4 Month Check-up

According to Kyle's pediatrician, he "looks great and is healthy as a horse"! He weighed 16 lbs 8 oz and is 2' 2" (I put his length in that format just for you Ca!). So I think I'm finally done obsessing over his weight...I feel good about his "specs".

The only negative yesterday was the fact that I was there with him for 1 hr and 45 minutes! I only had to wait about 5 minutes to see the doctor and then had about 45 minutes with him (I really like this doctor because I never feel rushed). Then he left and said he'd send the nurse right in to do Kyle's shots (so he said just leave him in his onesie). Well, 45 minutes later (after hearing lots of laughing and small talk out in the hall) a nurse knocks on the door and seemed surprised that we were in there. Apparently, the doctor forgot to tell her that we were waiting! Ordinarily, I would have poked my head out much sooner, to see what was going on. But after dancing around with Kyle for about 20 minutes, trying to keep him calm (and warm!), he fell asleep on me (it was past nap time at this point). So I sat down and didn't want to move, in case there really was some huge delay and then I'd be stuck with a crying Kyle again. The shots literally took 30 seconds...she did them with him still lying on my chest. I didn't cry this time (probably because I was so irritated!). Kyle cried each time for about 3 seconds and that was it. He was smiling a minute later when I put him in his car seat. I never felt like the nurse gave me a sincere apology, which really bugged me.

Yesterday brought back annoying memories of my OBGYN visits the last couple months of my pregnancy. I was always brought to the exam room right away, but then would wait FOREVER for the doctor to come in. Keep in mind, the whole time I waited, I was sitting on that table with my paper skirt and a HUGE belly with no backrest...VERY uncomfortable!! Again, I'd hear all this laughter and chatter out in the hall (including my doctors). And then no apology when they'd come in 20 minutes later. Aunt Marion, is this normal??

Enough venting. As I had hoped, the shots appear to have made Kyle sleepy again. He slept for 6.5 and 5 hrs stretches last night...YIPPEE!! I'm sooooo hoping that this resets his sleep clock and he'll go back to sleeping through the night. Time will tell...

Happy 18 Week Birthday Kyle!

Gosh, it's getting hard to keep track of how many weeks old Kyle is these days. Good thing I have this blog to refer to! Kyle weighed in at 16 lbs 1 oz before his bath tonight. So his good weight gain continues (along with his poor sleeping at night). Operation Unswaddle went amazingly well! He just flails around for a while before falling asleep, but then sleeps pretty much the same as before (although that brief stretch of 4 hr naps appears to be a thing of the past). He likes to rotate himself 90 degrees, so that he sleeps the short length of the crib...maybe it makes him feel more "contained", now that he's not swaddled? Over the last month, he's really become an easy, predictable baby and we just love him so much :)

I've started back working (from home) this past week, during Kyle's naps and evenings. It's actually been nice to shift out of "mommy mode" for a few hours each day! I really enjoy my job and feel very fortunate to have this flexible arrangement. I'm taking it day by day, but for now, it's working out very well. On that note, I'll think I'll go do a little work before bed...

4 Months!

Now that Kyle's 4 months old, I'm hoping he'll decide it's time to start sleeping through the night (heck, I'd even take a 4 hr stretch!)...this lack of sleep is really getting to me! But he has been taking a VERY long nap each day...about 4 hrs! So that is great and hopefully continues. As you can see, he's up to 15 lbs 12 oz, which puts him in the 55th percentile. So he's definitely headed in the right direction.

I felt better after reading that spitting up peaks around 4 months, because he's been spitting up like CRAZY lately! He's also started making this new sound...he's graduated from squeaking and is on to roaring (like a dragon!). It's a very funny, strange sound and we haven't quite figured out its meaning. Like the squeak, it also appears to be multi-functional, appropriate for all occasions.

We're also attempting to wean him of the swaddle. Actually, wean is probably the wrong word...we're going cold turkey. He kicks his legs out of it all the time now and that seems to annoy him and wakes him up. So then we go in and fix it, and he just does it again. It's becoming a very annoying cycle, so we think it's time. He took his evening nap without it and did okay (once we moved him out of a pool of spit-up). And we figure he can't sleep any worse at night than he already is, so this seemed like a good time to break the habit. We'll see how tonight goes.

And for those wondering, Kyle is DEFINITELY not constipated anymore! He had 5 rather large "movements" today. Maybe he'll sleep better tonight, now that he's all cleaned out. Wishful thinking I'm sure...

Happy 17 Week Birthday Kyle!

The older Kyle gets, the more he sleeps during the day, but the less he sleeps at night. Obviously, this isn't a good trend! It's been a month and a half now of him getting up every few hours at night. I've literally come to dread the nights (and I used to LOVE crawling into bed at night). But during the day, I feel okay and function surprisingly well. So my body must be used to the lack of sleep. On the bright side, he took a 4.5 hr nap today! This is by far his longest ever. I think he's closing in on Alex's record :)

And of course the other bright side in all of this is his weight gain. He's up to 15 lbs 10 oz, so he gained 10 oz this week. Hopefully one of these days his body will feel "caught up" and he'll start sleeping through the night again!

As I type this, I realize how boring my blog is...it's all about sleep and weight gain. So here's a new topic...constipation! Kyle went over 48 hrs without pooping, which is VERY unusual for him (he usually goes about 4 times/day). The poor little guy would lie on his back and grunt and groan and push to no avail...very sad :( He finally went around midnight last night but hasn't gone since. Perhaps this was "TMI" (too much information)...maybe I should stick to sleep and weight gain...

Liberated!

I feel very liberated...a couple days ago, I made the executive decision not to rock Kyle to sleep anymore before his naps. From what I read, he's at the age where he needs to learn to fall asleep on his own. So now, I just swaddle him, sing a song, and deposit him in his crib wide awake. I was expecting the worst, that he'd cry for a long time. But he's only been crying (not hysterically) for about 5-10 minutes and then falls asleep. This is liberating because he would SCREAM for >10 minutes when rocking him to sleep...he would be hysterical, get all sweaty and hoarse, and then eventually fall asleep. Then I'd keep rocking him for another 10 minutes, so that he'd get into a deep sleep and survive the transfer into the crib. The whole process took about a half hour and was very unpleasant for both of us! I used to dread his naps because of this routine...now I look forward to every minute of them! The next task will be "operation unswaddle", which may commence this weekend.

And as you can see, Kyle's ready for spring training!

Happy 16 Week Birthday Kyle!

I've definitely been slacking in the blogging department recently! I'm going to blame it on lack of sleep. Kyle continues to wake every couple hours in the night to nurse. And I truly believe that he is hungry, because Jared has tried a bunch of times to rock him back to sleep without me feeding him, but he wakes up right away screaming. He gained 10 oz this week though and is up to 15 lbs even. So that's the silver lining in all of this.

We enjoyed Jared's final week home. Last Tuesday, Kyle met his great grandparents and great uncle for the first time. It was his longest car ride yet (about 1:45). He did pretty well until the end, when he started getting fussy. So on the way home, we broke up the drive by stopping at Pirate Grammy's (she had cataract surgery that morning so was wearing a patch over her eye). We got to pick up the beautiful quilt that she made Kyle too (I'll have to post a picture of it soon).

Then Friday night, with his pants hiked up nice and high, Kyle made his first visit to Westborough. He seemed to enjoy watching his cousins play, and even took an 1.5 hr nap in Rachel's crib. And I very much enjoyed watching Alex's Elaine Benes dance impersonation...I'll post the video once I get it off my camera (I wish the Flip had Eye-Fi technology).

And those were Kyle's outings this week. In addition to laughing, he's also started squeaking a lot...he squeaks when he's happy, he squeaks when he's hungry, he squeaks when he's about to spit up, etc...it's a very all-purpose sound. He's also started attempting to roll over every time we change his diaper, swaddle him, dress him...very annoying! Jared calls his new maneuver "the twist". And he's finally growing some hair on his head...he's gaining on his daddy!

Hopefully I'll get back on track and post again before next Monday!

Happy (unhappy) 15 Week Birthday Kyle!

Kyle seemed to have a case of the Mondays today...he didn't nap/eat/play well. And he must have spit up 72 times. So there were no Kodak moments today for his 15 week photo. On a more positive note, I think he's turning a corner with his sleep. The last two nights, he's slept for 4-5 hour stretches, which is a HUGE improvement from waking every two hours! Hopefully this continues. And he's now up to 14 lbs 6 oz, so he gained 7 oz this week which is good.

To recap 2009 so far...New Years Day, we didn't do much. Just watched football and played with Kyle...he laughed (we think) for the first time too. I was tickling his legs and tummy with my hair and he was smiling and started making a somewhat recognizable laughing sound. And he's done it randomly every day since...very fun and cute!! Then Friday, we had a fun visit with the Toscanos. Kyle liked watching his buddy Jeremy cruise around, and the noisier it was, the happier/sleepier Kyle seemed. Yesterday, we got lobsters (our New Year's Eve dinner a few days late). This was a much more enjoyable lobster experience than on our anniversary because we actually had a lobster cracker this time! Much less messy, and we didn't cut up our hands trying to crack open the shells. And today, we finally assembled Kyle's toy box. We love it, but it took us a lot longer to put together than it should have (mostly because Kyle kept "interrupting" us). There were also some assembly issues that caused us to basically unassemble/reassemble it twice. So that wasn't fun, but we're very happy with the end product (thanks Ca!!). We also slow cooked pulled pork today for dinner tonight, but it came out tasting very funky. Jared still ate it, but I didn't. We've made this recipe 20+ times and are sure we didn't miss an ingredient, so we're guessing that the pork was bad. Seemed par for the course today.

Along those same lines, Kyle is already awake, after sleeping just 20 minutes. Jared's at basketball, so I must go tend to him...

The Year of Kyle

Hard to believe that today is the last day of 2008! This was definitely the year of Kyle and thus the best year of our lives! I still remember how incredibly excited we were when we saw the little "+" sign on the EPT test...it was the first Saturday in January so literally, the entire year has been about Kyle (although we didn't actually know him for majority of it). He is just such a little joy, except for his new sleep habits...

For the last 2.5 weeks, Kyle has been waking up every two hours in the night to nurse. Like clockwork...no exceptions! Needless to say, I'm a complete zombie and feel like I felt when he was a newborn (but even then, he'd occasionally sleep for a 3 or 4 hour stretch). At 3+ months, I know he should be able to sleep about 6 hrs at night without eating. But I feel like his body is realizing that it is supposed to be bigger, so he's playing catch-up. And he has gained very well during this stretch...he's a little over 14 lbs now and gained 9 oz last week! I feel great about this during the day and realize that his night feedings seem to be benefiting him, but I'm a little more negative when I wake up at night. I think I usually say the same thing each time I get up to feed him (it contains expletives)..."this just really ____ ____"...I'll let you use your imagination. But like everything else, I know this is just a phase. I just hope it phases out soon! It's hard to believe that just a few weeks ago, we woke him up after he'd been asleep for over 9 hours! What a difference a couple weeks make.

Completely unrelated, we had heating oil delivered yesterday for $1.79/gallon...this is literally half what we paid just a few months ago! Our electric bill, however, hasn't fared as well. We had our highest bill ever this month ($265). And no, we don't have electric heat. Somehow, we used 50% more kW than last December, and this December was actually warmer. I guess my being home during the day has quite an impact on our energy consumption.

Should be a quiet New Years Eve tonight. We have no hope/desire to make it to midnight. We were excited to get lobsters for dinner though but just called Big Y to place our order and they're all sold out :( We'll have to figure out a Plan B.

More Christmas Fun

We had our 2nd Christmas celebration at Grammy's yesterday with Nonnie, Aunt Jayne and the Foleys. Kyle enjoyed seeing all his relatives again, although he was a bit fussy. Jon put on a delicious meal, and it was fun to visit and exchange gifts with everyone. So the Christmas festivities are now officially over, although we are still enjoying our Christmas tree and will probably keep it up through New Years.

I was reminded last night why we are so paranoid about germs with Kyle. When we got home from MA, we discovered he had a "boogie" way up in his nose that was affecting his breathing (and a smaller one in the other nostril). I tried suctioning it out but couldn't get it. And when I tried to feed him, because he couldn't breath very well through his nose, he kept gulping air every time he swallowed. His poor little tummy blew up like a balloon with air and he was just screaming in pain. And he wouldn't burp (I think it needed to pass through the other end). This continued through the night, with each feeding. I felt soooo bad for him and I myself cried every time I fed him :( This morning, we could still hear it up there, so we turned on the shower and shut the door, hoping the steam would loosen it. After doing this, he finally sneezed it out a little while later and I was soooo happy for him. It was HUGE and seeing it come out was very satisfying (sorry if that grosses people out...I don't find baby boogies gross though). So I really can't imagine what it would be like if he had an actual head cold, where he has air gulping issues to begin with. He's fed much better since then, and napped for some of the Pats game, which was great. Now we just need a Jets victory...J-E-T-S Jets Jets Jets!!

Kyle's First Christmas

We all had a great Christmas yesterday, including Kyle! Kyle didn't quite "get" Christmas though. You know how you're supposed to get up extra early to see if Santa came? Well Kyle slept the latest he's EVER slept...he didn't wake up until 11:30! So we got a late start but still made it to Grammy's for 1pm. As usual, we all spoiled each other. The highlights for Kyle were a BOB jogging stroller from Grammy and a nice toybox from Aunt Ca. And Kyle was just the easiest baby yesterday (maybe because he slept so much the night before)! He was very content just taking it all in, and even slept for over an hour on Jared.

After a fun afternoon at Grammy's, we headed up the street to Kim's house for more fun and festivities. Kyle started getting fussy after about an hour though, so we headed home. It was a great day, and was interesting to finally see all the ice damage up there (although I hear it looked NOTHING like when it happened!).

And today, we've just been hanging out, recovering from all the excitement. I'm still a little kid in that I LOVE looking through all our gifts before putting them away. And the Christmas fun continues tomorrow...back to Grammy's for a meal and a visit with Nonnie, Aunt Jayne and the Foleys.