Volume Knob

Derek seems really loud lately.  He can definitely let you know when he wants something and it feels like someone has turned up the volume knob on him.  Now....if only we could find it to turn it back down!  It looks like our days of peace and quiet will quickly be coming to an end.

Where are the poops?

When he was little, we would be cleaning him up every diaper change, every 2-3 hours.  Lately it has been about once per day, and thankfully it's normally while he's at daycare.  :-)  Today we are going on day number four with no poopy diapers from Derek.  This is quite a change from his normal routine.  He seemed to be okay with this, but of course, we are concerned parents any time there is a big change in timing.  I emailed a friend who talked about this at baby class regarding when to give prune juice and how much.  We also called the nurse line.  Both came back with the same answer - he's normal and okay.  Apparently breastfeed babies can go up to seven days without a bowel movement!  Wow - that's a long time.

Thankfully we didn't have to wait much longer today.  In the afternoon we got a very thick poopy diaper.  No pictures this time because it smelled so bad we were gagging.  I wiped him up and Mike got the bath ready.  While he laid on the changing table he was smiling away - so proud of himself.  Either that or he was smiling at all the funny faces I was making because of the smell.

Giggles Confirmed

Earlier this week, Mike came upstairs and woke me up from a nap to tell me that he thought he heard Derek giggle for the first time.  (Definitely worthy of being woken up from a nap for!)  Mike had been singing the Noble Duke of York and doing the actions that go with it.   Unfortunately Derek was distracted by other things now and did not giggle.  I wasn't convinced it wasn't anything more than wishful thinking on Mike's part.

The Nistlers came down to help us out by watching Derek on Thurs & Friday when daycare was closed.  They had tons of fun and actually heard Derek giggle too!  Grandpa Chuck was playing with Derek and he giggle for him (and Nancy heard it).  Maybe it's a guy thing.....or the guys are just sillier than I am.

My goal this weekend is to get my little man to giggle for me.

My Favorite Age

Derek is almost four months old and it's perfect because:

• Smiling all the time and maybe even starting to giggle
• He is much easier to hold because his head is stronger and can support it 90% of the time without help (not all floppy).
• He is long enough so he fits perfectly between my arm and the top of my shoulder - he so fun to snuggle with!
• Not pooping every diaper change.
• Sleeping longer during the night.
• Wide eyed and curious - you can just see him learning new things every day.
• Not mobile (still stays where we left him so I don't have to worry when I leave the room)

If I had to pick an age that I would be happy if he stayed at forever, it would certainly be right now.  I'm sure I'll feel that way again in the future, but I can't imagine it could get better than this.  Man - I love that little guy!  

Busy weekend

Friday Derek had another ultrasound and appointment with the urologist.  He did great at the appointment while they put the jelly on his belly and looked at his kidney.  The appointment was pretty quick and painless. Then we met with the urologist to actually find out the results.  That appointment was even faster - the results look good.  His left kidney is unchanged from last time and we'll continue to monitor it with a follow-up ultrasound in 3 months.  Yay!!!  We also took the time to weigh him since he's too big for our kitchen scale - he's up to 13 lbs!!

Earlier in the week when I picked him up from daycare, he was looking intently at himself in the mirror Lorri had on the floor.  So we grabbed a mirror and did the same over the weekend and he loved it.  He would just look at himself or my reflection in the mirror and smile (and drool - he's a drooling machine right now)!

Loves looking at the cute baby in the mirror

Saturday we had some friends over for a play date with their little girl.  She was born the week of Christmas and is 3 weeks younger than Derek.  She was very vocal and really like his jungle toy and Derek was happy to show her how it worked:

Derek also got in some quality time with Mike:

Telling Dad stories during tummy time.

First walk outside in the stroller.

All bundled up and warm (thanks to Uncle Matt).
He was awake most of the walk and finally fell asleep once Mike got close to home.

Sunday we got together with Mike's family to celebrate our niece's 3rd birthday.  Derek also got to meet his Great Grandpa George (in person) for the first time:

Four generations on Nancy's side

Baby Class

This was our last week of baby class.  It's a class Mike and I have been attending for parents with kids between 0 - 6 months old, through the Early Childhood Education program in our district.  I have really enjoyed getting to know the other parents and babies in the class.  It's nice that they are all local people and all with kids around the same age  We actually met a family that lives about 3 blocks from us - looking forward to a new walking friend in the summer & play dates.   We get to see the different stages of development and I've found it helps me keep more realistic expectations of what Derek should be doing/acting at his age.  We have learned many fun "new" songs to sing - they are the ones that most everybody knows but forgets if you are not around little kids all the time.  And class is great for brainstorming with other parents on issues that we are all facing.   

I'm excited for the next class to start in two weeks.  It's the one scheduled weekly "activity" in our schedule that involves the entire family.  It will essentially be the same class but with a few different people as the babies transition in and out of the age group.  

First day of class (1.5 months old)

Last day of class (3.5 months old)

Weekend recap

Here are a few more fun pictures from our last two weekends:

Happy after eating.

Our good friends (who also live in Apple Valley) recently had a baby boy - Nolan is about 3 months younger than Derek.  It was fun to meet Nolan and reminisce about what is was like to have a newborn.  I hope they will grow up to be good friends.

Meeting baby Nolan for the first time

While doing tummy time, Derek spit up a little bit.  And we weren't fast enough to clean it up before he put his face right in the mess which resulted in his first mustache:

Milk mustache

We went to Uncle Christopher's championship indoor soccer game.  It was around Derek's bed time so he ended up sleeping the entire game while we protected him from flying soccer balls.

First soccer game

Photo Star

As a shower gift, a girlfriend gave us the gift of her talent - taking pictures.  She is going to take Derek's 3 month, 6 month, 9 month, and 1 year photos.  Here are some of my favorites from his 3 month photo shoot this weekend:

Tummy time is going well - look how strong I am!

Love blowing bubbles

Cheese!

I've got them wrapped around my finger.

Dinner time!

Hanging out with Dad

Derek really enjoys hanging out with his dad.  He's usually happy in the morning when Mike goes in to give him a bottle and get him ready for the day:

And he especially likes it when Mike reads to him:

Racing Beds

For a friend's 30th birthday he wanted to participate in a bed race to raise money for bridging the gap between homeless and poverty in Minneapolis, and recruited Mike as a member of his team.  I thought it sounded like a lot of fun (and was slightly jealous that I couldn't do it) but  the racers were all roommates from college and I was officially the "substitute player".  Their shirts read "The big 3-0" with the 0 as a softball - their costumes are female softball players.  This weekend, on the day of the race one of the guys couldn't make it (his wife was having contractions) so I was called up to bat!  Here the guys are strategizing the fastest way of getting four people on a mattress and down a sledding hill:

Some teams really got into the costume contest - this was my favorite  (and they went down the hill all fit together):

We didn't end up advancing into the second round but had a lot of fun.  I can now mark this off my bucket list.  A special thanks to Jill, Steve's mom, for babysitting Derek.   :-)

Sometimes Mike gets all the fun

"I had fed Derek this morning, changed him, then put him in his swing for about 1/2 hour.  I brought him to visit Cara and she said "he kind of stinks" and noticed a little stain on his outfit.  Time to change him again, but I was amazed at what he can do in just 30 minutes..."

All bundled up....

....and looking so cute:

3 months old

Garlic, Garlic, Garlic

Upon dropping Derek off at daycare, Lori got one of the bottles ready and said..."Wow.  You guys have been eating some garlic recently huh?"  Mike was quite surprised.  She also said she could smell it in the milk and on Derek's breath!  We both tried but didn't smell anything so I was quite surprised she could.

We did recently make two meals that had garlic in them:  French Farmhouse Chicken and Bruschetta.  The French Farmhouse Chicken recipe calls for 40 cloves of garlic but they are cooked so the garlic flavor is quite muted.  The Bruschetta topping for Mike's birthday meal only used 2 cloves of garlic, but they were raw so I could taste the garlic in that more than the recipe for 40 cloves!  And of course there we leftovers so it was a few days of eating these recipes.  I know that what I eat Derek eats but I never expected it to be on his breath and that strong of a smell in his milk.  I hope we aren't that family that constantly smells like garlic but don't know it because we are used to it....(I know one of these and it's hard to even walk in their house because the smell is so overwhelming).