Lullaby say what?

The following is a collective summary of a scenario that has played out over the past several weeks and is another one of those things that would have never happened in my pre-parenthood days...

So Henry has this lullaby CD. I started playing it way back when he was brand new, just kindof as background music. Then when we started working really hard on crib-sleeping, I thought it just made sense to incorporate music into the routine. Like, every time you hear this music, it means sleep. The CD is called Jewel's Lullaby, or something like that. It's just a collection of lullabies, mostly old I think, sung by Jewel. It's a pretty good CD. Nice and soothing and mellow. So every night when it's time for bed, I hit "PLAY" and away we go.

Well, a few weeks ago it dawned on me that maybe Henry should be hearing me sing instead. I mean, I want him to be soothed by the sound of my voice. The problem is I don't really know that many lullabies. But I knew the tunes of Jewel's first five or six songs real well. So, I decided to kinda hum along. You know, give him a little combo pack duet thing. It didn't take me long to realize that Jewel and I don't exactly have the same range, so things got a little iffy here and there. Oh well. The next night, I decided I should probably try to pick up some of the lyrics. It was then that things got strange.

At first I thought I must be mistaken, so I listened harder, trying to decipher. Did she just say...no, that doesn't even make sense. So, I googled it. Song #2 is called "All the Animals" and it goes "All the animals agree you and me should be a team. And they walk on parade say that we were made to be a team. And my wings weaken beneath your will. And before you I am trembling and still." HUH??? I just cannot sing that. I don't even get it.

Anyway, not only does Henry fall asleep to this CD, Dameon and I also fall asleep to it playing through the baby monitor. It's really no big deal and we're pretty used to it by now, but the other night I had one of the most seemingly real dreams I've ever had. The kind where you have to be awake for quite awhile to convince yourself it wasn't real. I'm sure you can guess who the dream featured. Yep, Jewel. In my dream I was sleeping and Jewel woke me up by knocking on our bedroom door. She said, "Can I come in?" And I said something non-committal like, "Uh, I guess." Then she came in with a bunch of animals walking two by two, total Noah's Ark style. She was determined to fit all these animals around the edges of our bedroom and she just kept packing 'em in. Like elephants and rhinos and stuff.

The next night we tried to switch out the CD to a classical piano type thing, but Henry wouldn't stand for it. He loves it. So, Jewel it is.

Sometimes my life is weird.

photo recap

Henry has a lot of new favorite things these days. Here are some of them in no particular order:

Riding around (and falling asleep!) in his new carrier. This picture was taken when we went over to check out the action at the Central Drum Major and Color Guard Camp that Daddy was working at.

Sitting in his new high chair

Rolling all around and playing with toys

Razzing and saying, "Da da da da da"

Grabbing things and trying to get them to his mouth

Pushing up and using his arms to do a little bit of scooting

New perspectives of old toys

New uses for old toys

Getting tuckered out from all that play time!!

for the sake of reminiscing

I came across this video the other day and found myself saying that thing that moms always say. Something like, "I forgot how tiny he was!!" Believe me. I get it now!

six months...what?!?! that's crazy.

Our little Henry is just bursting with personality these days! Other moms have told me that this is a really fun age. They're right!

• With his clothes and diaper on, he's 18 pounds
• He loves to make big up and down motions with his arms. Looks like he wants to direct the band!
• "Da-da-da-da-da-da" is his favorite thing to say. I think it's cuz he gets such a big reaction out of us when he does it.
• He loves to watch Rufus run around and gets quite a kick out of him.
• He eats rice cereal once a day and seems to think it's okay. No big reaction or anything.
• He has lots of new hair growing in and it is much lighter than the color he was born with. Not sure if he'll be light like me or dark like Daddy.
• Eyes are still blue. I think they're here to stay. The blue, not the eyes, that is. :)
• He rolls over every whichway
• He likes to read books and pays attention to the pictures. YAY!
• He made it to and from northern Minnesota without fussing until the last hour. (see previous post.)
• It seems like he's close to sitting up. He can do a tri-pod with a little help.
• He doesn't much care for his binky anymore. Fine by me.
• He can reach and grab things with intention.
• He likes to watch other babies or little kids. So cute!
• He has come very close to sleeping through the night, but not quite. I'm okay with that.
• Still gets mistaken for a girl on a daily basis. The other night I dressed him in a blue onesie, blue pants and a blue bib before we went on our walk. As we were leaving, I told him that someone would still think he was a girl. I was right.
• He takes all his baths in the big bathtub.
• He is starting to catch on to Peek-A-Boo
• Has figured out how to loudly smack his lips and does it all the time.
• Continues to be the happiest little guy!!

vacation in review

Before Henry was born, Dameon and I had a conversation about where we would like to go on a family vacation someday. One of my top 5 picks was Lutsen, Minnesota. It's a little getaway town that sits right on Lake Superior about 50 miles south of the Canadian border. My family went there when I was 14 and we had a great time. And I knew it would be right up Dameon's alley because there are so many things to do outdoors while enjoying the gorgeous scenery. So when Dameon's friend, Mike, asked Dameon to be a groomsman in his wedding we were pumped to discover that the wedding would be taking place in...Lutsen!! Well, I should say, "kinda pumped." It was about the time that Henry started regularly screaming his head off in the car (sometime mid-January) that I started to stress about this trip. 18 hours round trip in the car with a screaming baby? No thanks. I even asked the pediatrician at his 2-month check if there was anything I could do to encourage a better experience in the car because we were going to need to drive to northern Minnesota in June. We're not sure the reason but Henry only makes it to Des Moines about 50% of the time without crying. Other than that, he rarely cries. Weird. When we first started planning this vacation, my parents were going to join us. But then as time went on my dad decided he really couldn't be away from work in the middle of June. So it ended up just being my mom who came along. We were determined to have as much free entertainment as possible, so we brought mom and dad's bike rack and two bikes along, too. We left Winterset around 8 on Thursday morning and headed for Boone. Then was the long drive north. Henry fell asleep around Ames and woke up about 30 minutes into Minnesota. Amazing! We stopped at a gas station and pulled out our picnic lunch (Joyce woulda been proud!!) Then back in the car for another few hours before stopping again for a stretch break. Henry slept off and on but he DID NOT FUSS! About an hour before arriving in Lutsen, we came upon a park called Gooseberry Falls. We had visited there when we had come back in 1998, and my mom encouraged us to stop. We pulled out the stroller and starting hiking along the trail. The weather was beautiful and the waterfalls...amazing!

After about an hour, we got back in the Pilot and headed to our destination. We stayed at a resort that was on Lutsen Mountain. There were ski runs right outside our door. We unloaded and then had dinner at a super good restaurant called Moguls. I had white fish that was caught right there in the lake. Delish! The next morning we decided to take Henry to the pool. This was his first time!
He didn't really have much of a reaction, but seemed to be really relaxed in the water! Good thing since his daddy loves water. Thanks for the swim trunks, Auntie Jess!! During naptime that afternoon, Mom offered to stay with Henry so Dameon and I could take a ride down the alpine slide. Good times! Then it was time to shower and get ready for the rehearsal. We met up with the wedding party down on the beach and discovered that the wedding was going to take place right there along the lake! Beautiful! It was pretty windy and chilly that evening, so they moved the dinner indoors and we had a good time enjoying some yummy food and meeting new friends. Then Dameon headed to the beach bonfire while I went back to check on Henry. The next morning we went on a bike ride and just hung out until the wedding. It turned out to be a gorgeous day...perfect weather for an outdoor wedding. And it was sooooo nice to have Mom there so that I could attend all the festivities with Dameon. The bride looked beautiful and everyone enjoyed themselves.

The next day (Sunday) was Mom's birthday, so we planned a few fun things to celebrate. The morning started with Mom and Dameon going on a (free) canoe tour. They really enjoyed being out on the water and listening to the tour guide tell them all about the area. Then we bought gondola tickets and rode up to the top of the mountain to eat lunch at the restaurant up there. Great views on the way up and Dameon did a good job of distracting the rest of us from our immense fear of heights. (Yes, a little "The hills are alive with the sound of music" was certainly sung.)

Here's a view from the top. You can see the lake way off in the distance...

While we were up there, we did a little hiking. I don't know how much of an outdoor girl I really am, but I did alright. One thing I love about Dameon is that he can find fun in every situation. Couple that with the fact that he loves the great outdoors and we had a serious nature boy on our hands! He left Mom and I in the dust on those trails!! After the ride back down to the bottom, I finally had Mom convinced that she needed to ride the Alpine Slide with me. She hates ski lifts, so this was something that was definitely out of her comfort zone. I felt like if I could get her on the lift, then we were one step closer to getting her on a plane. And then my dad can take her on a trip...I hope. Right after we bought our lift tickets I began to reiterate to Mom how the lift was a super smooth ride, and the ground followed right along with it, so you didn't even feel like you were that high off the ground, etc., etc. Just then, the lift halted to a stop. The worker girl got on her walkie-talkie and then told us that it was no big deal. The guys at the top had just failed to pump the break. (Oh yeah, no big deal!!!) After a lot of back and forth with the maintenance guys, the lift was still not moving and they had to decide to shut down for the day. Mom and I couldn't help but comment, "What if we woulda been her five minutes sooner? We woulda been up there!!" I couldn't help but ask the girl what happens if people get stuck on the lift. She told me they would have to throw a rope up over the brace on the chair and the people have to strap themselves into a harness and lower themselves into a basket. Ha! That's the sort of thing my nightmares are made of. Seriously. So, no alpine slide for Mom. We headed back to the hotel to rest a little and Dameon went for a hike. (GREAT trails and waterfalls right at our resort!!) Then we got cleaned up and headed back to Moguls for a birthday dinner. We sat next to this older couple who were also staying at our resort. As we were waiting to order, the man said to us, "I've never seen a baby who looks so much like his dad!" We all kinda laughed and my mom told him that just that morning at the local coffee shop, the barista had commented on how Henry looks exactly like me. The man scoffed and said, "Was she CRAZY??" We got a good laugh out of that. Must mean Henry is a perfect combination of both of us? :) Anyway, we ate some great food and Dameon even said his sandwich was the best he'd ever had. Then it was time for dessert. Chocolate fondue with homemade marshmallows, donut sticks, and strawberries! Plus a Campfire S'mores brownie cake with marshmallow and graham cracker crust. YUM. We capped off the day with a bonfire that Dameon built in the fire pit right outside our hotel room. We had some good conversation and some good laughs. And the weather was absolutely perfect for a fire!

The next morning we hit the road and Henry was a perfect traveler...again! The only time he fussed was the last hour of the trip between Boone and Winterset. SUCH an amazingly good baby. It was a great time full of great memories!

the proof is in the poopie

I'm taking the plunge and writing about my child's poop. I'm sorry, but I have to.

As a new mom, I had done a fair amount of reading about all things "newborn". Before becoming a parent, I had spent quite a bit of time with other people's babies so that meant I knew about sleeping, burping, diaper changing, etc. But what I really didn't know much about was nursing. In one of the chapters it talked about how breastfed babies really shouldn't struggle with constipation issues because breastmilk is so easily used and digested. Great! Fast-forward to somewhere around Henry's two-month birthday.

Henry had been a little cranky one night, which was unusual for him. He had also vomited twice. Not spit-up...vomit. We decided I should call the pediatrician and make sure there wasn't a problem. In the morning I took him in and they did the usual rundown. Temp, listening to his heart and lungs, and lightly pressing on his abdomen. Then the doc told me she'd like to take an x-ray of his bowels to make sure there wasn't something blocking the way. The sound of that immediately made me nervous because I wasn't sure that would be safe and/or necessary. She assured me that one x-ray would be only minimal amounts of radiation. Looking back, I wish I would have put the pieces together that he was pooping normally so a blockage was likely not that problem. But...hindsight is 20/20 and I didn't think of that at the time. We did the x-ray and she came back to tell me he had a lot of gas built up in his belly. She then suggested that I pump a little bit, mix in some prune juice, and give him a bottle. Now, again, being the nervous first-timer that I am, I went to Fareway and bought the prune juice...still not really putting the pieces together. But then once I really started to think about it, that didn't make much sense. First of all, I really wasn't sure what the prune juice would do. Secondly, he had never had anything like that before and the sugar content alone would probably be enough to cause more stomach problems than we started with.

I called up my chiropractor cousin and she recommended bringing him in for an adjustment. Henry was adjusted right after birth and several other times prior to this phone call, so I didn't hesitate to take him in. (And someday I'll post about how chiropractic literally saved me during pregnancy and allowed me to continue being mobile and working when the pain would have otherwise left me bed-ridden and miserable.) After being adjusted that day, there was no more vomiting and even his spitting-up nearly ceased.

In more recent weeks, he has been experiencing long spurts where he doesn't poop at all. Like he'll go 7 or 8 days! Twice now I've taken him for an adjustment during one of those periods and he has pooped within 48 hours following the adjustment! Amazing! And it makes me feel so good to achieve these results without x-rays or prune juice.

Now, I am in no way trying to imply that pediatricians are bad or wrong or that they don't have the best interest of my child in mind. Not at all! I actually really like our pediatrician and would recommend her to anyone who is searching. I just think that there are a variety of options out there that parents aren't always aware of or don't always consider when looking at their child's overall health. I'm not an expert and I'm not a doctor. Just a mom who has seen great results come from getting regular chiropractor care for my family.

henry laughs

Been meaning to post this for awhile now.