Photo Dump II: The Revenge

Disapproving of Aunt Brenna's book choice, apparently.


A comfy perch in Oma's hands.


Completely over this whole being-held thing.


Noah assists Brenna in holding up Jim's impressive bulk.


Oma = happy, Jim = perplexed


Rhianna explains the finer points of baby anatomy.

In which our tiny hero has his first experience with PAIN.

So Jim had his first shots on Wednesday, and it was pretty much the worst thing that's ever happened. To anyone. Ever.


On the up side, his bandaids were delightfully chipper.

But let's put off talking about the bad parts, shall we? The car ride was suitably pleasant. Noah has the strange habit of deliberately setting all clocks off by at least ten minutes, so I was convinced I was ten minutes late, but it turned out we were slightly early, so Jim got to look at all the interesting things in the waiting room (that is, one of those slidey-tubey toys, several brightly-colored chairs, two generic pastel seascapes, and a bratty toddler).

When we got called back, Jim got to get nekkid, which was not his favorite part of the morning thus far. Apparently frozen children are healthy children, because the entire building seems to be kept at visible-breath conditions. Jim was stoic, though, as long as he had some flannel polka dots protecting his teeny butt from frostbite.

After disrobing, we got to go check his growth. There was no poop on the scale this time, glory be, and he didn't even fuss when they put him on the rack to check his length. He weighs 13lb 7.5oz (55th percentile), is 24 inches long (52nd percentile), and has a 43cm head (88th percentile). So, he's basically average-sized (which is good, considering he was tiny at birth) with an extraordinarily large head. Have to put the brains somewhere, no?


Pudgy thighs are also good for brain storage, according to Noah.

After the weights-and-measures portion of the competition came the actual visit with the pediatrician. This part was fairly uneventful. He praised Jim's growth, looked him over, made sure he was developing properly, and expressed proper admiration at his prodigious skill in rolling over. Then the dirty coward left the room and sent in a nurse to do the dirty work.

Have you ever considered how much it must suck to make children miserable as a profession? No doubt they keep a scoreboard at the nurses' station to keep track of tears induced per nurse, possibly with prizes for top performers. Prizes make everything easier to take.


Sorry, I just love his chubby little legs.

Anyway, the nurse came in, armed with syringes and vials and all manner of arcane tools. Jim was happily lying on the exam table, unaware of what horrors were in store. We got down to business fairly quickly with a tube of orange liquid (Tylenol, apparently, but arsenic for all Jim knew). It smelled like Dayquil, and by Jim's reaction, tasted like it, too. It took about three attempts to get it down his throat, and that got him properly started on the path to fussiness. I'm guessing it was especially shocking because the only things he'd ever swallowed before were breastmilk and the occasional cat hair.

Next came the rotavirus vaccine, which is also oral, and apparently even nastier than orange Tylenol. This took about five attempts, and I'm pretty sure a good half of it went down his chin and all over his chest. Good thing he was still naked. By the time he got that down his gullet, he was crying for serious. The first injection (Hepatitis B) came next, and produced more wailing than I've seen out of the poor little dude since he was born. So at this point he's sobbing, and I'm sniffling, and the nurse brandishes two more needles and goes, "These ones burn some, so he might cry a little."

...

Oh? Oh, I see. She stuck them in mercifully quickly, and I guess he had some reserves left, because he screamed his poor little gargantuan head off. I'm pretty sure the nurse was delighted to pack up her torture implements and leave behind the overly-sympathetic sobbing chick and hyperventilating bright-red baby. The hysteria abated about a minute after she left, but it took probably a good fifteen minutes to calm him down to anything approaching his normal equanimity.


Recovering.

Fortunately, there were no lasting effects. No crying after the first bit, no irritability, no fevers or comas or brain-swelling or ACME Instant Autism. He napped in the car and for an hour when we got home and then was his usual smiley self for the rest of the day. Hopefully the next batch (in October) will be less traumatic, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up.

And no, I don't feel guilty. It sucked for about twenty minutes, but hey, it beats polio.

Photo dump.

Jim greets his adoring public.

So Jim met some of his relatives from afar this past week, and as you might expect, there are rather a lot of pictures to document the occasion. I'll be posting them in a couple of batches, so as to not be horribly overwhelming. Without further ado:


A brief moment of actual eye contact with Oma.


"Holy crap, I didn't know this many people existed."


Already endearing himself to his Aunt Brenna.


Our entry to Awkward Family Photos.


Oma tosses Jim to the wolves. Or to Aunt Mae. Close enough.

...and we all lived happily ever after.

So we had visitors over the last week, and it's made me think about how freaking nice it would be if we lived closer to some and/or all of our families. Really, just one person within two hours would be nice, just so we'd have someone to pawn the baby off on if necessary. Don't get me wrong; he's extremely cute and all, but it's very nice to be able to go off for ten minutes without worrying about him. Or it would be, anyway.


You... you... you want to LEAVE me...? *quiver*

Actually, I learned on Monday that leaving him without worrying is quite impossible, even if he's with trustworthy relations. On Monday, Noah and I took off to take a run together (something heretofore impossible either because one of us had to watch Jim or, before that, because I was incapable of running more than about two minutes straight without perishing). We had just gotten over a small bit of car troubles, but we foolishly assumed that jump-starting it had fixed all of our troubles, so we hopped in the car to go to the track and left Jim behind, along with his aunt and great-aunt.


If that's not a trustworthy face, I don't know what is.

So the run itself was fun and all. Noah, of course, couldn't resist sprinting past me like the Roadrunner (BEEP BEEP!), and I nearly collapsed from heat exhaustion, but still - it was a jolly good time. The trouble came when we climbed back into the car to go home and got nothing for our troubles but a resounding *click*. Damn.


Kind of blurry, I know, but his face is ridiculous enough here that I had to post it.

Noah set about figuring out how to fix the situation, while I naturally set about convincing myself that Jim would most likely starve to death in the extra half-hour it would take for us to get home.

Noah: We could call Rhi and Brenna to...
Leah: What if he's crying right now?
Noah: But they can't get on base, so maybe...
Leah: I bet he's hungry! Oh no!
Noah: My buddy could probably get here in ten min...
Leah: Do you think he thinks we abandoned him?
Noah: And then I could go get a new...
Leah: He might be sick! Or dehydrated!
Noah: *makes productive phone calls*
Leah: Woe is Jim!

And so forth.


Jim's general mood when we got home (reenactment).

So we managed to get home about half an hour later than planned, and of course Jim was smiley and content and not dead. Noah got a new car battery, which fixed everything, and Rhianna even made us a tasty supper, so I'd call the entire evening a success. I'm now left wondering if I will always be three inches away from panic every time I leave Jim temporarily parentless, or if it's just a first-time-away thing.

Still to come: a shitload of pictures of Jim with newfound relatives, a report on his first shots (sad face x50), a 3-month-old update, and much much more.

Funny faces.

I've been away from the computer because of visitors here, but here are some amusing Jim faces in the meantime:


Pouty lip.


Pretty eyelashes, no?


About to perish from being in one position for too long.


Kinda happy.


Intrigued.

Blog silence.

My apologies for the shameful dearth of baby pictures and sarcasm, but my computer has been being a douchebag and making it too much of a pain to post. Noah just kindly installed Linux yesterday, so hopefully that will remedy the manner and allow me to resume rambling as usual. In the meantime, enjoy some family pictures:


Daddy's funny.


Jim and I observe the cat.


Bruce tries to feel up Jim's feet.


Attack of the Jim.


Jim tries to fall off my lap.


Three people at the SAME TIME.


It's freaking creepy how similar their eyes are (except size and color, naturally).

Made me laugh.

Ten weeks of age.

Yeah, I've got drool on my shirt. Wanna make somethin' of it?

I believe today is going to be the last weekly update. He's changing a bit slower now, so we're going to go down to once-a-month official pictures instead of once-a-week.


Jim doesn't really care either way.

Things of Note:

• He drools like a fiend now, and he doesn't like it much. He is very displeased when his onesie is wet and will carry on and refuse to sleep until the situation is remedied.
  
• He rolled over several times from belly-to-back. He's been handling his tummy time much better in general now, actually. Whereas he used to complain vigorously whenever forced to be on his stomach for more than about forty seconds, he will now sometimes happily bob his head around for several full minutes at a time.
  
  Very strenuous work, this head-holding business.
  
• As demonstrated by previous adorable video, he's really sociable. He likes to talk, and the recipient doesn't really matter. He'll instigate conversations with people, the ceiling fan (naturally), and his little dangling playmat toys.
  
  Weary of conversation.
  
• He sleeps! He really does. Mostly. He's usually good for a five-hour stretch most nights, and even treated us to a nearly eight-hour stretch a couple of nights ago. Of course he still does occasionally see fit to roust me out of bed every hour for a night, just to keep things exciting.
  
  He looks like a teeny adorable mob boss here, in my opinion. We need to get him a cushy leather bouncer.
  
• He had his very first missed doctor's appointment! I was convinced it was on Wednesday, but it turned out to have been on Monday. Whoops. So his two-month appointment (and, coincidentally, first set of shots) will now be his three-month appointment. I can't say I'm overly bothered - he's doing just fine and going to the pediatrician isn't any fun. I don't really need a licensed physician to tell me that he's healthy and growing. The big stack of outgrown onesies can tell me that.
  
  See, his feet are growing large and freaky to match his father's.

Moving pictures!

Talking ones, too!


Smiling and cooing.


Rolling over.


Talking and not falling over.

Jim is cute. Noah and I sound completely imbecilic, but that's beside the point.

An assortment.

Jim disapproves of these senseless random picture posts. Jim demands ORDER. And elephants.


He always gets adorably grabby-hands when excited. It's like a full-body smile.

And another thing.

Guess who rolled over several times yesterday? Video to come.

Looky-loo.

Jim attempts to play Tongue Game with beloved ceiling fan.

The boy is getting much more visual lately. He still loves to stare at faces and the ceiling fan, but he is now also interested in the mirror, the toys dangling from his play gym, the camera (stares right at it when we have it out), any light source, the cat...


The tiniest camera whore.

He's also getting much better visual range. He used to only be able to pay attention to things right in front of his face, but now he will look at us and smile back when we're halfway across the room. He also notices when we enter or exit a room and will turn his head to watch.

It's amazing what little things become impressive once you have a baby, no?


Giving the lion the side-eye.

Please caption these for my amusement.

Exercise with a baby: awkward.

Look, Jim exercises too - preparing for head lift-off...

So, as you know, I've been working on getting into decent shape over the past few weeks, and for the most part it's been going quite well. I can run for a full five minutes without collapsing (thanks to C25K), I can do more than one respectable girl pushup consecutively (thanks to P90), and my pregnancy-induced chins are slowly but surely receding (thanks to chicken breast and pound cake oranges). This whole working-out-while-having-a-baby thing is a bit trickier than expected, though.


Beginning ascent.

Sometimes I am lucky enough to work out when Noah is home, so he can hang out with Jim out in the living room and all is well. Naturally, since someone else is watching him, he typically naps for the entire duration.* More often than not, though, I try to get my indoor workouts out of the way while Noah's at work. I always wait until the baby is napping before starting anything, but it seldom lasts. I don't know if it's the incomparable cheesiness of Tony Horton or just my wobbly attempts at power yoga, but he inevitably wakes up about ten minutes before I'm done.

I've tried a few methods to deal with this. If I'm lucky, he's happy to hang out in his bouncer and watch me flail about. Other times he's completely inconsolable unless I halt the proceedings and give him a quick nosh. Mostly, though, he just requires holding or bouncing to keep him content until I'm done. I've gotten reasonably good at bouncing his chair with my foot while standing on the other foot and doing curls or what-have-you. I'm planning on just picking him up and holding him while doings squats and lunges next time - an extra twelve pounds never hurt anything, right?


Lift-off achieved! (also, turtle face - one of my favorites)

The other awkward thing about working out nine weeks after having a baby is perhaps a bit TMI (but if you minded that, you probably wouldn't be reading this). Specifically: leakage. More specifically: boob leakage. Honestly, this isn't really a problem when I'm working out at home (who's going to care? Bruce?), but let me tell you: you haven't known fear until you realize three minutes into your run that you forgot to put on the nursing pads.

*Jim, not Noah.**
**Okay, Noah too.