New Parent Dictionary

A few definitions most new parents will know by the end of three and a half months:

Blowout: Without a doubt, the messiest of messy diapers. These are the ones that require most of the wipes you brought in the diaper bag, a full change of clothes and quite possibly, a bath. Fortunately, as time goes by they become fewer and farther between.

Tagged: 1. A fashion statement for new parents, in which the clothing item is marked with spit-up. It comes with its own special fragrance! 2. What all of my outfits generally are, shortly after I put them on.

The Spits: What the baby has when he/she spits up multiple times within a few minutes of putting on his/her clean outfit, requiring another change of clothes. The parental tolerance for the spits grows with the baby (as I presume it will continue to grow with each baby from here on out), and thus, the length of time any one outfit is kept on grows as well.

The Baby's Sixth Sense (No, he doesn't see dead people); Also known as The Romance Sensor: 1. The remarkable skill of the infant to know when the romantic moment between the parents is (or is about to be) and how best to disrupt it. 2. How the infant protects against siblings.

Here are a few pictures of our little interrupter (who we love soooo much!):

"Hmm... what to do, what to do?"

"Oh, there's my fist, I think I can fit it all in my mouth."
"I'm going to keep trying anyway."

Cool dude!

This One's for you Mom (and Doris)

I'm back to work for the second full week since my maternity leave ended. I miss Josiah (and Seth), but things seem to be settling in okay. We're developing a routine and I think Josiah is adjusting quite well. Here are a few photos from the past several weeks.

Josiah is growing like crazy. I went into his room in the middle of the night last week and was sure he had grown since I put him down to sleep! He is also enjoying toys a lot more (and getting bored with the ones we had been using). So we scored a few fun baby toys at a garage sale (actually, Rhianna did, but she lets me take the credit)... a jumping toy and a bumbo. The jumper is like baby heaven, there are so many toys on it! Josiah found his voice a week or so ago and has been making the greatest sounds. He also has been enjoying putting anything within reach into his mouth, a monumental developmental milestone! We're so proud.

How would you like to chew on my fist?
(Had to throw a little Kung Fu Panda into the blog!).

Yes, occasionally the sun does shine here!

Baby heaven!

I want to touch my toes...

Lifeguard on duty.

Cheese!

Dirt Under the Fingernails

My son is dirty. It's like he came out of the womb with a magnetic field attracting dirt. I cut his fingernails tonight (while he was fast asleep) and found, as I have found for weeks straight, that he has dirt under his fingernails. Never mind that he is only able to bat his arms at toys and grasp what is placed in front of him, and has never come in direct contact with as much as a teaspoonful of dirt... somewhere, somehow he is picking up dirt in his travels.

Just today (you'd think we'd have this down by now) I came under fire at the changing table as Seth changed his diaper. A blowout and then a fountain, which required me to change clothes. Did Seth have to change clothes? Nooo. Which I find odd, since he was doing the changing and I was merely sorting laundry next to the changing table.

But besides being dirty, I think he is just the sweetest baby ever and can't get enough of him.



Our travels highlighted in the last entry went well. It was a tight squeeze but everything ended up fitting (despite the fact that I mandated we pack, according to Seth, "too many" receiving blankets, burp cloths, diapers and the like. We used all of them). We visited my grandmother (Josiah's Gi-Gi) who was tickled pink to meet Josiah. We visited his Nana Tammy in Quincy, who also enjoyed our visit.

Last weekend we traveled again! We fit it all in again! For Mother's Day weekend we visited my Dad, then went to Chelan where Seth and I were able to go wine tasting, Nana Tammy spent time with Josiah, and I got to see my friend Jen. Josiah also got to meet his friend James, who is almost 1 now.



Normally after nursing, Josiah lays back and has this contented smile that says "I can think of nothing better than how I feel right now." But today, he lay back and cried. I thought "oh my, he must have a bubble" so I burped him, he let out a few good belches and lay him down on my lap again. He cried again, except it was this new type of fake/real cry, where he does this combination of whining and crying for a few seconds and then pauses to look up at me and see if I'm still paying attention, like "You should really do something about this." I let it go on like this for a few minutes just to see if he was pulling my leg or really upset about something. I believe it was the former. So young to develop such manipulative behaviors! So now I'm sitting around thinking about which role model to blame for this early development, and how to make them responsible for what they've taught him. Was it Daddy or Uncle Luke, Uncle Brady or Nana T., Auntie Auntie or Grandma Christy? But probably it was me.