Big changes

Dustin is around 5 months, 2 weeks old now. I think we are entering the "6-month explosion." It seemed to me that a lot of big changes happen around 6 months: babies start to sit up and crawl. Solid foods are introduced. First teeth appear. All of this is happening to us around now, and it seems to go so rapidly!

We put a bib around Dustin nearly full-time now, as he is an artesian well of drool. He seems inconsolably fussy sometimes, and we have started to employ the catch-all scapegoat of, "well, he must be teething."

He also has become a tumbler! He mastered rolling from his back to his tummy over a month ago (see post from November 18th). Now he has developed a method to "scoot" around on a mattress or blanket. He basically works like an inch-worm. Starting on his tummy, I think that he wants to stand up so bad, that he walks his legs up as far as they will go, thrusting his bottom up into the air, and his head and hands downward into the mattress. It's like a downward-dog yoga position. All that vertical potential energy may then flop to one side or the other. If his arm is tucked under his body, he rolls (falls) over from belly to back. This roll seems to catch him off-guard, as he usually looks very surprised to be suddenly on his back again. If there is enough friction beneath his feet, he'll collapse down, and inch forward a bit. He is also doing the "revving up" that many babies do before crawling: he will be on his hands and knees, and rock forwards and backwards, usually fussing. The arms generally collapse out first, or the legs become over-ambitious and run him back up to a downward-dog position.

His awareness of food is exploding! He has wanted to put everything in his mouth for a while now, leaving a slobbery path to mark where ever he has been. Now he will reach for any drink I am drinking, and want to put the lip of the cup up to his lips. He grabs for forks, spoons, and dinner foods. When we give him something to put in his mouth, he seems to enjoy it, move it around his mouth, and then eventually spit it out.

In light of all these changes, his nighttime sleep has taken a plunge. The last 3 nights at grandma Kleiss's and 2 nights here in Portland have been tough. Maybe its teething pain. He is practicing his acrobatics in his sleep, which awakens him and drives him into the crib walls. He has returned to waking during the night up to 5 times. This is much harder on me now that I am at work, and not able to stay at home and catch up with naps with him during the day.

Stay tuned for the conclusion of all of these developments!

Pull Yourself Out of a Cry

We were all excited to try out late evening traveling with Dustin. With a 9pm departure time, we figured that he would fall asleep just as the plane was taking off. But instead, once we got into our seats, he began crying like the world was ending. We could see the other passengers cringe as Dustin let out cries that echoed through the plane.

Mommy tried to feed him, but he flat refused. I tried taking him to the back of the plane to pace a little with zero improvement. We changed his diaper hoping that that was it. He calmed down just long enough to get back to our seats, but started up again as they were closing the doors and pulling away.

With a flash of genisus, Jessica remember how much Dustin loved pulling himself up, and figured that it might just be the thing that could break the crying spell. Sure enough, Dustin quieted down as Jessica offered her two index fingers for him to grab. He got a good grasp and started pulling himself up. You could see the concentration on his face as he made it to sitting, but he wasn't done yet. He started to press up with his legs and a smile broke out as he reached standing.

This lasted about ten seconds, and we could hear the fussing start to burble it's way out. So Jessica laid him down for round 2. The screams erupted as his head touched the seat, but quickly disappeared as he clutched the out-stretched fingers and started to pull. This time we got a little giggle as he completed the journey to standing. You could almost hear the plane sign with relief as Dustin became happier and happier. This lasted until the plane took off and we got our much wanted sleeping baby for the rest of the flight.

Christmas Part 3

I wipe the grogginess out of my eyes and notice that it's 9:54am on Christmas morning and Dustin is sleeping right next to me. I don't know how many years it has been since I was able to sleep past 8am on Christmas morning. I normally have nieces and nephews pounding on my door telling me that Santa came, and that I needed to get down stares to open presents. I guess that it will be a little bit before Dustin gets that way.

I managed to nudge Dustin awake and take him to the bathroom for his morning pee and poop. I then got him dressed and brought him down stairs to a busy house. People were cooking breakfast, playing with Audrey and Ansel, and others were drinking their morning coffee. Jessica noticed that everyone was awake, so she insisted that we start taking family pictures since all the kids were happy. We got most of the way through them before the kids started to breakdown, which meant we had a little amount of time before complete melt down.

This meant it was present time. We brought most of the presents out before Audrey tore into her first one. The gift fest was underway. Dustin was again more interested in the wrapping paper then the gifts inside. Vanessa had the best ribbon on her gift, which kept Dustin mesmerized for a few minutes while Jessica and I opened our presents. Again it took us a while but we managed to get Dustin to play with the toys not just the wrapping.

Later in the day, we took Dustin to play in the snow for the first time. He first walked around with Grandpa Roddy while Jessica and I skated on the Kleiss pond. We then brought Dustin onto the pond. There were a couple of places on the pond where the snow wasn't cleared. I sat Dustin down in the snow for the first time. He seemed quite interested in the a snow ball right in front of him. He couldn't grab it, so I picked it up for him to see. He quickly dove to put it in his mouth. I thought he wouldn't like the cold, but I was wrong. He munched on the snow like a champ for a good 5 minutes before getting to cold and started crying.

I would say this was a great first Christmas, and we will all be sad to have to leave all the family. We can't wait to see them again.

Christmas, Part 2 of 3

Tomorrow will be our last day in Milwaukee, so we had yet another pre-Christmas celebration. Aunt Jenni had a cute baby hat, labeled "baby's first Christmas," but it seemed to be made for a newborn. You can see it, perched on Dustin's head, in this picture. He seemed happy everyone was looking at him balancing a hat on his head.

He continues to enjoy eating the paper wrapping and tissue paper. And he seems to like having everybody gathered in one room. When I took the wrapping paper away from him, he cried heartily at the loss. That was the first time I saw that behavior. He is also getting better at ripping the wrapping off of the presents. This, too, is the first destructive behavior that I've seen of him. Ah, Christmas does bring out some of our personality traits!

Taking a break from full-time motherhood

One of the great things about being with family is all the extra help! In the picture at right, Grandma Jean (top) is playing with Dustin, as cousin Abby (left) and Mitchell (lower right) join in. Even with all this attention, Dustin likes to look at the flashing lights on the camera.

First Christmas Part 1

Twas the night before G Paws left, so Christmas was in the making. G Paws (Grandpa Goetsch) was busy all day shopping for the presents, but Jessica and I were oblivious. That is, until Jennifer told us in about 30 minutes we were going to be doing Part 1 of Christmas while G Paws was here. Jessica quickly jumped into action and wrapped our present, which wasn't done, but what else could we do. It worked out though, because our present was a little too big to fit into his suitcase, so we were going to ship it to him anyways.

Dustin was in a good mood as we all gathered around the tree. Abby assumed her role as the gift giver and gave Dustin his first gift. He just sat and stared at the bright red colors. We slow ripped a little corner off hoping that he would understand, but we were greeted with more stares. We tore a little more, and that caught his attention. He dove towards the wrapping, trying to shove it into his mouth. He tore more paper off as he shoved it into his mouth.

We finally got to the gift inside, but when we took the paper away, Dustin started to cry. We attempted to cheer him up with the rattle inside, but he wouldn't stop until we gave him the paper back. He completely decimated the paper within minutes. Paper can't standup to the drool machine. At least we were able to play with the rattle. The next present caught Dustin's attention. Dustin loves light, so what better present then a light that you can play with.

Part 1 has been a great success. I can't wait for the next parts and what they will reveal, but we will have to do it without G Paws.

Five months old today!

It's my fifth birthday! Or it's my one hundred fifty-third birthday! Or it's my 5/12th birthday.

I haven't really decided which units to use (months, days, or years). If I count in hours, then I'm way over 3,000. But that's really hard to show with my fingers. People sometimes ask me how old I am, and it's easiest to just answer them in years. So I just say nothing. Works out great, since I haven't decided to talk to my parents with words yet. I say everything I need to say in cryptic noises, mostly fusses and cries.

I have a throaty, intermittent cry for "this is exciting, and possibly too thrilling, so I'm going to cry soon." I have a squeaky cry for "this is fun, and you must continue to entertain me, or I will cry soon." And I have a big smile that I reserve for the times that I'm trying to train my parents how to treat me. Then I will cry soon.

We didn't celebrate my birthday today. Mom mentioned it a couple times, and everyone thought it was cool, and that was the end of it. As my grandpa says, "Every day is Dustin Day!"

In Wisconsin

Here's a photo of Dustin and I walking through Crex Meadows. Jeff took the picture, as he was on the walk with us. More pictures of the family and cousins to come!

First airplane ride

Today we took Dustin on an airplane for the first time! Many passengers in the airport asked us, "Is this his first flight?" Yes, it was. But more importantly, perhaps, it was OUR first flight with him! We did all the packing and planning, and he just came along for the ride.

He fell asleep in the car to the airport, and woke up just near the end of the security line. That was fortunate! Jeff relaxed at the boarding gate while Dustin and I went to get a hamburger for me to eat. When we returned, he had a poopy diaper, so I went to change it. Unfortunately, all of the "preferred boarding" occurred while we were in the lady's room, so we had to elbow our way on to the plane.

We had heard that it's great to breastfeed the baby on takeoff and landing, and that they typically sleep the rest of the flight. Of course Dustin doesn't make things quite so easy. He's a fast eater (typically 5-10 minutes), so we had to delay his eating until we were sure that we were taking off and landing. He took his typical naps on the plane: sleep for 45 minutes, then awake for 2 hours. He gave us another poopy diaper on the plane. Maybe the reduced air pressure makes it easier for babies to squeeze it out. Unfortunately, planes are not as entertaining as you might think. He got quite squirmy and bored, and we did what we could to keep him occupied.

We were the last ones off the planes, to the extent that the flight attendants were huddled around us, waiting for us to finally get the car seat and get off the ramp so they could go home. All in all, I would say it was a successful trip. But by no means easy.

Pops, Squeaks, and Whistles

Dustin just started exploring the upper registers of his voice. It's very cute to listen to him squeek, whiz, whistle, and coo. He amuses himself with the sounds, making himself laugh. It is also amusing to all of us. However, in the car today he started getting fussy, and he started crying while using his higher-pitched noises. At that moment I realized that what seems cute for a happy baby can be very UN-cute for a fussy baby! Screeching crying is not so amusing! Since you can't really take a picture of a squeaking, chirping baby, this post goes without a picture.

OMSI

Yesterday, Dustin and I got a membership at OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry). On our way to the there, Dustin decided to take a nap, which meant that I spent 30 minutes in the parking lot waiting for him to wake up. This was a good thing, because it meant that Dustin was wide awake and ready to play.

It took us a little while to set everything up, which Dustin found quite boring and let us know it. Fussing definitely has an ability to move things along. The fussing quickly went away as we entered the first area. It was oriented more towards the older patrons, but he was quite happy looking at all the colorful signs. But anytime time Daddy started reading any of the exhibits, Dustin insisted that we move along.

Next we found the play area which was teaming with kids. We knew that we found our place. We slowly wandered through the room, and Dustin was as interested in all the toys as with the kids playing with them. We settled into the 0-24 month area, where Dustin was amazed by the red grid hanging from the ceiling.

We ended up spending 2 hours there. Dustin wasn't ready to go, but I could tell he was in need of a nap. Sure enough, as soon as we started driving, Dustin fell asleep. I'm sure he's dreaming about all the things he saw.

Perpetual motion machine

Dustin has totally mastered "pumping" on his bouncy chair. This morning I put him in his bouncy chair at about 8:30am. I made myself eggs for breakfast while he bounced himself. I took a shower and got dressed while he bounced himself. I chatted on the phone with my sister-in-law, and talked with Jeff about Christmas plans, while he bounced himself. Finally he got a little fussy around 10am. At that point I gave him a pacifier, and took over the bouncing so he could rest his legs, and he fell asleep within about 5 minutes. (Right now I am bouncing him with my foot, and he is sleeping.)

The baby experts say that babies who can find their hands and suck on them are "self soothers." I say that a baby who can comfort himself nearly to sleep by bouncing himself is also a fantastic self soother!

Photogenic Baby

Is it true that all babies like to be photographed? Surely not! I've seen some tots who have learned to hate cameras, probably from the flash burning bright little squares into their retinas.

But I have heard that nearly all babies love cell phones. Here is a photo that Jeff took with his iPhone. Dustin loves having the little black box pointed at him, possibly because at that moment everyone tries to make him smile and laugh. He also wants to play with this little black box himself. So those are the little hands, reaching out to grab the phone!

First Hair Cut

I'll just let the picture speak for itself. We gave him a truly amateur hair cut. Luckily Dustin does not yet know how to be "self conscious."

Picking Toys Up

Today was the first time that I've seen Dustin pick up a toy off the ground. He normally waits for us to hand him toys, drops them, and fusses until we give them back to him. Today, there was a toy laying right beside him, and I could see him look at it and almost start fussing. But instead, he reached with his right hand and picked it up and brought it to his mouth, because everything needs a good dose of slobber.

He is starting to push more and more with his hands when he is on his stomach. He still hasn't rolled from tummy to back, but he is getting lots of tummy time, which should help. Jessica is very diligent about helping him to great Cobra pose, and teaching him to roll.