I saw a commercial for a new (at least to me) antihistamine. It's called Chlor-Trimeton. Sounds like the name of a Decepticon. It kind of makes me giggle when they say it on the commercial. Still, it's nothing compared to Aciphex, which I've mentioned before.
And third, there was another commercial for investing in gold. I have two things to say about that. 1) If something is really such a good investment, does it need to be advertised? 2) A cheaply made commercial doesn't convince me that you're making money, thus it doesn't convince me that I would make money. Obviously you changed your phone number after the commercial was initially recorded. But, you couldn't afford the original announcer to say the new phone number, nor could you afford to rerecord the entire commercial. Instead, you have one announcer say everything up to "1-800," another guy takes over for the remaining seven digits, then the original announcer resumes. It's noticeable, trust me.
Edit: maybe it's a fill-in-the-blank commercial? Like, "say your seven-digit phone number now." You say the number, and it is inserted in the commercial. It would be more seamless to have one person say all ten digits, though.
Nate had his four month appointment yesterday! Rodgers took him, since he has mornings off, and I had purposely scheduled the appointment for 8 am. :)
Nate is now 15 lbs 9 oz and 25 inches long. That puts him in about the 50th percentile for height and the 60th for weight (the low estimate, other growth percentile charts put him higher than that). Rodgers didn't write down Nate's head circumference, but he thinks it was 44 cm. That would be over the 90th percentile. But, I always knew he had a big head.
Dr. gave us the green light on going to the swimming pool and starting rice cereal. We tried some cereal last night but Nate was ready for bed and totally uninterested. He slurped it off the spoon, but kept trying to lie down. Maybe we'll get up early and try some one morning. We'll try out the pool later.
He started rolling over on his four month birthday, which means he no longer tolerates tummy time. He used to take it for a few minutes, then start screaming until we turned him over. Now, he just immediately rolls over onto his back. It's like his first problem solving exercise. Suddenly he's realized that he can fix something he doesn't like.
Our little roller.
Also, he got his four month vaccines. Reading about a recent measles outbreaks (excerpts from study here) is really eye-opening. Even in a highly vaccinated population (San Diego, where this outbreak happened, has a 95% MMR vaccination rate), one intentionally unvaccinated child can expose so many to preventable disease. They quarantined 73 exposed children for 21 days, and eleven contracted measles. Eight of those were children who were intentionally unvaccinated, and three were too young for the MMR. Nate's too young for the MMR, so right now, he's depending on everyone else being vaccinated. I hope they are...
This is a list of the top 100 children's books. We have seven of them: Love You Forever; The Going to Bed Book; Go, Dog, Go; The True Story of the Three Little Pigs; The Cat in the Hat; Hop on Pop; and Owl Moon. We also have the Guess How Much I Love You CD set. It has lots of lullabies and the story as read by the author. But we don't have the book. A lot of the books on the top 100 list are books I've never heard of. I wonder if they were published after I moved on to a higher reading level. I could look it up, of course, but there are soooooooo many. I can't be bothered.
I've been putting Swahili and Kenya story books on Nate's library wish list (on Amazon). Most are so-called Kenyan folk tales. I don't know for sure if they were really taken from a traditional Kenyan story or not. None of them are stories that Rodgers has told me that he remembers his grandpas telling. But regardless, they are based on Kenyan culture, and I want Nate to have some books like that. There are also some books that have Swahili words in them. We have Jambo Means Hello: Swahili Alphabet Book, and Moja Means One: Swahili Counting Book is on the wish list. But I would love for him to have books that are just in Swahili.
I read this morning that The Very Hungry Caterpillar has been translated into 47 languages. I checked it out, and one of the languages listed is Swahili. I can't find it for sale online. But I will be looking!
We kind of celebrated last year, on the DL. We had known for one week that I was pregnant, but we had not told anyone yet. But anyway, this is my first real Mothers' Day, with a child recognized by the IRS.
When I picked Nate up from daycare Friday, they gave me this mug! I love that they were able to get such a good happy picture of him. It makes me feel good knowing that he smiles for them.
The weekend was tiring, but great. Our very good friend Francis, from Kenya, has been in the US since January. He finally made it to central Texas. He was staying with another friend this weekend, and it just so happens that we live 30 miles from that friend. I don't have a good picture of Francis, but you may remember my story of sitting under a mango tree with a friend in Kenya. That was Francis. The picture below is our lunch from that day. Francis was wearing his favorite shirt: Manchester United.
Yesterday, Rodgers drove up to get Francis from his other friends' house. We hung out with him here for a while, then took him to Camp Tejas. He and Rodgers went to high school together, and David Jones taught them physics. Turns out David wasn't at Camp. But, we gave Francis a little tour, talked with some other friends, then visited Claire and James before coming home.
On the trip home, Nate became a different baby. He had been chomping my fingers a lot more this week. I thought perhaps teething is coming soon. I sat in the backseat with Nate for the trip, which was good. He chomped on my fingers a lot, then suddenly, wouldn't stop screaming. He isn't a screamer. He's such a content baby, especially in the car, especially if I'm sitting right there with him and he has a full tummy. I'm mostly positive that his mouth was hurting him. I had some Oragel swabs in his diaper bag, so I rubbed some on his gum, and he fell asleep very soon after.
We were to have dinner with the friends Francis is staying with, but Nate and I stayed home so that we could keep his bedtime, and just in case he got fussy again. He went to bed with no problem and slept from 7 pm to 6:15 am. Straight! He fussed at 4ish, but was already asleep again before Rodgers got to his room.
We went up to Francis' friends' church this morning because Francis was preaching. I put Nate in the nursery, as usual, but they had to come get me in the middle of the service, not as usual. I'd given him some [generic] Tylenol before we went up there, and it helped a lot. But it was wearing off, and it was too soon to have more. My charming-loves everyone-isn't clingy baby was a mess. I fed him and rocked him to sleep. He slept a long, long time.
We were invited to lunch with Francis & Co. but declined. I didn't know what (if anything) Rodgers had planned for my Mothers' Day lunch. His plan was to ask me what I wanted. We thought about trying a buffet, so that we wouldn't have to wait for food to be cooked, but there were no tables, people waiting outside. So I suggested we go to HEB and Rodgers buy something to cook me for lunch.
He did a great job!
And Nate kept sleeping.
They gave me this beautiful, super soft, comfy robe for Mothers' Day. It's so much softer than my old one, and much newer, and not as gross.
When Nate woke up, he was fussy all afternoon. Rodgers had bought one of those audio greeting cards that let you record a message before the song (for my Happy Mothers' Day card). But he had not been able to get a good recording of Nate for me. He gave it to me anyway, and we spent the afternoon trying to get something good on there. Mostly, we got screams and shrieks. But finally, when I was getting him ready for bed, Nate gave me some good giggles, and I recorded them. And I will save them FOREVER.
We've pulled out several different things for him to chew on. This frozen teether was a big hit. I'd also frozen one of his pacifiers, but it warmed up too quickly. I think that his lamb and my fingers are still his favorite chew toys, though.
He was due for some more meds for his mouth about an hour after bedtime. But, he went to bed with no problems, and is sleeping peacefully.
It was a good weekend. Seeing Francis was wonderful. As was seeing Claire and James. Nate teething on my first Mothers' Day was kind of stressful. I mean, stressful any time. But on Mothers' Day? Come on. Shouldn't I be laying out on the balcony sipping a cocktail while someone fans me with a palm frond?
Everything I've read about teaching a baby to fall asleep on their own says that, whatever method you use, you should start between four and six months of age. We were looking forward to starting after Nate's four month birthday, if he seemed ready (whatever that means).
Since starting daycare, Nate has almost always fallen asleep on his own. He plays and relaxes on the ottoman in the evenings while Rodgers and I do chores, work/play on the computer, or watch TV/movies (or sometimes all three...). We play with him, talk to him, and read him books. But he really loves to just watch us. Especially if we're folding laundry. Or if one of us is doing dishes and he can see us through the pass-through.
After getting home from work and daycare, I feed Nate and put him in his pjs (sometimes take a bath), then we play for a while. Then I do whatever else I need to do - usually includes getting something together for Rodgers and me to eat. Some days Nate would fall asleep at 6, and sometimes at 8, but he very rarely needed any help. We would let him fall asleep on the ottoman, then move him to his bed. He typically sleeps about 7 hours, wakes up to eat, then sleeps until we wake him up at 6 am. He does have his nights when he wants to eat more than once, and he also has nights when we don't hear from him till morning.
Saturday, our routine got changed up a bit. After his 6 pm bottle, he was super fussy. He didn't want to play, he didn't want to be rocked, he didn't want to eat more, he didn't want to be soothed, he didn't want to lay on the ottoman. He is sooooo not a fussy baby. I was concerned. Finally, around 7, I just put him in his bed and turned on his Baby Einstein Great Barrier Reef Soother. He immediately settled down, and was asleep in less than ten minutes. He just wanted to be alone in his room, in the dark, so he could fall asleep. I should have known! The rest of this week has been similar, but we don't wait for him to get super fussy before putting him in bed. We just put him to bed around 7ish, wide awake, and he does the rest. We don't always use the soother.
I know lots of people who say, "I wish my kid was still ____." Even people with babies as young as Nate have said this. I have not had that sentiment yet. I have loved every stage of these three-and-a-half months, each stage is better than the last. (This one is best yet because it includes giggles and an independent sleeper!)
So that's our current normal. It was different last week. And I'm sure it will be different again next week.
...and our storage closet is cleaned out and organized! Woohoo! I believe that will be the extent of my spring cleaning.
We keep all of our CDs and DVDs in wallets/binders. We did have all the cases stored out in the closet. Is there any reason to keep on keeping them? I think not. And we never had use for the collectible booklets that come with the DVDs in the first place. We don't really buy them anymore. Since subscribing to Netflix, we have little reason to own movies. And I switched to mp3s several years ago.
Also going away: old trophies. It's fun to win them and display them for a few months, but eventually, they're just in the way.
So far, we're keeping the yearbooks. I have little use for them, but we're not getting rid of them quite yet.
