Catching up

Once again, I am WAY behind on updates. The past few weeks have been a whirlwind, and I just cannot seem to find the time to blog. I guess I should pick back up with an update on my brother - he got out of the hospital on Friday, July 24, and immediately drove out of town to go to a Dave Matthews Band concert in Hershey. Paige and Peyton came to stay at my parents' house, and we had a great time. On Friday, we took the girls to a singing story hour and playspace time at Kidville. Kidville is this wonderful play and learning place for children. They offer all kinds of music, gym, education, art and language development classes. All summer, they have been sponsoring free story times and playspace events (almost every week), and Little Maestro Concert, pizza and playspace events. Micah loves going (we are enrolled in a class there this Fall), and it seemed like a perefect thing for Paige and Peyton. They had such a good time!

Saturday was a day at the pool - another fun day with the girls. They pushed Micah around in his floaty, played with toys, and it was a wonderful afternoon! I'm amazed by how much Micah is developing - he now prefers to "walk" around the pool in his floaty - feet on the ground and standing tall. Saturday night, Elliot and I went over to Niki and Eric's house for dinner and hanging out. We picked up Indian food along they way. It was the first time in a few months we tried putting Micah to bed while we were out, and it was a smashing success! He fell asleep in their pack and play, transferred easily to his car seat, and did not wake up when we transferred him into the crib!

On Sunday, my cousin Trenna arrived with her 4 year old son Zander for a week-long visit. We all gathered at my parents' house on Sunday afternoon/evening for dinner and catching up. Micah went to bed in the pack and play, and again transferred easily back home. On Monday, I did not get to spend any time with Trenna and Zander - they went downtown with my father to do a bit of sightseeing. Zander loves the movie Night at the Museum, so they spent the day visiting all the museums and following a map of movie highlights. My babysitter Christin was with us all day, and I tried to get some work done. I had mah jong on Monday night, so Trenna and I made plans to meet on Tuesday. She was hoping to take Zander to the zoo. They were predicting rain most of the week, so she decided to just take him down on the first clear day. Tuesday brought some oppressive heat, and I was totally stressed about work and worried about exposing Micah to the heat. I needed to give a webinar in the afternoon, and I did not think I could go out and get back in sufficient time to do my work. Unfortunately, I bailed on the trip to the zoo, so Trenna and Zander had to go alone. When they returned, Elliot made dinner for us. We ate together and Micah and Zander played. It was so sweet to see the boys hanging out together - Micah was totally enamored of his big cousin! While Trenna was here, I began working on my shoe cake for my friend Jamie's birthday.

On Wednesday, we hosted playgroup at our house. I got a bit of work done in the early morning and in the afternoon, then went off to my parents' house for dinner. Once again, Micah fell asleep in the pack and play and transferred without any difficulty. This new discovery has completely freed us! We now know we can go out a bit more at night and bring Micah along. When we got home Thursday night, I finished making the shoe for my cake.

Thursday, Micah went to Christin's house for the day while I worked and decorated a cake. I got all dressed up and went out for dinner with my friends, and we had a blast! It was our first real girls' night out without babies and husbands, and it was just a fun evening - lots of laughter, a little too much wine, and some good food.

On Friday, Trenna, Zander, Micah and I drove to see Jen, Jeremy and the girls in Baltimore. We went to a pirate story hour in Fells Point, then took a ferry ride across to Tide Point to visit my brother's office and have lunch with him. We got back to our house just in time to attend a Little Maestros concert and playspace event at Kidville. Once again, Zander and Micah had a great time! Zander loved the music, so I bought him a CD so he could remember this trip. After the concert, we went for dinner at my parents' house again, and spent the rest of the evening together.

Saturday was another pool day with the kids. It was a beautiful, fun, relaxing day. We went out for dinner at Noodles & Company, ran a few errands, then called it a night. I spent most of Sunday recuperating from my week.

Monday and Tuesday I was back to the grindstone with work. Christin was out of town, so her friend Lauren came to babysit Micah. She was great, and she will be available in the Fall to cover Tuesdays and Thursdays when Micah is not in daycare.

In the middle of all the insanity the past few weeks, we bought a new coffee table! It is just a basic one from Crate & Barrel, made of wood, two drawers and an open shelf on the bottom. Micah loves to try and crawl onto the shelf, and today he managed to pull the stack of papers off the shelf. He loves to use the shelf for pushing up - it might become his favorite hiding space in the very near future. We did have one emergency bath today - the babysitter was changing Micah's diaper, and he had a double pee explosion, sans diaper. He needed a bath because he managed to pee all over his hair!

What else can I say? Micah turns 8 months old in 10 days!! He is growing every day by leaps and bounds. Sometimes, I think he is saying "hi." He is definitely a crazy waving machine, and he even knows it means "hi." Every time he sees someone new or a familiar face, he breaks into a big grin and starts waving like crazy. Micah uses his entire arm to wave - it kind of looks like he is trying to fly away. I really do need to catch some video of that this week! He is standing all the time now, and getting pretty close to pulling himself up. He is going to be all kinds of trouble as he grows. He definitely has a stubborn streak (wonder where he gets that from?), and he seems to grab and get into everything. He is now sticking his hand out of the crib and stealing stuff off the night table. I either need to clear the night table or move it. Changing his diaper is an exercise in dexterity - he is definitely a moving, rolling target. He loves to eat, and he now enjoys three big meals each day. He also gets a snack in the afternoons - he loves MumMums and cereal or puffs. He is just now starting to get the hang of picking up small pieces of food and putting them in his mouth. We've slowly started to try some chunkier food, and he has been handling it all well. He is slowly learning to play "So Big" and he is army crawling/rolling/pivoting all over the place. He is desperately trying to crawl. He likes to move from a sit to all fours, he usually does one crawl, and then he collapses to his belly.

We just started changing his closet over to the 6-9 months size. My little guy is finally outgrowing his 3-6 month clothing. I have a feeling we won't be in these clothes too long - he'll be ready to move up to 12 months within two months, I would guess.

As for weaning...well, that is not going quite as quickly as I expected (which is totally my fault). Micah is down to nursing about 4 times a day (sometimes 5). I no longer pump at night before bed, but frankly, giving him a bottle and pumping is much more hassle than nursing him when we are both at home. At this rate, I probably won't really commit to weaning him until he is in daycare 3 days a week. I am hoping to be able to quickly drop the pumping session at that point, start using up my freezer stash of milk, then slowly switch over to formula. I'm not sure when/how I will drop the morning and night nursing sessions, but he needs to be willing to take the bottle for all of his meals by mid-September as I am going to be in Atlanta for work for 4 days, and I have decided to leave him behind with my parents (since Elliot will be attending the conference, too). I guess that week will be a good time to begin cutting back on the pumping.

As for my diet - well, let's just say "what diet?" I fell off the wagon, and hard. I think I started to diet prematurely - it was causing issues with my milk supply, and while I was thrilled about that at first, Micah was quite unhappy and dissatisfied, and it made him grumpy and unwilling to take a bottle. I added some carbs back in to help the supply, and Micah finally seemed contented, and he is back to taking his bottle. But once the carbs started sneaking in, it was all downhill!

Okay - I'll have to add some more descriptive pictures and video when I have some free time. I will do my best to stay on top of blogging this week!

Let them eat cake!

I have a huge long update to post for this week, but I'm still drowning in work and other stuff. I thought I'd post a picture of a cake I made for a friend. We are having a birthday party for her tonight (no babies or boys!) so it should be a lot of fun.

7 month photos

Sorry it has taken so long - I finally found some time to scan Micah's 7 month photos.

Whirlwind - Crawling, Standing, Walking and Infections

Another crazy week - and very few posts. So much has been going on that I can barely keep up with it all! Perhaps the best thing to do is pick up where I left off - last Saturday. My intention was to scan and post Micah's 7 month photos (I will get to that shortly) and to post some adorable Micah video (also on deck).

Saturday was a fun day. I met my friend Heather for lunch at Organic to Go, a new restaurant in Bethesda. The food was good and Micah had a wonderful time flirting with everyone there. We went to a pool party in the afternoon at our community pool. We invited a bunch of the babies and parents from our playgroup, and we had tons of fun! The babies swam, tugged at each other, shared food and showed off their talents. One of the babies, Juliet, can crawl and pull up to a stand, and she is putting the rest of our babies to shame with her precocious physicality. Actually, Juliet was quite impressive at the pool - she was sitting in front of a pool chair, grabbed on with both hands, and did a massive pull-up to a stand. I swear I could see her back muscles flexing around her baby bikini! I had an image of one of those female bodybuilders flash through my head when I saw her pull-up!

Saturday night, we had our babysitter, Christin, come back to take care of Micah while we went out to dinner with our friends Heather and Brad. We decided on Chinese food, and it was delicious! I had forgotten about City Lights, so it will now be added to our delivery list for future ordering. We initially planned on attending a movie, but bailed when we all realized how tired we were. Instead, we came back to the house and watched a movie on demand.

On Sunday, I went over to my parents' house to help my Dad set up his new computer - just the basics, like connecting the computer to the internet, transferring files from his old computer, making sure all the software and drivers he needed were installed. It was quite a job! I had a raging migraine that day, and Micah was being a bit of a grump, and I had a huge knot in my back - it was one of those days I should have just never gotten up in the morning.

Monday marked one week on South Beach diet. I am proud to say that I lost 5 lbs. I know that average and healthy weight loss is 1-2 lbs per week, but I hate that weight loss is such a slow process. Somehow, it never seems like I will be able to realize my goal. I guess 5 lbs off is better than 5 lbs on, right? I spent all day working my tail off - we had Christin here for the day, so I was able to accomplish a fair amount of work. We spent some of the time showing off our standing skills to Christin. While we were showing off, we decided to get really crazy...and took a step while holding on to the couch one-handed! I was stunned - he isn't crawling, but he is already trying to cruise. I am SOOO not ready for any of this. Don't forget to press the triangle on the bottom left corner to play the video!



Our other big event of the day? Jumping. In the jumperoo, to be more precise. Micah has been in the jumperoo many times over the past few months, but jumping has not been his thing. Until Monday. Christin helped Micah discover the joys of jumping, and he has been a jumping maniac every time we put him in the jumperoo now.

Monday evening was mah jong - another fun evening! However, Monday night is where my week took a bit of a "left turn" shall we say. While I was there, I received a call from Elliot asking whether I had heard if my brother Jeremy was okay. Apparently, Jeremy had posted on Facebook that he was at a clinic for an infection. After checking in with him, we learned that he went to a clinic because of an infection in his arm, and he thought it was no big deal.

Bright and early Tuesday morning, Christin arrived to babysit Micah and my friend Kate from playgroup and her daughter Emily. My friend had an appointment, so she asked if she could share our babysitter for the morning. Micah and Emily were adorable playing together! They had such a good time, and I got several hours of work accomplished. While Emily and Micah were playing, I learned that Jeremy woke up and could not move his arm - the infection was worse. Stubborn idiot that he is, he refused to miss work and go to the hospital. We spent the entire day trying to convince him to seek help. In the afternoon, I went to my condo to finish emptying everything out while the babysitter watched Micah. We are hoping to have it fully emptied and cleaned and on the market by next month.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, it became clear that Micah is a crazy, clapping machine. He LOVES to clap. He claps when he is happy, he claps to hear the sound - he claps and claps and claps. Except when I turn on the video camera. I'm still working on clapping footage. He is so cute - he claps with his palms facing outwards, and he claps the palm of one hand on the back of the other hand. I still say that counts! In the meantime, here is some video of Micah (and the dog) playing together (press the triangle on the bottom left corner):



But wait, there's more! Micah waved at Emily on Tuesday morning while she was here. At least, I thought it was waving. He took his ENTIRE arm and waved it at her. He kept repeating it every time I said "wave, hello." He was very cute, but who knows if it was intended, right?

Tuesday night, my mom called, informing me that Jeremy was off to the hospital - and ANGRY about it. Apparently he was mad that we made him crazy so he was going to the hospital. It is a good thing we made him crazy - they admitted him to the hospital and put him on IV antibiotics. Turns out, he had septic bursitis and cellulitis, and it was a pretty nasty infection.

On Wednesday, Micah and I went to playgroup.

After playgroup, I headed up to Baltimore to visit my brother in the hospital. I stayed with him for a few hours, and Jeremy reported that the doctors confirmed his diagnosis, and it appeared that the IV antibiotics were starting to work. Around 6:00. I went to their house to babysit my nieces Paige and Peyton while Jen went to the hospital. I played with them, made them dinner and put them to bed. It was a long day, but it was fun getting some quality time in with the girls. While I was up there, my mom and dad were watching Micah because Elliot had a work meeting. It was a big game of musical parenting/babysitting! Nevertheless, the orthopedic surgeon scheduled surgery to drain and clean the infection the following day, just in case things did not turn the corner.

Thursday morning started off with good news - luckily, the antibiotics worked, and we found out today that Jeremy is able to avoid surgery. My father was on his way up to help watch my nieces and bring them to the hospital to visit Jeremy, and then he was driving them back down here to spend a few nights with my parents. Micah and I spent our morning in Singalong with Karen again. Micah LOVES the class - he laughs, he smiles, and he seems to recognize the songs. He likes when he gets dipped, and he loves to play the instruments at the end. Much to my surprise, when he saw Emily in music class, he started waving again! He kept on waving when we sang a song about waving. In the afternoon, he waved when his good friend Micah (yes, another Micah) came over to play, too. Not only does he clap, he WAVES!! Even better? I captured it on video . . . sort of. Press the triangle on the bottom left corner to play video.





One more thing to mention - Micah crawled a bit in class today, too. For the past few days, he has been leaning forward from a sit and trying to move, but he never quite gets anywhere or makes it onto all fours. Each time he tries, he seems to get a bit closer. This morning, he saw a blanket he wanted, he leaned forward, landed on hands and knees, took one crawl forward, grabbed the blanket and flopped on his belly and rolled over. I think I'm on the verge of having a heart attack! We've got clapping, waving, standing, a step and crawling all in one week?!? I'm not ready for him to be this mobile yet. He has repeated this almost crawl two other times today, so I'm now suspecting that "real" crawling is just around the corner. Perhaps I'll get lucky and it will take another month or two. It could happen!

We are now awaiting Jeremy's release from the hospital. Tomorrow is another busy day with work (I have to catch up on everything I did not accomplish Wednesday) and we are supposed to finish emptying my condo and moving some more things into storage. Will this process ever end? My nieces are here for the next two days, and on Sunday my cousin Trenna and her son Zander are coming for a week-long visit. I'll try to stay on top of posting!

By the way - I should digress a second. I would like to take a moment to evangelize the values of the Flip camera - it is little pocket sized video camera that has a built-in USB port. We have been using it to record all those special moments in Micah's life. It is all digital, and it transfers to the hard drive in seconds - just plug into the USB drive and transfer. It simplifies sharing video of all those special moments.

Since I missed posting the video from the beach, I thought I'd tack it on here for good measure.

The last few days, Micah has decided that he doesn't need to sit anymore - he'd prefer to STAND. Today, he figured out how to stand without mommy holding on to him. He still requires a spotter because he does not yet realize that if he lets go, he'll fall over, but I think he'll master the art of sitting back down again pretty soon.



While we are at it, here are a few of the photos from our last day at the beach (mostly sucking our toes and watching the dog nap on the beach blanket):

Oh yes, and little time with Goppy: