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.