Seriously. . .

Here we are, nearly 8 months later, and the poo stories still reign.

Trey still only poos about once to twice a week. But now, he will poo all day long. He'll do one (yes, one, only one poo in his diaper) in the morning, a few hours later do another, then do another around dinnertime.

Today was apparently his day to poo. I thought I was safe this time. Trey pooed. Just one poo. So I started changing him and when I wiped his little bum, I had to keep wiping because the wipe was still dirty, even though it should have been clean. OH NO! He was doing ANOTHER poo. Right into the wipe. I shouted for Patrick because I was sure I was going to need help, assuming they were going to keep coming.

However, he did just the one. And let me tell you, his dad was proud. What is it with boys and poo? I swear, they bonded over this and cracked up at mom. Women just don't get it, I guess.

Love

EMERGENCY!

Ok, yes, about a million things have happened since I last blogged, but I've just been saving up my funny stories.

Trey is just now getting over the flu. Patrick had it, I had it, then Trey had it. He's taken far, far longer to get over his sickness than either of his parents took, but he's being way less of a baby about being sick than his daddy. Oh, and his mommy.

The other morning, as my wonderful husband was letting me sleep in, I awoke to him screaming, "EMERGENCY!! EMERGENCY!!" in the living room. Panicked, I jumped out of bed and raced into the living room, in only my underwear, with visions of broken bones and bloodied gashes. As I stood in the middle of the room, (almost) naked as a jaybird, I realized the EMERGENCY was. . .puke. Yes. Trey had projectile vomited three times, and Patrick, not knowing what to do, decided to give me a heart attack in order to get me out of bed as quick as possible so I could direct him in what to do. Or do it for him. So I cleaned it up.

Next time he yells EMERGENCY!, I'll put pants on first.

Mommyless Monday

Today, daddy and Trey are spending the ENTIRE day together. This is a fairly new event and today, a weekday, is an exception because Patrick normally works during the week. However, he worked on Saturday in lieu of working today, Monday. Hence, his time at home with his son. It was so exciting to get out of bed this morning knowing that I could leisurely get ready for work without worrying about packing a diaper bag or having to rush before Trey woke up. The alarm clock, set for 5:30, buzzed (vibrated) until 5:38, when Patrick nudged me and said, "I think the alarm is going off." I was dreaming that the alarm was going off and I couldn't find it anywhere. Apparently, I was sleepy because I never, ever sleep through the alarm.

The past few weeks, Patrick has had many opportunities to bond with Trey; recently, they spent most of the afternoon and evening together when I had to work the golf tournament, Sunday morning, I shopped a kid's consignment sale for several hours (I know! HOURS!) and I've been running various errands in the evenings sans baby.

I'm sure I'll come home to a gigantic mess; dishes in the sink, baby toys/blankets/clothes/burp rages strewn all about the house, and whatever the dog and cats have managed to drag into the living room as well. But, I find much comfort in knowing that this mess is a result of dad never taking his attention away from Trey. I'll take a sink full of dishes any day if it means that my wonderful husband and son are getting quality time together!

Unpredictable

Babies are so unpredictable. Or, rather, they make the lives of everyone around them unpredictable. There is no better indication of this trait in Trey than when we went to the photographer a few weeks ago to get our family photos taken. Trey, as many of you know, turns into a stone-faced baby as soon as the camera comes out. This day was no different, unfortunately. AND, he was grumpy and fell asleep about halfway through the session. So what did Brian the photographer do? He just took photos of us while the baby was sleeping. He did get some WONDERFUL photos, despite having Mr. Grumpy Trey as a subject. And dad isn't so excited about photos either, but Brian is so great at just adjusting to the circumstance that he got great photos of dad, too.

Check out the online gallery to view the rest of our photos!
http://brianmclernon.com/Johnson_Web/index.html

Dad's Own Device

Dads usually find a different way of entertaining/playing with their child and Patrick is certainly no exception. While mom tends to ruin the fun: "Don't let him watch TV! Don't let him touch that! Don't let him. . .Don't let him. . .Don't let him. . .", Patrick seems to be much better at just letting Trey be, well, a baby. Stuff that I would never in a zillion years think of, much less let Trey play with, Patrick happily discovers is a wonderful pastime for the baby.

The other morning, Patrick let me sleep in (as is starting to be the usual custom for Saturday mornings). Mind you, sleeping in is catching a nap between 6:15 and 6:57, the time between Trey waking up and then, subsequently, getting hungry and tired. Trey and I happily fell back asleep for another hour once he got his morning snack, and upon awakening, I discovered that his hands were a little. . .black. Like he'd been coloring with charcoal. Or maybe it was the light. I wasn't quite sure, until Patrick heard us wake up and threw the door open to proudly display the ripped up sports page. Huh? It's pretty normal for the kitten to attack the newspaper and tear it to shreds, usually before we get the chance to read it. Well, APPARENTLY, Trey loves ripping up the newspaper. Patrick inadvertently discovered this exciting new talent of Trey's when, upon reading Metro, Trey reached over and ripped the page practically in half. So, he let him rip up the sports page, since he knew I wouldn't be interested in reading it when I woke up.

Now, our new plan is to make reading the paper a family activity. I should be thankful what Patrick can do when left to his own device. . .

Bumbershoot

(Seattle P.I. photo)
Bumbershoot in Seattle this year wasn't much to sniff at, except Patrick had a friend he hasn't seen in a few years who was coming down from Bellingham, so we decided to make a trip up there. Trey is a very experienced concert-goer now, and he even had his photo taken by the Seattle Post Intelligence, and posted on the website. Of course, he wasn't wearing any pants, but what are you gonna do? He's just a baby.

We took this opportunity to take all kinds of cute photos of our baby boy. Um. Like we don't take every opportunity to take a zillion cute photos of our baby boy.

tiny head

Trey had his 4 month old dr's appt this past Tuesday and his pediatrician, Dr. Bradeen, was very impressed with his awareness. When she came in, he was standing (with help from me, of course) on the exam table in front of the mirror and cracking up because every time he moved, the exam table paper crinkled under his feet. He thought he was absolutely hilarious. The crinkly paper would make him laugh, then he'd see another laughing baby (himself), which made him laugh even more.

He was 16lbs 3oz, 26 1/2 inches. He's pretty average weight, and his height is up in the high 80th percentile. So he's long and skinny, just as we suspected. However, his head was 42 cm. TINY. He's in the 29th percentile or something like that. I've thought his head is suspiciously proportionate to his body, and this reassured that as fact. Doc said it was normal, but our kid has a TINY HEAD. So what does that mean? Maybe he'll walk earlier because he won't have a giant head throwing off his center of balance.

This rice cereal thing is going very well. Trey now insists on holding his own spoon. Not that he can make it to his mouth, but the spoon is a little long. If we gave him a shorter spoon, he might possibly get the correct end into his mouth on his very own.

Mmmmmm. Food.

Trey officially had his first taste of rice cereal Wednesday night, and was he ever ecstatic. He's been grabby when we eat dinner the past few weeks and practically salivates as we shovel food into our mouths, totally ignoring the hungry, desperate look in Trey's eyes. His dr. said if he starts showing signs of wanting to eat, then go ahead and give it to him.

I took a trip to the grocery store last night (during which Patrick called to tell me the timer on the oven was going off and what should he do, oh, also the timer woke the baby up, but that's a whole other story for another day) and grabbed a box of Earth's Best organic rice cereal. Mmmmmm. Sounds appetizing. Particularly when you add breast milk. But for a little one who hasn't yet experienced chocolate, General Tso's chicken, and blue cheese, rice cereal is an adventure in yummy land.

Here's how it went down:
I mixed the cereal. We got Trey all situated in his high chair. Daddy grabbed enchiladas for himself. Then the moment of truth. . .the spoon went towards the mouth, then in the mouth. Trey looked, well, pissed, really. Then kinda curious. Then smacked his lips together a little bit. Then SCREAMED for joy. He kept screaming until I gave him another bite. He was grabbing my hand that was holding the spoon, directing it towards his mouth, as if I needed his help. Laughter ensued, mixed with him screaming at me for not moving fast enough.

You can catch the whole show below :) well, minus the screaming. He had stopped that by the time we shot video.

Trey loves Wilco. And Wilco loves him.

I've been a bad, bad blogger. The days just seem to get away from me when they're filled with EVERYTHING.
Last Saturday, Trey got to experience his first concert, post-birth. He went to Bruce Springsteen about a month before his was born. This time, though, he went to see a band that he really loves, Wilco! If you don't know who they are, check them out http://www.wilcoworld.net/

So if I wasn't already aware that Trey was the most adorable baby ever, I was reminded just how damn cute our little creation is. 3 different people--strangers--took his photo. We bought him little ear protectors which covered most of his head, and then they made his little cheeks squish up when he smiled. Unfortunately, we did not bring our camera with us, so this photo taken with my cell phone camera will have to suffice. His cuteness can't be ignored.

Wilco's Sky Blue Sky is an album that we use often to put Trey to sleep. He is lulled by the sweet sounds of Jeff Tweedy and usually, Daddy, singing to him. This show was also a good bonding time for Trey and Daddy, something that is few and far between (although it does show signs of getting better). They danced and sang all night, and Trey was pretty comfy in his daddy's arms. He barely fussed the whole night!

Oh, and he wore his Beatles shirt. He is one freakin' cool kid.

spoiling our dependent, crying baby

To save everyone the embarrassment of questioning our parenting choices, I have been making it (I hope) loud and clear that we have chosen to raise our child using the concept of attachment parenting.

It's really just what it sounds like--the baby is attached to us as often as possible; this includes breastfeeding on demand, sleeping with us, and being carried in the sling or the baby bjorn. There are a ton of benefits to this style of parenting, including having a more independent child with high self-esteem, a thriving baby (both physically and emotionally), smarter baby, not to mention, as parents, we learn to read our baby a lot faster and easier than if we were to leave him alone in his crib.

So our responses are as follows:

THEM: "You're going to spoil your baby."
US: "Spoil as in love him too much?"

THEM: "Your baby is too dependent on you."
US: "So should he be changing his own diaper and fixing his own meals at 3 months?"

THEM: "If you don't let your baby cry it out, he'll never learn to go to sleep on his own."
US: "Letting him cry it out is not our style, and we actually enjoy our family time soothing him to sleep at night. After all, he'll only be a baby once."

And basically our response to every other form of criticism is: "We love our baby and we are going to raise him in the way WE think is best and what works for our family. Whatever it is that makes all of us genuinely happy is the path we plan on taking."

So. I try not to take everything as criticism, as I know that everyone wants to help us do our best in the scary endeavor of being responsible for raising a smart, well-rounded little person who has wonderful morals, goals, loves his family, is motivated to do good things in the world, and makes good choices for himself. But we turned out pretty ok, didn't we?

And, believe it or not, Trey is an extremely high-need baby. It's not a bad thing, it just means he'd rather be watching the world from our level than laying in his crib staring at the mobile. He's happier when he is close physically to mom and dad. He's also very active and aware of the world around him and is excited to learn about his surroundings. Trey has a hard time winding down on his own, although he's slowly learning that sucking his thumb is soothing (but so is sucking mom or dad's knuckle!) and he wants to talk to us constantly, which we respond to by giving him our full attention. This, of course, means that some things don't get done around the house, or perhaps we stay in most nights, but when Trey gives us that big grin, we don't regret one second.

For anyone who doesn't know, Trey does come to work with mom every single day (mon-thurs). He gets to experience lots of different people and activities and new noises and sights on a constant basis. And yes, he does stay attached to me most of the day, except for when someone comes to visit or is in the office for a meeting, then he gets passed around to many different people. And once school starts. . .well, I can't wait for that. He's going to have the time of his life!

Hopefully, I've cleared up some questions. . .not that I feel the need to explain our choices to the world, but I have high hopes that those who love Trey will help us raise him, together.

Car riding HELL

Many babies apparently enjoy riding in the car and often, even fall asleep in their carseats, much to the delight of their parents. Unfortunately, for us, riding in the car results in tears, headache (for mom), and major guilt. Trey SHRIEKS his head off as soon as I put him into the carseat, and full on WAILS as soon as the car starts up. It sounds like we are torturing him. I've attempted to loosen the carseat straps, hang stuff up for him to watch/play with, I even sing the ABC's to him for the entire trip. I sing them so many times I sometimes forget the order. So I add my own words. . .(sang to the tune of the ABC's) "I wish you would stop crying. you're giving mommy a crazy bad headache. don't you love me? why do you scream so much? it's just a car ride. mommy loves you, but can't wait until you scream yourself to sleep," and on, and on, and on.

I am stressed every time I need to drive somewhere. If I could walk everywhere and just carry him in the baby bjorn, life would be so much less stressful.

Recently, one of my rear windows would not roll up, as a result of an installation gone wrong (2 years ago). I thought I'd be able to have it fixed the same day, preventing the monstrous screams of my tiny son to be heard by all the world around me. That was Tuesday. My window did not get fixed until Friday. I drove around town with a screaming baby in the backseat for 3 days and just acted like nothing was wrong. Example:

I pulled up to a stoplight, next to a 50'ish woman in a nice little Audi, looking as though she'd never seen a poopy diaper in her life, much less ever talked to a child. It seems like I get a lot of unwanted advice from 50'ish women who think I'm carrying/talking to/rocking/feeding/changing/singing to/raising my baby ALL WRONG, despite having recognized my existence for about 4 seconds. I glanced over at her and to my dismay, her windows were down. And Trey was screaming this: "HELP ME!! MY MOM IS TORTURING ME! SHE CONFINES ME TO THIS SEAT, SINGS HORRIBLY OUT OF TUNE TO ME THE ENTIRE RIDE AND DANGLES TOYS JUST OUT OF MY REACH IN FRONT OF ME!" The woman stared at me for about 10 seconds, and then slid her sunglasses off her face, apparently trying to get a better look at me, baby torturer, and to possibly scheme an escape route for Trey.

At that moment, the light turned green and before she could open her mouth, I stepped on the gas and we were so out of there.

The adventure continues. It seems like as we barely get to where we are going, Trey is suddenly all smiles and to my dismay, has even been known to giggle at me when I come to a complete stop and ready myself to eject ourselves from the vehicle. It's getting a little tiny bit better, but he still shouts and screams awful things about me during car rides, and apparently, he still loves me at the end of the day.

sleepy kid

He's either having a horrendous dream or trying to wake up. He literally did this for about 20 minutes.

90 minutes

The family visited the beer festival on Sunday--I have never seen so many strollers and babies attached to parents in one place in my life! Seriously, Sunday is apparently the family-friendly beer festival day. I did not partake in much tasting. I had a little here and there, but all the beer managed to do was to make me sleepy. Not very good times.

Trey slept most of the time, except for when he was eating. And when he was entertaining the ladies. He was a charmer, as always. Flashed his little grin and cutesy dimple and the girls all melted.

We're trying this new sleep thing--it's a 90 minute awake cycle. That means every time Trey wakes up, I count up 90 minutes, and when it reaches close to that, I start soothing him to sleep. Actually having recognized that babies have a 90 minute cycle is amazing. I could literally see it TO THE MINUTE when I noted the time. Today was the first day we tried it and we didn't do all that well. There were some errands to do this afternoon, so it kinda threw off the schedule. However, I am going to maintain this little sleep project and supposedly, he will regulate his own sleep pattern (i.e. let him sleep and don't wake him up) and very very very soon, start sleeping through the night. There is solace in knowing that if he gets too much sleep during the day, he'll only be awake for 90 minutes at night, then, sleep. I'll let you know how it goes.

In case you're wondering, Trey did poo on Thursday night. I don't know why this kid waits until his diaper is off, but he does. I was JUST undressing him to put him in the bath and THWWWWWAAAAA, all over the place (can you imagine that sound effect?). On the changing table, on his feet, on his butt. So I waited for him to finish. 5 minutes later, I'm still standing there, wondering if he's done, and I realize his back and little chubby thighs are covered in poo also. He was wriggling in it. And having the time of his life. Good thing we were on our way to the bath.

I DID snap a photo, but when I thought about posting it, I wasn't sure what the reaction would be. So, if anyone wants to see it, I have a photo of his poo.

awwwwww

soul stealing

It doesn't take anything more than a tiny baby to turn two reasonable adults into two completely obnoxious human beings. On a side note, every time we take out the camera, this baby starts crying. He could be cooing and grinning with the best of 'em and as soon as we yell, "ACTION!" he starts crying. All those weeks of daddy telling him the camera is stealing his soul is finally creating a weird fear.

momma's boy

Trey is growing up WAY too fast. I put a whole bunch of clothes into a storage container because he's just getting too big. And it's very distressing because so many people gave us really cute outfits, but the tops are all long-sleeved! It's 85 degrees outside! When is he supposed to wear them? I keep waiting for a cool day so I can dress him in warmer clothes. I told Patrick last night that we HAVE to have another boy, so some of these clothes can get used. Our luck, we'll have two girls and have to get another whole new wardrobe.

On another note, this weekend, we bought a co-sleeper that attaches to the bed. YAY! So much easier for me. Of course, he still loves to be snuggled up to mommy. And who am I to complain? He's only going to be a momma's boy for another 12 years or so, then I've lost him. Anyway, we hit up this awesome garage sale and not only got a sweet deal on the co-sleeper, but bought a ton of clothes, some toys, and got a vibrating seat for free. We picked up a few things for Greta, who is a mere 3 weeks, but it's ridiculous how fast they get so big. Garage sales are addicting. Particularly when you find one with so much baby stuff. Now I am constantly perusing craigslist to find more garage sales where I can spend more money buying crap.

Speaking of crap, I wish I had a poo or fart story today, but fortunately, there have been no big disasters as of late. I get puked on often, though, and usually it's down my pants or down the front of my shirt. Somehow, when I have Trey over my shoulder and am burping him, he pukes down my back (missing the burp rag) and just manages to puke right down the back of my pants. And it's not just the watery, milky puke. It's the milk that's been festering in his stomach for 2 days puke. Sharpshooter, he is.

He did pee on my the other day at his aunt Jenny's house. I was changing him on the couch and he let loose--grinning all the while--with a long leisurely pee, but he was positioned so it was pointing right at me. So he basically pee'd on my butt. My jeans were soaked. So I went to a Rose Festival meeting with a pee covered butt. Luckily, nobody seemed to notice.

Mr. All-Grown-Up

poopy pants

Did you know that breastfed babies don't poo very often? Many only fill their diaper every 6-8 days, and sometimes, it takes even longer. And they can't get constipated. Whoo-hoo, right?

We thought this would be the case with Trey as he did a HUGE, hilarious poo on a Thursday a few weeks back. It was so huge I had to bathe him in order to get him clean. We had to throw away the towel that was under him when he poo'd because there was just too much of it to rationally think I was going to have time to clean it. We should have taken pictures, but I vowed to have a camera at the ready next time it happened because the whole situation was just too funny. Two unsuspecting parents and the poo monster. HA!

10 days later, Trey poo'd again. It was not hilarious this time, just a quick clean up job, an in and out sort of deal. I figured it would be another 10 days before we had to process a dirty diaper. But last night (Wednesday), right in the middle of dinner, Trey started fussing a lot. One minute was sitting in his johnny jump-up smiling and cooing, the next, he was screaming at me to get him out. I changed his diaper and lo-and-behold, there was poo. Hmmm. No big deal, even though it was a mere 4 days since the last dirty change. Again, a no incident change, and everyone was happy.

This morning I was in the shower and heard Patrick shouting at the dog. As you all know , I relish my bathroom time, so I was leisurely soaping up, washing my hair, etc. A few minutes later, I turned off the water, started drying myself off, putting lotion on, and Patrick starting shouting again. I thought that Belle had run off and Patrick needed to go chase her, but wanted to give Trey to me so he wasn't running down the street with a half naked baby. But no. Patrick had, in fact, been shouting at ME for several minutes.

So here I am, naked, standing in Trey's room, and see Patrick holding Trey's feet up and everything around the two of them is covered in poo. There is a gigantic pile on the floor, like Trey had just squatted and decided to do his business on the floor, sans diaper. There is also some poo dripping down the side of the dresser/changing table. And, of course, the changing table pad is COVERED in poo. Amidst it all, Trey is just laying there, content as can be with his feet and butt in the air, staring at his daddy, and probably wondering what all the fuss in about.

I'm not really sure what exactly happened. I don't know if the poo came first, or if Patrick picked up the baby while he was naked and THEN he poo'd. Despite the order of events, it was a priceless moment. And I forgot to take a photo.


(By the way, when Trey and I got to my work this morning, I noticed small poo stains on his feet. So we left a trail of poo from home to work.)

operator

bathroom time

I'm a terrible blogger. It's just because our computer crashed, then I went back to work and haven't thought about the blog until just this second. At any rate, this kid is gigantic now. I was washing the car seat cover last night and as I was taking it off the instructions said that babies 25 inches or more should not be using that carseat. Um, Trey was 24 inches at his last dr's appt almost 4 weeks ago. So do we need a new carseat ALREADY? He doesn't weigh so much--he was 11 lbs, 2 oz at his 2 month old appt, so he must be 2-3 lbs more now? Mr. Long-and-Skinny.

He's practically laughing now--I'm just waiting for him to burst out one of these times. We just bought him a glo-worm, which makes him grin like crazy and his face looks like it's laughing, he just doesn't make the sound.

Next on the agenda for Trey is adjusting to the workplace. He's usually pretty good and has been on a wonderful schedule, but that went a little haywire this week for some reason. He's been crying in the afternoon for no apparent reason (besides wanting to go home, probably) and making me absolutely nuts. Good thing we have to leave by 3pm. As happy as I am that I get to bring him to work, he makes me absolutely exhausted. I have him all day long, get home and have more mommy-Trey time so daddy can study, then I feed him and put him down at night. I know kids are a lot of work, but I really relish my bathroom time.

Oh, and Trey has a new girlfriend. Some friends of ours had a baby on June 30, a little girl named Greta who was almost exactly the same size as Trey when he was born. They are so cute together! I'll post some photos when I get them. Trey is about twice her size, and it seems really incredible that he was once her size. So tiny!

4 weeks old today!

Last night was SO great. Trey slept and woke up only every 3 hours. Once 5am rolled around, he really wanted to get up, but bad mommy that I am, I made him go back to sleep for another hour or so. If I really had to, I would have gotten up, but since I wasn't going to work today, I snuggled in bed with the dog. Thank god I can drink coffee again. I never appreciated it as much as I do now!

Trey smiled at me today and I SWEAR he knew what he was doing. I was singing the ABC's to him and he made some happy sounds and had a huge grin on his face. He also likes it when we give him eskimo kisses--he apparently likes having his nose touched. Patrick is always beeping him on the nose and Trey makes faces at him.

Currently, he's sleeping in my arms. My shoulder is killing me, but I don't want to put the little stinker down. I mean, he's only going to be 4 weeks old once, right?

Tomorrow, he'll be attending his first official Rose Festival event. We have the opening ceremonies, which includes a small busker parade, which we'll be walking in. Well, Trey will be rolling along in his stroller. Then, later, we are going to walk around Waterfront Village. We won't be going on any rides, but daddy might. Of course, Trey will have the job of just being super cute and being oohed and ahhed over by the Rose Festival staff and Princesses. Aw.