long night?

Tonight Matt flew to Syracuse for a job interview, so Will and I are on our own. I put him to bed at around 8:30, and although he seemed pretty awake when I laid him down in his crib, he was asleep by 8:45. The other night I lulled him to sleep with a story that I made up myself called "The Quantum Hall Effect," but tonight I read to him from Pride and Prejudice. I think it's a good book, but he didn't seem real interested. I guess it is sort of a chick book.

Will got his second nasty cold this past weekend, before his first one totally went away. That means that he's back to waking up every few hours, or at least he has the past several nights. So I'm not too excited about being home alone to deal with that, especially since it's harder than it used to be to get him to fall back asleep in the middle of the night. And last night he woke up feeling congested and miserable, which made him cry, which made him cough, which made him choke, which made me feel horrible. So I hope very much that that does not happen tonight. Matt shoved some cloth diapers beneath one end of his mattress so that he could sleep at an incline, which seems to have helped because he only woke up once feeling that bad.

The picture above is of Matt and Will on New Year's Eve.

rosy-cheeked baby

This is Will after a nice bath Monday night. We bathe him more frequently than we used to, mostly because it seems to calm him down at night and helps get him ready to go to bed. We find that he's ready to go to sleep earlier and earlier these days, I think because we're developing a schedule now and he's pretty active during the day. When he was a newborn he existed in these two-hour cycles between meals, so it didn't really matter what time he went to bed--he'd be up to eat again in two hours anyway. But now he sleeps through the night and goes to daycare in the mornings, and he seems ready to call it a night by around 9 every night. Tonight it was even earlier and I had him sleeping in his crib by 8:30. I seriously hope this doesn't mean that he'll be up for the day at 4:30 tomorrow morning.

Last night Matt and I were eating dinner with Will on my lap when he started laughing hysterically at Matt. I'm not sure why he was laughing, but it was hilarious. Matt was just chewing his burrito, which Will loved more than anything he's ever seen in his life. Upon closer inspection of Matt, I noticed that he had a piece of lettuce on his tooth. I don't know if Will actually noticed it and found it ridiculously funny, but he's seen people chew before without bursting into laughter, so I sort of wonder. I have never seen that child laugh so hard or so long at anything.

Four-month update

Will had his four-month birthday and his four-month doctor's appointment on Friday. I thought he was getting to be quite the little chunker, but that goes to show how little I know about babies, since he weighed in at 13 lbs, 5 oz., still in the 25th percentile. He is 25 and a quarter inches long (tall, I suppose), which is the 65th percentile. And despite the nasty cold that he picked up after less than a week in daycare, he got a clean bill of health and four shots. I had planned to take the day off because the last time he got shots his leg swelled up and he was a very unhappy little guy and I wanted to be around in case that happened again. But it didn't, and he got through the day just fine and I had my day off anyway. That's the nice thing about still being eligible for maternity leave--I don't have to worry ever about taking days off. I just don't get paid for them.

One thing the pediatrician said that alarmed me is that we should stop nursing Will to sleep. Will has been a wonderful nighttime sleeper for most of his life and I know and appreciate how lucky we've been to get the relatively full nights of sleep that we've been enjoying for the last almost two months. So I figured it would be disastrous to change the routine so radically, especially since Will has also been throwing off his swaddling blankets at night, so we've known for a while that we'd probably stop swaddling him soon too. So Friday night when Will got tired I fed him, Matt changed him, swaddled him loosely, and put him in his crib with a pacifier and read to him. For forty-five minutes. And the baby fell asleep! I think Matt felt like those forty-five minutes were very long, but I was amazed and thrilled that the exercise worked at all. And he slept for a good six hours or so before waking up to eat. When his cold was at its worst he'd wake up every two hours, just like when he was a newborn, so both of us were relieved that he returned so easily to sleeping his usual long hours. Saturday night we tried the same routine and it only took about twenty minutes of reading, and Sunday was the same. So I think this is going to work out just fine.

The doctor also gave us the four-month talk about starting him on solid foods anytime between four and six months. I think we're going to wait until five months, but I'm pretty excited about it. He's been more and more interested in watching us eat and I read that that is a sign that a baby is getting ready to start on solid foods. Maybe one of these days we'll get him a highchair so that he can sit at the table with us instead of down in his baby papasan or in somebody's lap. He can't sit up on his own, though, so it might be a little bit early. The doctor also said we could try giving him water in a sippy cup, which we did yesterday just for fun. He neither liked nor disliked it, but was certainly surprised.

On a non-Will front, things are getting exciting for us as we continue to wait for news from Matt's job search. He has now interviewed at SUNY Albany, the University of Delaware, Pitt, and had a phone interview at Syracuse, which might turn into a real interview. He seems optimistic that the interviews have gone well, so we're hopeful that he'll get a couple of offers, though I suppose one is all he really needs. There are pros and cons to each of these schools, so I'm trying not to get too involved in hoping for anything until we know which one or ones will be a true option.

And finally, happy MLK day to all of you and congratulations to Paul and Megan, the latter of whom is sporting a gorgeous new engagement ring.

Meet Will 2007

Will 2007 is a baby who will sleep on his own in the afternoon without being held, as shown in the picture above, taken around 4:30 this afternoon. Will 2007 is a baby who does not hate his swing. Will 2007 is a baby who does not hate to bathe. Will 2007 is a baby who will sit in his papasan chair and play happily by himself for twenty minutes or so while I unload the dishwasher or make cookies. Will 2007 is a baby who will shriek like I'm pulling out his almost nonexistent hair during the seven seconds that it takes me to switch sides while I'm nursing him. In this last regard Will 2007 is exactly like Will 2006. But in all the rest, this kid has mellowed out! I don't know if it was turning three and a half months that did it, but he has become an all-around pleasant person to be with. I'm not saying Will 2006 wasn't a charmer in his own way, but I did spend the first two months of his life pretty much never sitting down during a single one of his waking minutes, except while he was nursing. Matt read or heard that babies reach an age when they don't need to be held constantly anymore, and I think for Will that age is just shy of four months. He still likes to be held and he'll let me know when I've taken advantage of his good nature and it's time to pick him up again, and that is great. He also rolls over from his back to his front and tries very hard to sit up on his own and crawl. And he talks and smiles a lot of the time. And he grabs my hair and plays with my face. He's fun!

First day

Today was Will's first day at daycare. He did great. He was happy and smiley when we left him and asleep in a swing when we picked him back up. We didn't go to work today because our places of employment were closed for Pres. Ford's funeral, so instead we went to the mall, which was a far nicer way to spend a few hours than being at work, especially since we had lunch at Panda Express. My orange chicken Panda Bowl tasted just the ones at UCSB, which offered great comfort. Still, I was anxious pretty much the whole time we were gone that I hadn't left enough milk, but I guess it wasn't a problem. When we picked him up the director told us that he was a joy, which made me feel really happy.

The picture above has nothing to do with daycare, but I like it.