More Catching Up (23 weeks, 6 days)

Here is one of those photos that I owe you from awhile ago. This is my friend Aaliyah who stopped by to see us on her way back to North Carolina.

You can see Mr. Baby's clothes splitting because he is getting so big. He had his 5 month well baby visit last week. He gained almost two pounds and grew almost two inches. By the doctor's official reckoning, Zeke is now 15.5 pounds and 27 inches. To celebrate, he got three immunization shots! I continue to be surprised by his weight -- I truly thought that he was going to be a super chunky monkey. Again, mommy assumes wrong. He is just a regular chunky monkey...a chunky monkey of average weight. According to the doctor's charts, Zeke is in the 50th percentile for weight and 90th percentile for height.

Catching up

Even if I haven't been posting, we do have some photos to get you caught up on. Here is Sprout on the move!

Hello?? (23 weeks, 2 days)

Sprout has missed you! We have been on posting hiatus, so I hope this is reaching someone. Anyone there? It wasn't entirely an intentional hiatus and I even promised the New York chapter of the "aboutsprout" fan club I would post last week. Oops. I keep trying to tell Sprout that he needs to get to posting, but he has not yet reached the milestone of typing yet.

Where have we been? What have we been doing? Mainly just day to day stuff...just very slowly. I find myself uncertain about where all the time goes. I have enough time to pay bills, but not to balance the checkbook. I have finally have taken the time to prepare some meals for the first time in a year, but not enough to wash dishes. Also, I have done all the laundry, but have not put any of it away. You see the pattern, right?

Zeke is now over five months old. He loves rolling around and hanging out in his exersaucer. He is absolutely delighted by people imitating an oinking pig. This was discovered by his grandmother who came for a visit a two weekends ago and went with us on Zeke's first shopping spree at an outlet mall on the Georgia's tax free shopping weekend. I guarantee that Zeke now has more stuffed animals than any child needs, if such a thing is possible. Zeke has also pet the dog and today one of the cats. He also can hold his bottle, though he is not quite ready to feed himself.

Speaking of which, we still haven't tried giving the Sprout any solid food. We're still planning on waiting until at least six months, so it continues to just be breastmilk for the baby. I'm really proud that we have been able to do this and follow the AAP recommendations for feeding. We set a goal for our child's care and have been able to meet it. Outside of 10 mL of formula at the hospital on his third day in the world (when the baby nurses convinced me we should be worried about jaundice and Zeke's weight loss), Zeke has been exclusively breastfed. It's certainly been a team effort and it has been an effort between eliminating dairy, pumping at work and at night after Sprout goes to sleep. In fact, I'm really proud of all that we have been doing. Aaron has been getting by on no sleep -- taking care of Zeke during the day and working at night -- and I have been at work for over three months. It hasn't been easy, but Zeke makes it worth it!

I still have a few more busy weeks planned, but I hope that three weeks won't go by like this again!

Baby Was a Rolling Stone

What we have documented here is a back to side roll, followed by a tummy to back roll combination! The judges give it a 9.0 (it would have been higher except for that French judge....)

Zeke is learning so much everyday that I worry about losing track of the milestones! He is now a regular roller and occasionally likes to suck his thumb. Sunday, he got his foot to his mouth for the first time. He loves exploring our faces with his hands and he has pulled my glasses off twice. During tummy time, he can hold himself up on his arms 45 degrees or more and is even trying to get his behind in the air. He said "maaamaaa" this weekend -- he did say it to me, but I don't think he was saying it about me, so we won't count it as his first word. He just is playing with sounds a lot more in general. He is pretty social and when you smile at him, he will smile back and then tuck his head into the shoulder of whoever is carrying him -- what a flirt. I think he was also doing a fake cough today to get our attention. He definitely tries to engage us in conversation when we are getting ready to put him in bed. As we are swaddling him, he will start to babble and laugh -- already he is trying to stay up past his bed time. His motor skills and hand-eye coordination are so much more developed. You can now hand him his pacifier and he will grab it and put some part of it (maybe not the right part) into his mouth. Also, he is learning cause and effect and is able to make predictions. For example, I will blow bubbles over him. The first few times he will look surprised when the bubbles pop, but by the third or fourth time he closes his eyes and holds his breath when he expects the bubbles to pop. I am just in awe.

Power Lunch (20 weeks, 2 days)

I got a special treat this week as the family came to visit me in my office downtown twice. I loved having Zeke there.

My office moved in June from a homey townhouse in the community where my project was based to our larger base of operations downtown. My new office is nice: I have a good view of the south/east side of downtown from the 23rd floor, I get to see a lot of my colleagues, and there is always someplace to go have lunch. (This was definitly not true of the "inner city" environs of our last office.) Still, I miss the old office. It was close to the school, kids always stopped by to see me, and it was definitely very easy to get to from home. The new office is not any further away, but it is definitely more of a bother to get in and out, walking from the parking garage, et cetera. When I worked in the townhome, I could zip out and be home in 5-10 minutes. So, I used to come home for lunch everyday after I went back to work and be with Zeke. But, none of that in the last month.

Monday, Aaron and Zeke came downtown to see me, though. Aaron brought flowers for our anniversary, we had lunch together, and I got to show off Sprout. Aaron came downtown to go to the DMV for the new car's tag, but the office closed before he could get there. So, they came back on Tuesday, too!

Here we are in front of my office window. You can see the Underground Atlanta by Zeke's hand and the state capitol or Gold Dome over my shoulder.