Little wrestler

There's been talk of Nathaniel the linebacker and Nathaniel the third-baseman ... but I haven't mentioned the possibility of him being a wrestler yet. Until now.
I bring this up because the little guy can deliver one heck of a head-butt. He'll line you up with a nice little nuzzle, then rear back and drive that forehead right into your chin, cheek, nose, whatever. We've generally been more concerned about him hurting himself (he hasn't), but it won't be long until that concern takes a back seat to an adult getting dazed by one of his unexpected attacks.

Hopefully, he'll outgrow this.

Day care approaching ...

It's not long before we'll be using day care for Nathaniel. It's so close, they called me the other day to ask if everything was still going on. Today, I had to get some medical paperwork figured out and deliver it to the day-care center, along with some supplies Nathaniel will need.

It's really going to be difficult to just leave the little guy with these people, no matter how good they are. At the same time, though, it will be good for him to get to know some more people. It will be especially good for him to meet other babies, I think.

I guess it's just a matter of time until I figure out if my wishful thinking comes true.

Oma's visit!

I figure a lot of new parents have a little difficulty deciding what to call the grandparents. Is it Grandma and Grandmom, in order to differentiate? Grandma Smith and Grandma Jones?

On this front, we have it easy. Due to odd circumstances, I grew up with my mother's parents being "Oma" and "Opa." I never knew them as anything else. Apparently, my parents lived in Holland when my oldest siblings were very young (my father taught and studied at a number of universities around the nation and several outside of the country).
We're not entirely certain whether all grandparents are known as Oma and Opa in Holland, or whether it was just the landlady's grandchildren who called her Oma, but my siblings picked up on it and started calling their grandparents Oma and Opa.

So when my siblings had kids, they all took to calling my parents Oma and Opa. That leaves all the Grandma and Grandpa variations to my wife's parents. It makes things much easier in the end.

Anyway, my mother seems to be greatly enjoying her time with Nathaniel. She saw him for a few days shortly after he was born, back in the hospital in Delaware. This is her first chance to see him at home, and she's definitely getting into it. (That's partly why this is probably the longest post I've had in a while.) She's clucking at him and holding on to him, and Nathaniel has definitely shown a liking to napping in her arms (twice in the first 24 hours she was here ... my mother was worried her arm would drop off).

In less than two weeks, however, we'll be taking Nathaniel to day care. That's our next big hurdle. More stress for us all.

Lastly, here's the weekly Nathaniel picture. He's wearing sunglasses that were part of a gift from a brother's family:

Shots!

Nathaniel got the big young shots today -- DTaP (or something like that). All in all, he had four shots. He's used to getting on in each thigh, but the ones in each arm really made him angry.

Then, as usual, he calmed right down. He's now resting comfortably in the car seat. This kid can take just about anything, it seems.

The doctor also said he was now 13 lbs and 14 oz. ... so he's not growing quite as fast. He's still 80th percentile in weight and 75th percentile in height. He also appears to be 50th percentile in head circumference, so our thoughts that he had a giant head seem to be incorrect. I guess all babies have a big noggin.

Anyway, we'll see how he handles the shot aftermath throughout the night. If it's anything like it was so far, it should be a breeze (knock on wood).

Now, all we need to do is get some final things straightened out between the doctor and the day care, and he'll be ready to go out into the real world. Then Amanda and I can be pretrified every time he sneezes.

First Easter

s the picture shows, Nathaniel didn't seem so sure about his first Easter. Amanda and I took him to the giant Easter gathering her extended family on her mother's side has (they rent a room and about 100 people attend). It was a very good time, and Nathaniel seemed OK with meeting a pretty significant number of new people.

But Amanda and I did have a scare through the whole thing. He didn't poop once on Sunday. This was the first day ever that he didn't have some level of bowel movement. This had Amanda and I a little concerned. The "What to Expect" book, however, says it's no big deal. And he certainly made up for things fairly early on Monday. But that was a good 36+ hours between, which had us a little concerned.

(For those of you who don't have kids ... you'll be amazed to see how much of your life revolves around the bathroom habits of your little ones.)

Diaper reversal!

OK, it turns out I did diaper Nathaniel backwards. The previous diapers had one cartoon character on the front of the diaper to help you tell the front from the back. These bigger size diapers have a character on the front and a character on the back. And the one on the back was the same size as the one on the front of the smaller size diapers.

Anyway, to cut this short, I had to change the diaper again. The soaking-up portion of the diaper is mostly in the front. The backwards diaper wasn't going to be able to fully do its job.

That makes seven diapers so far today, which guarantees eight before bedtime and probably nine before midnight. And that's how you go through a whole case of 200+ diapers in a month -- a combination of human error and being extra protective of Nathaniel's bottom.

On an average day with no mistakes, he'd probably get changed six times ... that's 42 diapers per week and 168 diapers per month. I really need to look into the biodegradability of these things. It's pretty dang scary.

What the heck!?

Every afternoon, I give Nathaniel at least a sponge bath, if not a full bath. This, of course, includes another diaper change. I try to time it for a little before Amanda gets home from work so she'll have a fresh-smelling and happy Nathaniel to hold on to.

Today's sponge bath included the dreaded Long-Distance Baby Peeing event. I was sure I was out of range, and also thought I had a towel over him. But then I felt something on my leg. For those of you who haven't been peed on by a baby, here's what happens: Your brain registers a warm feeling, but doesn't quite know how to catalog it; then your brain notices the warmth is running with gravity, and it starts to put two and two together. As realization slowly dawns on your conscious thought, you look down to realize, "I'm already too late. He's just about finished!"

Oh, what fun that is. So when his bath ended, he got some crib time to give me a chance to shower (again).

And the really odd thing is baby's just seem so happy when they've peed on you. Nathaniel was smiling away and doing as close as he can to a laugh. Little prankster.

Then came the diaper. I can't even explain my confusion on this one. I just used the first of the 12-18 lb. transition size diapers, and it's really different and confusing. The tape is on the front to pull to the back, instead of the other way around. Parents might know what I'm talking about, but nonparents probably don't know what I mean. Heck, I don't even quite know what I mean. I hope I didn't put it on backwards (but the cartoon character is on the front, so I couldn't have).

That, after getting peed on and dealing with odd-sized onsies (the 0-3 month from one company fits better than the 3-6 month from another ... even though the 0-3 says it's only good up to 11 lbs and Nathaniel is 13+ lbs.), just made for a very confusing afternoon.

Oh well. He's on his sixth(?) diaper? I can't keep count.

Diaper update

I'm trying to get Nathaniel somewhat into the schedule he'll have at the day care center he's starting in less than a month, so I've been laying him down at 12:30 to take a nap. It hasn't worked that well so far. I don't think he understands the nap concept so much as randomly falling asleep.

Anyway, he was lying in his crib, fussing a little, so I decided I'd check the diaper. Sure enough, it needed to be changed. He's on his fourth new diaper of the day now, and it's not much after noon (1:41 was the changing time).

Will he get to eight today? Stay tuned.

Average diaper day I

It's amazing to think of how many diapers we go through. I wanted to take a little closer look, so I'm going to do some sample days for scientific purposes.

It's 8:41 a.m., and Nathaniel is on his third diaper of the day. Amanda changed him when she woke up to feed him before going to work. I just changed him and, while I was finishing things off, he peed again, prompting me to remove the not-even-fastened-yet diaper and replace it with a fresh one.

Based on this math, he'll go through eight or nine diapers today. I doubt he can keep up the pace. But I wouldn't be surprised to see him hit seven (only four more for the rest of the day? that's average for him).

We'll see how this goes.

I've also been thinking of how to keep this blog interesting. I think I'll be doing Daddy Taste Tests of his baby food once he's on to semi-solids.

Less time?

I figured I'd be posting more now that I'm staying at home because I'd be around Nathaniel more and have more stories to tell. While that part is true, I find myself unable to post because pretty much all of my time is devoted to the little guy.

But it sure is fun dealing with him all the time. We just started putting him on his belly two weeks ago (less than that, actually), and he's already holding his head upright, as you can see in the pictures. (He's lying belly down on my chest).

He's also trying to laugh sometimes, I think. He's not playing football yet, but it is baseball season.

Beginning to understand

Having been home for only a couple of days now, I already can see why Amanda was taking so many pictures of Nathaniel. It's hard to get around the desire to record everything that's happening. I'm not planning on doing a new picture every day, but it feels like it.

Anyway, we're almost done with our second box of diapers ... we're over 150 diapers used, mostly in the past 2-3 weeks. Maybe we are getting closer to the 600 diapers in six weeks the Baby Bargains Book said to prepare for. It's really stunning that a little baby can go through so many diapers.

More pics (and more)

So this is my first day on "paternity leave" with Nathaniel. It's gone fairly well so far. He's eating, he's sleeping, he got a little wipe-off type bath. All in all, I think I'm doing OK with him ... of course, this is Day 1 of more than 30 days before I go back to work, so we'll see how it goes. Along with taking care of Nathaniel, I've also been e-mailing a bit today. I promised Amanda I'd send her regular photo updates since today is her first day back at work since about two weeks before he was born. We've all got some adjusting going on.

Yesterday was the first day we gave Nathaniel a "real" bath. Until last week, we weren't allowed to actually submerge him because of concerns over the healing of the scars on his chest. We got the OK, however, and went right to it. He seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. It was his first bath, so I took about 75 pictures (glad we have a digital camera). Amanda made me promise not to use any of the fully nude pics on this blog, so I'll just use this one:
















Well, Nathaniel's starting to stir a little, so I'm off to his side.