Henry is Scooting!

I am waaay behind on posting. My time to add to this blog is in the evening and evenings lately are filled with playing with our boy and getting ready for the next day. He is growing bigger and is moving around completely on his own. His daycare provider thinks he'll be crawling soon, I am really not sure of that but he is quite adept at turning around in circles on his belly and getting to toys that entertain him. His favorite things right now are books and here is a quick look at how excited that Henry is about his black and white book, a gift from our good friends. We'd love to say Henry has an early love of learning but actually he's just interested in chewing the pages.

5 Months with Henry!

Henry is five months old! He is starting to scoot around a little, and is happiest being on his playmat where he can grab his own toys and books. He thinks the dog is about the neatest thing he's ever seen and clearly loves Foster more than his own mom and dad.

Our Dirty Little Secret

We are co-sleepers. All three of us- Henry, Rob, and I- share our bed at night. We never planned to do this. Rob was adamantly anti co-sleeping. I was indifferent, figuring we'd get some pattern down eventually when our baby came along.
I was breastfeeding our newborn every hour to 2 hours that first week and trying to prop us both up on a boppy while also attempting valiantly to stay awake to protect us both from the dreaded rolling over which might well end our tiny little Henry.
We were in bad shape after 2-3 weeks of this hourly waking. Two consecutive hours of sleep was something to be celebrated, but Rob and I were too exhausted to find any way to cheer that kind of luck. At one point, Rob decided that if Henry fell asleep lying on one of us, the other adult should stay awake and watch the sleeping pair so at least one person got decent sleep and Henry was not harmed. I was crying nightly purely from sleep exhaustion. Three AM is the hour that thoughts like "What have I done to myself and my life?!" cross your mind. It was miserable.
Days were tolerable, but nights were pure hell.
We would attempt to lay a sleeping baby with his belly full down in the co-sleeper and hope and pray (neither of us were religious before these torturous nights!!) that the H-man would stay asleep and give us just 2 hours of uninterrupted slumber. It would work for an hour or so.
One night, out of desperation and pure exhaustion, I just laid my boy on the side of me towards the outside of the bed, away from Rob. There he slept for THREE HOURS. The miracle was, so did I. He woke up fussing, I helped him reach his milk source and we both dozed back off. Then he slept for ANOTHER THREE HOURS. I was in heaven. Rob decided that morning that desparation had led us to a solution that appeared to work and I was so happy that we were in agreement. We were on the same page, and the arrangement meant we both felt rested in the morning. It was certainly less sleep than we were used to prior to Henry's joining us but far more than we'd had in his first month of life.
Every night since then, Henry has slept next to me. I have grown to love it. He is not a restless or noisy sleeper as I hear and read that some newborns are. He is peaceful and sleeps about three hours at a time. Some nights he sleeps four and a few times, we've gotten 5 to 5.5 hours of consecutive sleep!
Henry cuddles up to me in his sleep on his side with his head thrown back and his little butt sticking out. He sometimes reaches a hand out and rests it on my chest or my face. Rob often leans over me to check to make sure that his little buddy is OK. In the morning, I get up first and put Henry next to Rob while I get ready. Often Henry stays asleep and curls up next to his dad. This is Rob's favorite part of morning, perhaps of the whole day. He doesn't feel safe having Henry next to him during the heavy sleeping hours, but loves the morning visits. If awake, Henry is at his smiliest in the early hours. He is a morning person, quite the opposite of his mother.
Neither of us are in a hurry to transition Henry to his own crib or bedroom. Since we all sleep so soundly, it seems logical to continue what works. What I have learned is that co-sleeping is a way of life for some families. There are family beds, extended co-sleeping that includes multiple children and is part of attachment parenting.
We never meant to join a "movement". We never researched attachment parenting or intended to adopt the principals of some parenting trend. We just needed sleep.

Four Months with Henry!

Time flies! This cannot be the same baby, can it?!

Henry is four months old today. Just in time for the "birthday", he has learned to roll from back to tummy. He has been trying valiantly to do this for about a month but one arm always seems to get stuck and he gets soooo close, then ends up rocking back onto his back again. But one day this past week at daycare, he apparently figured it out and showed it off to his parents on New Years Day- twice. Mad skills, this kid!
His other new skills include reaching out for objects in front of him and recognizing two demensional objects, (i.e. people in books; he smiles at a Santa Claus image every time we read Twas the Night Before Christmas) and thinking that his dad is about the coolest person ever. Eating and playing WILL be interrupted if Rob is nearby. It is so much fun to see this personality emerging. Henry smiles more at Rob that at just about anything else. He's been a real trooper during the many holiday celebrations that we've visited and I still miss him so much every day that I spend away from him.

One Year Ago...

...on this very day, I was driving to Nashville to meet Rob and celebrate Christmas with his family. He'd been there for a week doing research. I was driving with a very big secret that only I knew.
I had ordered a gift for him quickly 5 days earlier when I saw this:





Luckily, the postal service came through so before I left for Nashville, I took a photo of my gift:




Rob took the news really, really well. In fact, I'm pretty sure he became more excited than I was.
One year later, we are staying in St. Louis to enjoy the holidays with this:


Merry Christmas!!

Growing the Boy

I don't think I've mentioned much about the breastfeeding. I always assumed we'd do it and that there would be some bumps in the road along the way because, well, everyone seems to have some problems or challenges breastfeeding, especially at first.
Henry and I have gotten really good at nursing. It was never as hard as some have it for us. I never had any pain or blisters or any problems getting him to latch on. Our main difficulty was my inability to sit comfortably and subsequently my inability to figure out how to nurse lying down.
Henry hasn't had any formula and I'm pretty proud of that. He has learned to take bottles of expressed milk at daycare but at home he only nurses. In the last 2 weeks, he has gotten distracted by the other happenings in the room. For his first 3 months of life, when I put him to breast, he was focused and completely absorbed by the eating process. Now he's learning that there is a big exciting world around him and sometimes he is as equally interested in his surroundings as the eating task at hand. He will pull off and look up at me, look over at Rob, look at the dog or the lamp or ceiling fan, or sometimes he just pulls off to grin at me. That melts my heart, but sometimes we are in a bit of a time crunch and I need him to eat. That is precisely the time he will decide to check out the room around him.
I really have grown to enjoy feeding him. I find it a quiet, peaceful time even if in the middle of a chaotic day. He clasps his hands together and then tries to stuff both fists against my skin or under my shirt where it is warm.
I also have to spend quality time with my pump at work. This is not so quiet, peaceful, or sweet. Fortunately, I have been able to get enough milk each day to get H through daycare the next day and at the end of the week I've had a little milk leftover to freeze. It would seem that breastfeeding would be intuitive, but there is a lot to learn. We seem to have it down pretty well now, though. I hope to keep it up with nothing supplementing him until 6 months. Then we will reevaluate whether he might be ready for some solid foods or not. I want to breastfeed him for a year, but will take each month that he gets my milk as a huge success. I really love that time with my boy. It is something no one else can give him.

Henry

There have been so many parts of this having a baby process that are inexplicable. I try to explain but words fall short. Falling in love with this little baby is yet another example. As Henry grows and changes and learns new things, he just becomes more and more his own person and so completely amazing. I love him more than I thought possible. I want to be with him whenever I can. I miss him when I am at work and I think about him all day long. Rob and I both have a fascination with watching him, just watching. He is so bright, so alert and has been since the moment he was born. He watches us intently, he really seems to concentrate when you play him music or talk to him. He smiles at us, sometimes he makes sounds while smiling that come close to a laugh. He reaches out to touch your face, though at this point his motor skills aren't so refined that you could be certain he is doing that on purpose.
He is such a cuddly little guy. He will hold your hand and curl his body up and rest his head on your shoulder. If he's hungry, even a little, he might try to latch onto your shoulder- or your nose, chin, or finger!
I think about him too much. I worry about him too much. I want to know what he will be like when he is older yet I want him to stay little for as long as possible. He is the most interesting and beautiful little person I've ever met.