a couple of photos

dodging a kiss


contemplating

salmon cozying up to my milk

Chris, I love him, but placing salmon burgers on top of my frozen breastmilk? That just seems wrong. And he knows I'm adament about meat not taking up residence next to the frozen fruit, so why he would think it makes a good companion for breastmilk I will never know.

Other than that, I want to report that Atticus was a dream today. He woke me up just twice last night, which is a big improvement from Monday night. Then he napped today for two hours and 45 minutes, during which I completed most of my homework. And after (and before) he was all smiles despite continued slobbering and gnawing. Life is good.

teething

Atticus is definately teething. Those first teeth may still be months away, but he's slobbering all over everything and everybody, biting on everything and everybody, and the poor little guy is suffering some pain here and there (hence the unusual crying). He's also had a runny nose and diaper rash, which I've learned from several people can also be side effects of teething.

Some other things going on that may or may not be related:

• He's become fond of sticking his tongue out the last week and half or so. It's super cute (we'll have to get some video of it up soon). I just hope he doesn't clamp down on that tongue and hurt it.
• He's taken to grabbing himself now. As soon as I unfasten his diaper, his little hand starts rooting around. And when I'm trying to fasten the new diaper, I sometimes have to pull that hand out several times. That's kind of cute too, except when his diaper is very poopy, then it's just worrisome. (Chris has his own set of worries regarding this new habit--that Atticus will be sticking his hand down his pants in school when he's four. I'm pretty confident though that this is perfectly natural and doesn't at all mean that Atticus will be oblivious to social norms and niceties.)
  
• He's sleeping pretty terribly at night these days. I felt haggard today, and it's only Tuesday. He woke me up four times last night, the first at 11:30 pm, barely three hours after he'd gone to bed.
• He's sleeping much better at daycare, taking 1 1/2 - 2 hour naps some days. It turns out Lisa is putting him to sleep on his belly, and she credits this for his new napping success. I don't know whether we should be concerned about this or not. The pediatrician, like most of them these days, says to never allow a baby to sleep on his side or his belly. Of course, not long ago, everybody put their babies to sleep on their bellies. Not to mention that I know a number of people whose babies roll over onto their tummies after being put to sleep on their backs. And his head is to the side, after all. It's not like he's face down into the mattress. Still, I feel nervous about putting him to sleep on his belly at home since I'm asked about it every time we go in for a pediatric appointment.
  

the return of the teething hypothesis

So, once again, I wonder if Atticus is suffering brief periods of teething pain. Every day this week there's been a period where he was pretty difficult to console. That's not like him.

However, besides the crying, there's also the occasional drooling, thumb and fist sucking, and biting. Plus, today when he started into the crying bout, I put my finger in his mouth, and he chomped down on it and ceased crying for a bit. When he started up crying again, I decided this was enough to warrant trying out the homeopathic teething tablets we bought a while back. Is it wrong to drug my baby when I'm not absolutely certain he's teething? It is just natural stuff like chamomile, after all. I don't know, but I'll tell you this: teething or not, the remedy worked. The crying was replaced with a spacey grin in which he seemed to stare off happily at nothing in the corporeal world. Fluorescent, surfing mushrooms in his head perhaps? Soon he was out for two hours.

revelation about post-partum depression

This afternoon, after Atticus's nap and his massage and my holding him up in the air so that he could be a flying baby, he had a meltdown. That baby screamed at me off and on (but mostly on) for nearly 40 minutes that felt more like four days. I better understood then why fussy babies are a common factor in postpartum depression. It's depressing as hell when your baby screams at you no matter what you do, and despite that you have spent a good hour and a half straight giving him your undivided attention, time during which he was as blissful as a baby can be--smiling and giggling. It seems cruel and ungrateful (something akin to when in their adolescence they don't want to be seen with you in public and in their teenage years they don't want to live on the same planet as you, I guess), and like I said, downright depressing. Lucky for me, Atticus is a really agreeable baby. He rarely cries for more than a few seconds at a time. And thank goodness. I don't know how you parents of fussier babies do it. I feel for you.

I tried a dozen different things to calm him. What finally worked was music and dancing. It always does. I should have come to that sooner.

Oh, and remember when I said we'd somehow so far avoided a major blow-out in the car seat? That luck ended Saturday. What is the scale for blow-outs? Zero to 10? If so, I'd say this was a 9. The only thing saving it from a 10 was that nobody ingested any poop as far as I know. I think I went through about 30 wipes trying to clean him, me, the car seat, the changing pad, etc.

First Father's Day (video)

First Father's Day

New Toy for Atticus

We bought Atticus a doorway jumper.  He hasn't got the hang of it just yet.  He seemed into it for a little while.