Isaac's First Month

(To view it larger, so you can read the text, click on the Scrapblog link on the bottom right of the video, then click "View Full Screen" above the video on the window that pops up)

The boys and I went over to my parents' house the other night, it was fun. My nephew was there too, I hadn't seen him since about 6 or 7 months before Benjamin was born, so it'd been a while! The house is currently under renovation, so there's not a lot of living space inside as of yet, but they've got a great firepit with chairs all around, and a big swing, and a trampoline, all in the GIANT backyard-- Benjamin has been just having a ball when we go over there. It's really nice, just sitting around a fire and talking...

Anyway, I got some pictures...

Ben with Grandpa Neet (my dad)

Dump truck!

Motion blurs... he was busy!

Perfect timing-- I had just aimed the camera to get a picture of him just sleeping, and he smiled for the camera!

Isaac with his Aunt Liz

Mom and Dad

My nephew, Kai, and my brother, Nate (And see what I mean about the backyard? It's like a freaking park, it's huge! SO much room for Ben to run around, it's great!)

Liz with Isaac again

Grandpa, Ben, and Grandma

Ben playing

Something about Ben...

I know it probably seems like it's all about the baby... but here's an update about the big boy-- and boy, he sure is now!


Benjamin had his long-overdue 18-month check-up on Monday (he's 23 months)... and, of course, as logic would indicate, his vaccinations were overdue as well. So he had a whole lineup of shots to get caught up on... six, to be exact. *grimace*

That was certainly an experience.

First off, Isaac, being only a month old, was with me as well-- I still haven't left him with anyone yet, and I didn't think about how much harder it would be to comfort Ben after his shots while also taking care of Isaac...

Then, when we got there, despite how long it has been since Benjamin has actually seen the doctor, he almost seemed to remember it. That, or he somehow has an instinctive fear of medical environments. He was fine going into the clinic and checking in, but when we turned down the hallway towards the pediatric area, he wiggled his hand out of mine and plopped down on the floor, whining. He flat-out refused to walk, so I ended up picking him up and carrying him into the waiting room, along with Isaac in his car seat. (Yes, that's tricky, not to mention heavy. Yes, I've had to do it several times, often up three flights of stairs to our apartment. You can just call me "SuperMommy".)

But then, when we got called in, at the sight of the nurse coming out for him, he did the same thing, sitting on the floor acting scared. He was NOT happy with the nurse having to weigh and measure him, it was so sad, poor Benjamin, all naked and just sobbing on the little baby scale, trying his hardest to get back into my arms. And when he finally held still enough to get his weight and I picked him back up, he literally clung to me, legs and arms wrapped tight around me like a little monkey... I was so surprised that he reacted that way, he's ordinarily never like that with new places or people.

He actually did fine with his doctor when she came in-- she's really great, when she was listening to his heartbeat, she asked him if she could "hear the doggies barking", and that got his attention!

But then, the worst part, the shots... I had to hold him down on my lap while he got three in each thigh. When the first one went in, he kind of jumped and squealed, looking down at his leg-- then turned his head toward me like he was asking me to stop it. He started crying, "Mama! Mama!"... and the part that made me tear up and feel so bad was when, about halfway through, his cry turned to "No, Mama! No, Mama!" I felt so terrible!

Oh, and he is now 29 lb (I actually thought he was heavier, home scales put him closer to 32 lb, and I think the weight might have actually been off because he was grabbing onto me so much, but I don't know), 33.5 inches tall (or 2' 9.5"), and his head circumference was 20.5". In percentiles, he's heavier than 7 out of 10 boys his age, and shorter than 6 out of 10, and, if there were such a thing, his head would be bigger than about 12 out of 10, lol. His head measurement is just way above the line on the chart... I always said he had a huge head-- I think it's just to make room for all those brains.




Anyway... other than a tough day at the doctor, he's doing wonderful-- still my sweet, smart boy (well... sweet most of the time, he IS almost two after all).

He really has been surprising me with how fast he's been learning lately. We've kind of been working on the alphabet for a little while, and all of a sudden, he can name quite a few letters on sight, and he recognizes writing as letters almost everywhere-- he'll just randomly burst out with "A! B! D! F! Y! A! C!", when he sees signs, or even the letters on, say, the car, or a diaper.

The other day, he was looking at a card that my grandma sent us that said "BABY BOY" on blocks on the front, and he pointed to each block in order, and said, "B, O, Y!"

And we're beginning on numbers, too... he doesn't seem to get 1, 2, 3, etc, the beginning numbers-- but once we get to 5, he can say 6, 7, 8, 9, and sometimes 10 with me!

He's so smart, I'm so proud of him!

Oh, yesterday I watched him bring a box of Nutrigrain granola bars, that I give him for a snack sometimes, over to the ferret cage, set it on top of it so Boots came up and was sniffing up at it, then pick it up again and, with a serious face, say, "Dishis mine. Mine." As if he were just keeping her informed, letting her know so she wasn't confused.

Pictures

I love his grin! (This particular grin was working double-duty and chewing apple slices at the same time-- which made his dimple even more prominent!)

I think he's ready for a gymnastics class! Probably not one likeNatti's, though... JUST gymnastics, I don't think Daniel would be too fond of the idea of his son doing ballet and tap!

Yes, that's Isaac's arm... no, he wasn't as close as the picture looks... and no, no one was harmed in the making of this photograph.

He is such a good big brother! He's so cute with "his baby", when I lay Isaac down on the floor for tummy time, he always lies down next to him and talks to him, or just looks at him, or, as in this picture, just sweetly pats his head.

This is odd...

I just now discovered that Isaac's ears are rather different. From each other, I mean. It's hard to describe, I'll just have to attach pictures to show the difference.

Right ear:

Left ear (flipped to make comparison easier):

See what I mean?? That's a pretty drastic difference, if you ask me. I think it's funny, and of all the oddities of the body he could have, it's pretty cool. It's a funky quirk, but it's actually almost unnoticeable unless you look at each side of his head in turn over and over again (I actually felt bad that I hadn't noticed it until now-- until I showed Daniel, and I had to stand there, turning Isaac's head to show him each side over and over again, at least 5 or 6 times, before he caught it).


....He's probably going to hate me when he gets older. I'm posting his physical oddities on the internet for all to see, lol. I think it's adorable!

Pictures

My beautiful baby boy!

These ones make me laugh... like father, like son? Somebody's been paying attention!

4th of July

Not much to blog about lately, just kind of sitting at home-- but I thought I'd put up some pictures we got on the 4th, just for the sake of keeping this updated.

"I pledge allegiance to the flag..."

(This was the outfit from GiGi that Isaac was GOING to wear on the 4th... until he had a massive spit-up incident all over it. )

Ben's first sparkler!

Benjamin actually seemed to be having a good time with the fireworks-- he had a couple of his own boxes of pop-its, which he enjoyed immensely, and then he shared a sparkler with his Papa, and even watched, with interest, some of the louder firecracker types-- but, unfortunately, at some point, he seemed to realize his deathly fear of fireworks, and we were confined to the house, at times with him trembling in apparent horror at the louder ones. Poor baby, I felt so bad for him, he was really scared. Fortunately, having the fan on in the bedroom at home drowned out the noise, at least enough for him to sleep.

Isaac's two-week Well Baby check-up

...was today. I, not surprisingly, was running late, but we made it just on time (well, with a minute or two to spare before it would have been too late, anyway)!


The basics: He's already quite a bit past his birth weight, weighing in at 8 lb, 7.5 oz already, and he's apparently grown a half inch in length (barring, of course, measuring discrepancies)-- and his head now measures an inch bigger around than at birth. Hey, I'm just glad he came out when he did, instead of waiting until a week past due, if it would have made that big a difference!

The jaundice is slowly but surely fading away.

His umbilical cord stump had fallen out two days ago, and I'd noticed it looked a bit odd, there was a little circle right in the middle of his bellybutton where it was still the same raw-looking yellow of the cord. Turns out it was a piece of the cord that should have come out with the rest of the stump, and his doctor had to chemically burn it out with silver nitrate.

Beyond that, Shellee, you were right about his tongue, good eye! I asked about it, and she said that while it looked like he could stick it out far enough, the frenulum was definitely still attached. So, we have to make an appointment with the specialist surgeon (way out on the west side of Portland, of course), so he can take a look and clip it if it needs it.

Other than all that... he's a healthy, happy two-week-old!

And, what would a blog post be without some pictures? :)

I love that little kissy face!!

And, of course, another gas smile (or whatever...)-- they're irresistible!

Benjamin ate a hamburger "like a big boy"!

No, he's not allowed to stand on the chair like that... stinker.

Awwwww.....

One week old!

Isaac was born a week ago today, and he's doing great! Not much to write about, except he decided to mark the occasion by explosively pooing across my legs while I was sitting on the floor, changing his diaper this morning... Other than that, though, not much going on.

Oh, he went on his first "outing" yesterday! Juli and Natti brought dinner over, and we went to the park down the street to have a picnic! Natti was so sweet with Isaac, she kept wanting to hold him, and she wanted to know "Is it okay that baby Isaac can sit next to me?", and when I was getting set up to nurse him, she even wanted to know if she could feed him! I told her that that wouldn't work very well... but that, when Isaac is older, if we ever start bottle-feeding him, she can try feeding him with a bottle.

After we ate, Ben and Natti swung for a while. Benjamin would have been happy to never get out of that swing, he was having so much fun! After a while, though, we went back to the blanket, and Natti and Benjamin just burned energy running around and around. Anyway, it was fun!

Well, my big boy is about done with his lunch, and my one-week-old is waking up, and looking hungry (but nothing new there), so I better finish up!

My budding artist!

"Dinosaur", by Benjamin Johnson

I set Benjamin up with crayons and paper at the table earlier this afternoon, and let him have at it. He had fun (and bonus for me, it kept him entertained for a good 20 minutes)! When he was done, I was telling him what a good job he did, and how nice his picture looked, and I asked him, "What do you want to call it?", and he said, "Shyshore!" (dinosaur).... yes, I'm sure it could well have been affected by the fact that he was wearing his dinosaur pajamas (and yes, he's been in his pajamas all day, as have I).

I wanted to upload a video, but it was 144 MB, and the max allowed on blogger AND photobucket is 100, and I don't have any video-editing software, and even if I did, I wouldn't know how to use it... so oh well, this is it!

Oh, and I didn't see a single crayon with a bite out of it! :)

Also, as you may have heard, Ben's been working on learning the alphabet-- so far, he gets excited, and repeats up to around "G"-- but he knows A, B, C, and D pretty well. He hasn't said them in order by himself yet, but he'll repeat them perfectly, and when I say one, he'll usually say the next one if I wait for him. So this morning, while I was changing Isaac, Ben was playing with the wipes container. He started pointing at the word "HUGGIES" on the top of the container, and, pointing at individual letters, started saying, "Ay! Dee! Bee! She!(c) Ay! Bee!" Okay, so they weren't the right letters, but he knew they were letters!!

I'm so proud of my smart boy!!

Day #5, in pictures

Benjamin has been so sweet with Isaac so far. There have only been a few times when I had to really tell him to be gentler, in general, it seems like he just knows. He's been helping me with Isaac's diapers, too: he'll sit next to me and watch, and pull a diaper out of the basket to hand to me, then, if his attention is still engaged, he'll hand me wipes (okay, so sometimes it's a few too many wipes, but it's something!), then when I'm done, he'll take the dirty diaper to the trash. He loves pointing out Isaac's body parts-- I've been trying to discourage pointing at his eyes, in particular, but he also knows his head, his cheek, his nose, his chin, his arm, hand, toes, etc.

He was tickling his foot here-- unfortunately, it turned out a little blurry :(

...And holding his hand while he slept (awwwww)...

I absolutely love moments like this one, just holding him against my chest while he sleeps so contentedly... there is nothing in the world so relaxing, I think.

Cute little profile! (And, as you can see, his eyes are no longer oddly puffy)

These next three make me laugh! Those are tickle smiles, I was feeding him, and he kept dozing off, so I was trying to get him to latch back on, and it made him smile, by some reflex-- he was doing it for a good five minutes before I thought to grab the camera!

Isaac's first doctor visit

I took four-day-old Isaac in for our Mother-Baby visit at the hospital today... He's gained back almost all of the weight he'd lost in the hospital, he's 7 lb, 9 oz right now, so just shy of his birth weight! Mild jaundice, but nothing even on the charts for risk, so no big deal.

That's really all that the appointment was... it felt a lot more rushed, I remember Benjamin's first visit was a lot more comfortable, as if the doctor was really interested in how we were doing and trying to offer help with all the little things, and this time it was just the technical stuff.

Oh, and the doctor also felt the need to let me know that I am "WAY too young to have two children these ages!" (with a smile, though, whatever that means). I never know quite how to respond to things like that... "Thank you!" "No, I'm clearly not, or I wouldn't have two children, hmm?" "Okay...?"

I always just end up resorting to a polite smile and half-nod. Eh, it was just kind of funny.

On another topic, Daniel's really not feeling well... :(
He's been throwing up, and just generally feeling icky. He's sleeping now... I hope he feels better soon. I need him! ;)

Seriously, though, he's been so awesome, I literally could not have handled the past few days without him taking care of Benjamin (and me!) so that I could focus on Isaac, and get some rest. I love you, babe!

Awww... I love this picture... <3

He really is so cute!!!

...And more pictures!

Look at those loooong fingers/fingernails!

I thought this was cute... one of the t-shirts the hospital provided-- "This side up!" (kind of funny, too-- I was at a Kaiser hospital, but the shirt is a Providence one...)

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Here's a cute little picture sequence-- I was just holding him, and took all of these pictures within the space of a minute or two. I LOVE his expressions!!

(This one's my favorite, I think!)



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Tiny baby toes! :)