San Fran

Thanks for all of your tips on traveling with a baby. Nik did great on the plane and was a champ the whole trip. Eventually I'll get around to the details, until then click here to see my sister's Facebook album of the trip. She's got a bunch of cute one's of Nik up there! Enjoy!

Flying with baby

Nik and I are headed out to San Fran for a little b-day celebration for my dear Mommacita. She'll be celebrating in "the land of fruits and nuts" with her five daughters and one very lucky grandson.

So here's my solicitation for all the advice you can give on flying with a baby. Endow me with your knowledge!

9.5 weeks

This dude's a tank. At church today we met a 3 month old baby that also weighs 13 pounds, but looks way smaller. Oh boy, where will Nik be a month from now! But seriously, I hardly recognize this guy as my little baby. He's getting too big so fast! I love all of the random happy noises he's started making, and he is really getting to be more self sufficient - like he only has to be held 80% of the time as opposed to 90%! But I love doing it!

The little guy did great again at church. He eats during sacrament meeting time, is super alert and happy while Stas teaches his Primary class, and then sleeps during YW.

It is really exciting to start to see some patterns of behavior/routines to our day.

This morning Nikolai had wiggled around in his swing until he found this unusually comfortable position:
Whatever works little man!

Commentary on baby clothes

Yes, that's right. I am writing a whole post just about baby clothes. And it probably won't be the last one either.

First - today was a sad day. I packed away all of Nik's newborn-sized clothes. He's been wearing 0-3 months stuff for a while, but now he's officially no longer a newborn.

Second - what is with the size variation? Yeah, these two sleepers are supposed to be the same size (0-3 months). Hardly.

Note: the green stripes is in the top three of my favorite outfits on Nik.

Third - this sleeper has the shortest legs ever. Seriously they are less than two inches long. Definitely not for our baby!


Okay, that's it for now, but I'll undoubtedly share more opinions later!

my life in bags

it seems like these days i live my life by which bags i have. what ever do i mean? well i noticed the obvious when i saw these lined up by our couch:


diaper bag, breast pump bag, laptop bag, and purse

the purse is for those rare occasions i'm out of the house w/o the wee one
the pump, purse, and laptop go with me to work
the diaper bag goes with me anytime i'm with Nik

these days i sort of feel like i am constantly switching between them all and constantly trying to track down these items:
-power cord
-wallet
-clean bottles, ice pack, etc.
-burp clothes
-water bottles
-chapstick!!

what's next in my world of bags.......the church bag!

Mobile

Okay, I am the first to admit that I am not a crafty person. No really, this isn't just me being modest. I just don't have that crafty jean. The closest I get to being crafty is making spreadsheets. Now that I enjoy!

Back to the mobiles. I remember when I was a kid my mom would make these decorative wall hangings to decorate orphanages as part of Humanitarian Aid. The purpose was to give the babies something to look at so their developed properly and they would hopefully not develop vision problems. Then I read in my baby book about how babies prefer basic patterns and contrasting colors. Then I remember reading a blog post from my pseudo-big sis Mandy about the mobile she made for her daughter. Gee, I thought. Maybe even I could handle this one.

So after I couldn't even find the one pack of construction paper that has lasted all of my creative pursuits of the last eight years or so, I thought to myself "let's not over complicate things." So I stole a piece of paper from the printer and busted out the pack of markers that I bought years ago, but because I thought they might come in handy. Using a nickel for my polka dots and the edge of a magazine as my ruler, I set to work!

Here's the result:
Right now Nik's favorite are the purple circles, but in the last day or so I think he discovered the blue bulls-eye. We'll see what wins out in the long haul.

Note 1: I know, I know. Paperclips and rubber bands are not really safe to use around babies. I promise I will find a better solution as soon as Nikolai realizes that he can do more with his hands than just eat them.

Note 2: Yes, that is a pink bouncer chair. No, we aren't raising our son in some sort of crazy gender-neutral style. We just got the bouncer (and swing, too) from some friends in the ward for free. Yep, that's right. You can't beat free. Even if it is pink! ;)

2 Months!!!

Nik had his 2 month well visit today. Of course he's a stud and is growing quite impressively.

height: 23.5 inches (75%)
weight: 13 pounds 3 ounces (97%)
head: 40.25 centimeters (63-ish%)

*does any one else think that its funny they measure height in inches, but head circumference in centimeters? seriously, let's just move over to the metric system already!
**the nurse didn't give up the % in the office, so I had to look them up online (http://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts). if they sound wrong, they probably are. let me know if you have a better source.

[Update: It looks like he picked up his first bug at the doctor's office, because he's had some pretty intense vomiting tonight. So SAD. The nurse says that throwing up with no temperature is most likely a bug and not a reaction to the two vaccines he received at the appointment. Either way, I'm glad we didn't bombard him with all four at once.]

These photos are from yesterday. He is all smiles in the morning and I LOVE it!

life as we know it

Earlier today when I was at work I checked in with Stas to see how things were going. This is what I received:

we hung out, then he ate, then he burped, then we hung out again, then we ate again, burped again, woke up an hour later crying like crazy, burped again, and went back to sleep.

yep, that's sounds about right!