Tuesday, March 3, 2009

The First Solid Food. :) 16w2d old.

aside from the 10″ of snow we got yesterday, my little man ate 1/2 tbsp of rice cereal off a spoon!!! we have a majority of it on tape, but the antics were quite funny. we mixed about an ounce of formula with a tablespoon of BeechNut Rice Cereal and ohman, at first he was a little hesitant, but by the end of the feeding, he had his hands on the spoon and would put his face forward to get more food from it! it was TOO darn cute.

we will be doing this over the next week or so before moving on to veggies. although some recommend the fruits first, i feel that logan needs to be exposed to the not-so-sweet tastes firsts. i’d prefer he get used to the yellow veggies first.. like squash, sweet potatoes, and carrots. i will say… there is not much that’s funnier than a child with food all over their face and up their nose.

we also stated the “your baby can read!” series. this is an infomercial i watched CONSTANTLY during logan’s midnight feedings. i’m not sure what the website is off the top of my head, but it has 4 volumes that you show 2x a day for a varied length of time. it shows the word, reads the word twice, then shows a picture of the word and uses it in a sentence. it plays songs. it’s much more interactive, i feel, than the baby einstein dvds.

anyway… more on this later. whiny little man to attend to.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Product Review Vol. I

little logan is 15 weeks old today! one more week until 4 months. he’ll be getting his next set of boosters coming up in the next couple weeks and i thought that i would talk about some of the things we’ve received and let you know how *i* feel about them, as well as how logan has reacted to them! i’m going to do a few at a time, so as not to make the blog entries huge. first ones i’m going to talk about are the starlight papasan cradle swing by fisher-price, the rainforest bouncy chair, and the baby einstein deluxe seek and discover activity gym.

1) fisher-price starlight papasan cradle swing: this was probably the most discussed and and argued over piece of baby play equipment we got. heh. mainly because it is a TAD expensive ($140?) but SO worth every single penny!! logan has taken a nap in his swing since he was born and that thing is a LIFESAVER! he takes about a 2.5 hour nap in it in the afternoon. it’s his “long nap” area. unfortunately, the weight limit only goes up to 25lbs and logan’s currently, i’d guess, around 16.5-17lbs and the swing itself has to be turned all the way up to sway him comfortably enough so he’d fall asleep. but it has 5 different kind of noise settings and a projection of stars/moons that rotate along with a few small plush bears/stars that act like a mobile. he LOVES his swing. and we do too!

2) fisher-price rainforest bouncy chair: this was a purchase that my mother made for us. and boy, am i glad she did. originally on my registry, i picked the bouncy chair that matched my pack n’play set. but for some reason, it just didn’t seem as entertaining to a child. yes, it was “matchy” and “cute” which i liked… but… for practicality’s sake, we needed something that a) would occupy and stimulate logan’s senses and b) be useful and portable so that we could take it places with us or move it between rooms so we could put him down in it, he can still see us, and finds it amusing! i love how the bar lights up and the animals on it move! also, there are 2 settings for music and cause/effect learning as he gets a little bit older. i was advised as such about this bouncy chair from my best friend and for under $30, this is an EXCELLENT buy for any little one. the light-up bar is removable, which is great when he wants entertainment from another source. it allows for multiple uses AND it’s a LARGE CHAIR! not like those tiny “matchy” bouncers i had seen or had originally wanted. my best friend’s son still plays with certain parts of the chair, even at a year old!

3) baby einstein seek & discover activity gym/playmat: first of all, let me say that the color scheme of the baby einstein toys are excellent, as they are primary colors and are some of the first colors baby can see when he starts to separate colors from blacks and whites. this playmat also has 2 modes: music mode and cause/effect mode. we use the music mode a lot because logan likes to lay on it, under the flashing musical star, and look at all the colors it makes! it also comes with several dangly toys that rattle and crinkle, as well as a large caterpillar that you can remove and attach to your carseat for added convenience. also, the flashing star can be removed and taken along for the ride or attached to other toys. we dangle it over logan in his pack n’play also and it lulls him to sleep because the colors light up his sleep space an entertain him until he plays to snooze! my only beef with this mat is that it isn’t very thick, so we fold up a blanket on top of our throw rug and THEN place him on it so that there are several layers of cushion-y space between his head and the floor. oh! AND! the mat is SUPER portable. we just have to lift it and take it with us. i go to my mom’s with it all the time.

also, i might mention that logan is NOT a paci baby… and it’s not like we didn’t try. HA. we literally bought EVERY KIND and he just…. didn’t take well to it because he has a slight tongue tie. or so i think that THAT’S why he sucks a little differently than other babies. BUT! he does love up on a blankie (a receiving blanket of ANY size and color). not any particular one, but we’ve been putting a blanket next to his face since he was VERY little and now, when he goes to sleep, he nuzzles it and even if he’s upset, can MOST OFTEN snuggle himself to sleep with his blankie!

take care for now! and i’d love it if you’d share some of YOUR child(ren)’s favorite baby/toddler toys via the comments and how you also feel about them! ciao!

Friday, February 20, 2009

Reflux, Laughter, & A Good Night's Sleep

so, i’m not all that great about making sure i keep up with this blog, but that’s going to change. let me just make a quick bulleted list of some of the things we’ve experienced with logan throughout his 14-week lifespan so far!

1) at approx 6 weeks, logan had to go to the ER at 3:00AM because he was short of breath, wheezing, nasally, and very congested. the pedi thought that he might have RSV, so she had us bring him to the hospital just in case. they put an IV port in his little hand (worst thing i’ve ever had to witness), a urine sac over his lil bits (hey, it was better than a catheter), a chest xray where we had to literally pin him down so he couldn’t move, holding his chin up and everything so he wouldn’t cry… ugh. thankfully, all the tests came back fine, just a little bit of chest congestion. we were sent home at 6AM and tried to get him to sleep, which was veryvery hard. he slept upright in his bouncy chair for about 10 days so that the post-nasal drip would run down instead of stifle his breathing. ugh.

2) i’m not sure when it happened, but logan can now hold his head up pretty well!! but he HATES laying on his stomach. yes, we try tummy-time on the boppy and on the playmat often, but because he’s had such awful reflux issues (i’ll touch on this in its own entry one of these days), we never want to put him on his belly right after he eats because, well, it’s obviously not going to HELP the reflux. heh.

3) he laughed for the first time on january 26th, 2009 at my mother’s house (logan’s mema). daddy was playing with him with a piece of a mobile that was at my mom’s and he literally laughed like a little old man!! it was the most adorable thing i’d ever heard… and we’re anxiously awaiting the moment when he chooses to remember how he did it. he hasn’t done it since.

4) he’s wearing 6-9 month clothing. he is 14, almost 15 weeks old!!! lol. he’s just a tiny giant. we’re not quite sure how much he weighs or how long he is, but his 4 month appointment (and next round of boosters) is coming up in the next couple weeks. speaking of boosters…

5) we chose not to get the rotovirus vaccine because there just isn’t enough known about it since the scare last year. i don’t trust it yet. for more information on rotovirus, check out webmd.com. but otherwise, we got his other vaccines done at his 2 month appointment and he sprung a very low-grade fever, was only whiney for a couple days, and was mostly back to himself the following day! but i must admit… i would have cried when the nurse gave him the injections if it hadn’t been for the fact that i had seen him poked, prodded, and harassed at the ER 2 weeks prior. heh. otherwise… bring something to cry into, mommy’s-to-be! the shots are harder for us than they are for them. it’s true.

6) he likes to sit up!! we can put him comfortably in the bumbo seat, but his lil thighs are getting too chunky for it. hahaha. he hasn’t figured out balance quite yet, but he’s getting there! he wants to be a big man all the time.

7) logan can be laid down half awake… and go to sleep all by himself!! this is a huuuuuuuge milestone. he’s usually in bed between 9 and 10… sometimes a little earlier… but never usually later than that. and he will sleep until about 7AM. except for last night.

i hope to be able to update this at least once a week… i’m still attending college for my undergrad, so it’s sometimes hard to get to it, but don’t worry! keep checkin’ up!