glaring at me. We are up to 10 minutes of Caleb crying before we go into soothe him. A couple of times, it sounded as if he was drifting back to sleep, but then he would find a second wind. After 10 minutes, we went into him and it was the first time in a long time that we have had to go back into the nursery after putting him down. When I got back in there, in addition to crying, he had done a complete 180 and was now facing the opposite end of the crib. We're not supposed to pick him up out of the crib, so I just patted him and he was in a full on cry. Mom brought in a pacifier and I think he might have been asleep before we closed the nursery door.

Needless to say, we will do a better job of taking pictures during the day so we don't have to take any more last minute shots and risk messing up the routine.

First Day of School

After an extra two days of Summer due to Tropical Storm Fay, Mom and Caleb finally got to go to school today. Now that school has started, Mom and Caleb will be getting up much earlier (it was still dark!). I got up in time to spend a few minutes with them before they left the house. When I awoke, Mom was in the nursery getting Caleb dressed and we snapped a few pictures before they left. Caleb doesn't look fully awake, does he?

Day of Firsts

Well, Caleb survived his first Tropical Storm There wasn't much to TS Fay and I'm pretty certain Caleb was not even aware anything unusual was going on. We did get some pretty heavy rain last night. The strange thing about it was hearing the rain pelting his window over the baby monitor in addition to hearing the rain on our own window.

The storm did keep Mom and Caleb from school for another day, so they hung out around the house. Mom said that this picture is Caleb about to fall onto his toy. I guess you can't really tell that from the picture. What's really intersting about the picture is the expression on Caleb's face. I've never seen that expression before and I can't even begin to tell you why he has that look. All I know is it is some sort of a nonchalant smirk.

To pass the time, Mom tried to take Caleb for a walk a couple of times. The firs walk was in the stroller. Although the rain had cleared up, it was still breezy so they did not stay out very long. This was the first time Caleb has ridden the stroller in the seat rather than in the car seat. He's already been through several diaper sizes and is essentially on his second set of clothes working on the third, but I can't believe he's already moved from the car seat the stroller. He's getting big way too fast. Mom tried to take him out later on in the day minus the stroller and that walk was also cut short because they had to head back to the house for a diaper change.

Caleb wore another new outfit today. This one is football themed. Mom likes it because of the little visor. It is cute, but it doesn't match the outfit. It seems like it would be more appropriate if it was baseball instead of football. At our bible study last night, one of our friends said he looked like a dealer in Las Vegas. Personally, I think he looks like he belongs on a 1920's baseball card.

Momma's Little Helper

Caleb moves around in his crib a lot while he is asleep. I went in to his room last night to peek at him and he had sort of rolled over onto his left side and had pushed his feet up against the side of the crib. When Mom went in to get him this morning, he had apparently pushed off the side of the crib and had gone sideways at the head of the crib. I hope that he is just restless and that this does not mean he is going to be a sleep walker once he is in a big boy bed.

Caleb has started rolling over from time to time. He mostly does it in his sleep like he did last night. He also rolls over pretty easily from his tummy if he can get high enough on his arms. He did it yesterday on his jungle gym. I set him down and he pushed up and leaned to the side and gravity did the rest. The most challenging move for him is to go from his back to his tummy.

While I was getting ready for work this morning, Mom put Caleb on the bed on his back. I heard him crying a couple of minutes later. Caleb had rolled over on his tummy. The problem was he does not know what to do with his arm yet, so he rolls onto it and it was pinned beneath his body. He didn't like this state of affairs. Mom, following her supernatural maternal instincts, sprang into action to go find the camera and snap a picture before freeing Caleb from his self-inflicted prison.

Today was supposed to be the first day of school. However, schools were closed because of Tropical Storm Fay, so Mom and Caleb stayed home. Mom used the time to get some household chores done including some laundry. Caleb was on the bed while Mom folded laundry next to him. He wasn't able to be very productive, but as you can see, he wanted to help Mom fold the towels.

I wish I had a camera for this last story, or to be more accurate, a video, because it left us wide eyed. Tonight, we were sitting on the bed hanging out. I was standing Caleb in front of me, but he kept twisting his body to look at something over his shoulder. I turned him around and figured out what he was looking at. He leaned forward in my hands to reach for his pacfier which was now in front of him on the bed. He picked it up with his hand and brought it to his mouth with the nipple facing the right direction. He got the nipple into his mouth, but he didn't hold on to it long enough to get a good suck on it, so it fell right back out of his mouth. Mom and I just stared at him amazed at the level of recognition and coordination he displayed. We will now anxiously watch for more signs of high level cognition.

He's Not a Barbie

Sunday, August 17, 2008

It seems as if Mom has been putting on a lot of new clothes on Caleb the last few days and weeks. I pointed this out to Mom the other day and asked her why she was in such a new clothes frenzy. Mom said she's not in a frenzy so much as she just wants to make sure Caleb wears the clothes before he outgrows them. Caleb is always growing, but I'm still amused by the number of new outfits that have come out of Caleb's closet the last few days.

Today Caleb wore a new outfit to church. This Outfit really looks like a big boy outfit. It consists of a collared onsie, a sweater vest with animals on it and brown houndstooth print pants. Mom also had on his little, white dress shoes. He was looking pretty cute today. Mom took some pictures of Caleb on his changing table in his new outfit. I chose this one because of the way Caleb has his hands crossed. He crosses his hands like this quite often. Mom says I cross my hands like this too, but I'm not so sure.

After worship this monrning, we went out to lunch with a large group of our friends. Caleb is a big hit with our friends and they all enjoy watching him. Yesterday, he even got passed around some as different friends wanted to hold him. But usually, we just sit him up on the table so he play and so everyone can watch him.

After lunch, we came home to relax for a little before heading out to our life group. I guess we all relaxed really well because we ended up taking a family nap in the bed with Caleb in between us. Mom and Dad both woke up to get ready to go, but Caleb continued to nap on the bed. It is for Caleb's own good that he sleeps in his crib at night, but we miss having him with us in the bed. I know Mom especially misses him. So it was really nice to nap with him this afternoon.