Declan's Six Month Well-Baby Checkup

It's official. We are parents to Giganto Baby! He weighed 21 lbs 13 oz yesterday, and was 25.5 inches long. That puts him in the 100th percentile for weight and 50th percentile for length. I don't know. When I look at him, he looks perfectly happy and healthy with just the right amount of chunkiness for a baby.

I don't think I really liked the pedi we saw yesterday. Our normal pedi was recovering from back surgery, so we saw another in the group. We talked about Declan's weight, and according to the feeding chart we have from Similac, he should be eating between 24-40 ounces a day, or 4-5 bottles of 6-8 ounces each. He's been consistently eating 35-40 ounces a day, and he hadn't been eating solids foods consistently until last week. But when we told the pedi that, she immediately when, oh no, that's way too much to be feeding him. He should only be eating 30 ounces a day max. Um...How am I supposed to cut him back that much?

We started cutting him back a little bit last night. He got 4 ounces at dinner along with his peas. We tried giving him only 6 ounces for bedtime, but he wouldn't settle until he had 8 ounces.

Then he was up at midnight, screaming and crying. I'm guessing it was because he was either hungry or in pain from the shots he got yesterday. I finally ended up feeding him 4 ounces of water, followed by 4 ounces of formula, and I put him in bed with me. Poor Daniel, sleeping on the couch again.

Then Declan was up around 4 am. I soothed him until a little after 5, when I gave him his morning bottle. He was crying a lot and woke Daniel up, so Daniel told me to go back to bed for a few extra hours and he'd take over.

That was one of the nicest presents he ever gave me. I got to sleep from 5-9, and I felt so much better. I was late to work, but it was worth it. Unfortunately, Daniel is going to be dragging all day today. Declan was fussing and crying about his 9 am bottle, and Daniel was too tired to deal with it. So I fed him his peas and formula this morning. It didn't go well. I think the little guy is probably still in pain, probably a little hungry, and he might not have liked the fact that his peas were cold.

Anyway, the rest of Declan's pedi visit went well, except for the shots. But no one likes shots. He got an oral vaccine, and 3 shots, one of which was the first of 2 flu vaccines. He has to go back in a month for the second flu vaccine.

I'm afraid it's going to be another long night tonight. *sigh*

New baby pics

I've been busy lately. And tired. I'll admit it. When I come home, I have to immediately take care of Declan, and it's nonstop from 5-8pm every night. I love it, but when he goes to bed, I've been zoning out on the couch with either my new video game or watching the first season of Dexter, which is pretty darn good.

Anyway, I thought I should get caught up on my pictures this weekend while Declan is napping. I just sent a bunch to be printed out for the grandmothers. Plus I organized his pictures on my computer. I still need to upload my latest video of him babbling yesterday. It was so cute. But for now, pictures will have to do.

First I'll brag on my new hair cut/color. Here it is actually styled by Allison, so it still looks nice, instead of in my customary ponytail. I'm growing it out so Declan can't yank on it so easily.


Mommy and Baby


Happy Tummy Time


He looks so mischievous here.


And here it's more like, "Can we go home now?"


Towel on head is funny!


"Hey, look at me!"

Fall is coming

The weather has been teasing us with some nice days. I think the low actually got to 69 for 1 or 2 nights. It's back up to the upper 80s/lower 90s right now, and still humid as all get out, but the end is in sight.

Unfortunately, the mosquitoes are still horrid. I heard the mosquito spraying truck trundle by last night, so hopefully in a day or two it will be better outside. Poor Declan is covered with mosquito bites, including several on his face. Poor little guy is just fresh meat laid out like a feast for the mosquitoes. Maybe that's part of why he's been crabby lately.

He's also cranked up the drool factory, so maybe another set of teeth are coming in. His bottom teeth are really showing, and he can bite my finger pretty hard.

I had given up on feeding him solid foods for a couple of weeks. He would cry every time I got a spoon near his mouth. It was better with my finger, but still not great. So I stopped for a while. Then I picked up a jar of baby food - apples - and tried that. He loved it this morning. He ate it without much fuss at all. We only ate about a third of the bottle, but it was promising. I'll give him some more tonight with dinner. He's just been so hungry lately, that his bottles haven't been satisfying him for long. This morning he was up at 3:30 for a bottle. Maybe he just wants his solid foods a lot more runny than I had been making.

Long, long week

I had to do the contract review last week, and it took forever to get ready for it. The number of reviews we go through is amazing. 2-3 reviews in our office, a procurement office review, then the first of 2 official reviews, then the final one that determines the contract rating. ANd they're very formal and extremely important. I'm so glad it's done, at least for another 5 months.

I had to stay late several nights, and this week, Declan was super cranky. Daniel was frustrated and upset by the time I'd get home. It's really hard trying to balance work against a newborn baby. Sometimes I think the people at work don't realize what they ask when they want me to stay late. I think they think that it's okay because my husband is watching the kiddo. But if I were a single parent or had Declan in daycare, I couldn't stay late. So it's not fair to ask Daniel to work late on taking care of the baby. He gets upset, and at work, they think I'm slacking off. *sigh* Oh well, I can only do what I can do.

Rolling Over Some More

This morning, after I gave Declan his bottle, he didn't stay up for long before he was ready to go back to bed. So I put him back in his crib, but minus his leg swaddle. I went in to check on him about 30 minutes later, and he was lying on his side, rolled up against the edge of the crib. I guess before long he'll be rolling over completely in his crib.

Date Night Last Weekend

One of my coworkers/friends came over Saturday night and watched Declan so that Daniel and I could get out of the house without the baby for a few hours. Thank you, Mary and Emily!!

We went to see "9", the new animated movie about puppets in a post-apocalyptic world. It was visually very beautiful, but when the movie was over, I turned to Daniel and said, what the heck was that? The ending made no sense to me. I was actually rather bummed because it was so confusing. It felt like the movie took a hard left turn it the last 5 minutes, then just skipped to something else entirely. Oh well, it was still pretty to watch.

Then we went out for Indian food. Went to Moghul's, but they were burning some sort of very strong incense. It smelled awful. It literally smelled like a urine-soaked bathroom to me. How could incense smell so bad? The waitress tried to seat us at the very back of the restaurant, but it didn't help. After less than a minute in there, I had to get out because I was gagging. I practically ran out of the place. Ugh.

So we tried another Indian place. This one was busy. They put us in a corner and forgot about us. *sigh* Guess it wasn't my night. Next time we'll go to La Tapa Tapa.

But it was still very nice to get out and have some adult time. Although it was hard to find something to talk about besids baby stuff and video games.

Wal Mart Is Awesome

And I never thought I would write those words.

Our HDTV started to go out on us a couple months ago. Turned out to be the power supply. We had bought it from Wal-Mart with the extended warranty. When it went out, we were thrilled at first that we had the extended warranty, because it died when it was 2 months from being out of warranty.

We put in a claim in early July, and they said it would take 2-3 weeks to fix it. They didn't even send us the box for shipping it back for 2 weeks, then they held onto it for 5 more weeks. By then, we had gone past our warranty expiration on Sept 1.

When we finally got the tv back on Sept 11, turns out the picture quality was broken. The picture was ghosting and had jagged lines through it. We called the service center to complain and they said, it turns on, so it's not our fault. We called Wal-Mart to complain, and the lady said it's past the warranty date, so tough cookies.

We finally wrote an email and sent it to the Wal-Mart corporate executives. We pointed out that the repair center charged Wal-Mart $600 to repair a tv now worth $400, and that if they had been as timely as they promised, we would have had our tv back in time to notice it was broken and submit a new claim under our warranty. Apparently, we found someone sympathetic.

Within one hour of sending the email, Daniel got a phone call from a nice gentleman named Doug who said that Wal-Mart would be refunding the entire purchase price of our tv!!

I couldn't believe it. I wasn't even sure I would until I got home today, and they had sent the check overnight! Wow.

Thank you, Wal-Mart, for honoring your extended warranty and making good. You have 2 very happy customers.

He rolled over and I caught it on video

Want to see?

Rolling over

Busy Weekend

Got my hair done on Saturday, then we had to go to Sam's Club to get more formula. We decided to try the Sam's Club version, since it was $11 for the same amount as we had been buying of Similac, but the Similac was $29. That size will last Declan about a week, so it's a not insignificant savings. We'll see how he does on it this week.

Saturday night, I tried plums and he seemed to like those. I think he really only wants very smooth purees right now. He's rejected apples, pears, and green beans, but he'll eat avocado, sweet potato and now plums.

Sunday, Daniel watched the baby for a couple hours, while I did a lot of yard work. We had the stump ground out of our yard a week ago, so I started shoveling the lava rocks that had been around it. Put them from the yard into the flower beds against the fence. Worked on that for the better part of an hour, and got through maybe a third of it. Plus I blistered my hands.

Then I pruned the fig tree and my roses, moved about a hundred brinks and restacked them, built a compost pile and filled up the pond. Yep, I was busy. And now on Monday, my legs hurt and my hands hurt where I blistered them. But I'm happy I got a lot accomplished.

My eventual goal is to replant my lemon tree from by the kitchen to the spot where we had the stump ground out. I think it needs more sun that it's getting right now. Then I want to put in raised vegetable beds around it. That's the area of my yard that gets a lot of good sunlight. But first, I have to move all the lava rocks out of the way, level the ground and build the raised beds. Yeah, that's all. *rolleyes*

Rolling Over

On Friday, Daniel said that Declan rolled from his back to his belly, but he didn't actually see the baby do it. He looked over and Declan was on his belly when he had been playing on his back.

This morning, he rolled back to belly twice more. And both times he managed to do it without me seeing him. I think he forgot how to roll belly to back though, because he needed help getting turned back onto his back.

5 Month Pictures

Here's some pics I took over the last week.

5 Months Old




A Boy and His Rattle


Happy Baby. I like this one.


"I've called you all here today to discuss a very serious matter..."


"Is it naptime yet?"

My little guy is growing up fast

Yes, I know I haven't posted much lately. I've been busy. Stressful at work the last week, and then when I get home, I take care of the baby and just veg on the couch for an hour after he goes to bed, then I fall asleep. A little bit boring, but not bad overall.

Little Declan's developing fast. His two lower front teeth are starting to make an appearance, and he rolled over 3 times on Wednesday. He rolled from his belly to his back. He's getting closer to rolling from back to belly. He can arch his body and get on his side, but he hasn't figured out that all he has to do is move his leg over and he'll turn over.

He's also getting much better at sitting up. He still has to be supported, but he managed to tripod sit for about 10-15 seconds at a time before doing a sideways face plant onto the playmat. :)

I also realized last night that he sleeps like me. I'll have to get a picture somehow, but he sleeps with both his arms above his head. I was in bed last night and realized I was laying down exactly the same way. It's comfortable.