Funny Things

Whit has said so many amusing things over the last few weeks that I find I need to write them down here else I would flood Facebook with "funny things Whit says."

On Soccer
ME: Whit, what number do you think you would like on the back of your soccer jersey?
W: mmmm...FIVE! Number five, Eric Renegar!!!!
ME: OK. Did you know Daddy was number five also?
W: Yeah, that was when he was young.

On Play time
Mommy.....
    you're the Mommy Elephant and I'm the baby Elephant.
    you're the Mommy Bird and I'm the baby Bird.
    you're the Mommy Snake and I'm the baby Snake.
    you're the Mommy Worm and I'm the baby Worm.
and I can't forget my favorite and the most recent version. Mommy, I'm baby Shrek and you are Princess Fiona. 


On School
ME: Whit, It's time to go to school!
W: OK. Mommy?
ME: Yes?
W: I'm not going to cry, because school isn't scary.
ME: That's good.

On Identities
W: Mommy.
ME: Yes Whit?
W: Eilidh is a lady. And you are a lady too.
ME: Thank you Whit, you are a gentleman.
W: I'm not a gentleman, I'm a boy.
ME: OK, you are a boy.
W: I'm not a boy, I'm Whitfield Ian Renegar.  Mommy, what's my name?
ME: Your name is Whitfield Ian Renegar. What's my name?
W: Aunt Becka Renegar.

On Religion
W: Mommy, I want to read that book, the God one.
ME: OK. Do you want to start at the beginning?
W: Yes.
ME: This is Genesis, the first book.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ² Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

³ And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. ⁴ God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

⁶ And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” ⁷ So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. ⁸ God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

⁹ And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. ¹⁰ God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

W: Mommy, who is God talking to?

ME: I'm not sure, He's just talking I think.

W: Maybe he's talking to Jesus.

ME: Maybe.

W: What does Jesus say back? 

 

On Travel
ME: Whit, can you take off your shoes? They need to be washed.
W: No! I need my skates (shoes)
ME: Why?
W: Because I have to go to Alaska! 

Month 5

I can hardly believe Eilidh is already 5 months old. Of course, she's behaving more like a 6 month old, so perhaps it's both shocking that she is already 5 months and only 5 months.  Here are some quick updates from month 5.

* Weighing in at over 17 pounds and measuring over 24 inches (a petite baby for me!)
* Sitting up unassisted
* Rolling over any which way
* Trying her hardest to army crawl and making some backward progress
*Showing interest in foods (see video below)

Found her toes and got them in her mouth!

Met her great-grandparents on the Overdorff side for the first time!

Loves her Aunt!

And her brother

And her Nana

Some people would say I'm wrong to offer my 5 month old food and others wonder where the rice cereal and jarred food is. My answer is simple - Baby Led. Jarred food has only been around since the 1920's and we have centuries (and more) of healthy babies. Sorry Gerber, I don't really need you. 

Here's a video of what Baby Led Weaning (ie Baby Led Solids) really means. If you watch closely you'll even see her sign "eat" cool!

The Wonder Month (Month 4)

If you read my previous post, we've now left the Fourth Trimester and become a "real baby!"

It's amazing the changes that a baby goes through in the fourth month. 

Communication  
Did you know babies can communicate with their parents from birth?  Yes, all that crying means something.  How frustrating must it be for a baby, who cannot do anything for their self, to be able only to communicate through crying?  My grandfather is deaf, and although I've never learned or been able to practice as much sign language as I want to truly be able to converse well with him, it made sense to apply what I did know to communicating with my children.  We began teaching Whit signs around three months.  By the time he was seven or eight months old, he was able to sign "all done" and "more." I can distinctly remember one of his first signs "all done" toward the end of a swim lesson when he was 8 months old.  I took him out of the pool with five minutes left in the lesson and avoided a melt down.

Although it's not typically my style, I hadn't done much research on the idea of signing with your baby when I started doing it with Whit.  Seeing how successful I was, I began much earlier with Eilidh, around 6 weeks.  And it's paying off. Although she cannot sign, or even approximate signs yet, she is learning them and their associated spoken word.  This week for the first time I asked Eilidh if she wanted to be in the carrier and did the sign for "carrier."  In response I got a huge smile and lots of excitement. Eilidh is loving the carrier these days.  Many days its the only way to get her down for a nap.  She also shows an excited response when I sign and say "nurse."  And the best use? While Eilidh is usually content to be down for periods throughout the day, there are some times when she simply wants to be held. But it's impossible to change a diaper while holding the baby without getting covered in poop (trust me, I've tried). The solution? I put her down, quickly sign and say "let's do a diaper change" and immediately she stops fussing.

Growth
Baby has almost doubled in weight.  Eilidh, born at exactly 8lbs weighs in just a few ounces shy of 16 pounds. She's also 2 feet long! 

Senses
Did you know newborns can only see shades of black and white and their eyesight limits their field of vision to less than 2 feet?  By 4 months they can see colors and all the way across a room. Although babies can recognize their parents early on, around this time they can recognize voices and people from several feet away and they begin recognizing other important (or frequently seen) individuals.  

Personality
When I was pregnant, I began getting a sense of Eilidh's personality.  She was mostly quiet and sweet but she would occasionally get very fired up and she could certainly stand up to big brother Whit when he bumped her or simply laid down on my stomach (she typically responded with a kick or punch).  These personality traits are continuing to show themselves and we are getting to know her a little better every day.

Eilidh is a sweetheart. She will smile for just about anyone and is rarely upset. Eilidh has a special smile for most of the special people in her life.  Brother, Daddy and Papa are current recipients of one of the most dazzling.  I don't get a lot of smiles myself, but we have our own special look that we share. But watch out if she gets angry.... Today she dropped a toy and lost sight of it.  There's no object permanence at this age, so out of sight meant the toy was lost forever.  What a reaction she had! She also gets very impatient when she is particularly set on getting something and seems to loose all patience at that point.

Eilidh loves her brother and watches him almost constantly. She is eager to be doing whatever he is doing and blossoms when he shows her the slightest bit of attention.

Motor Skills
Both gross and fine motor skills have taken a leap forward in the last few weeks.  Babies can grasp objects, sometimes pick them up and can navigate most anything to the mouth; good practice for feeding themselves in a few months.  Eilidh likes pretty much anything in her mouth but especially watch out for your fingers! She will also grab my face and bring it right up to hers for a kiss and enjoys holding my hand when she is nursing or trying to fall asleep.

Typically developing babies begin to do "big" things like sitting up and rolling over between the fourth and sixth month.  Our over-achiever did both almost two weeks shy of 4 months (albeit she was born nearly 2 weeks later than "typical").  This video shows a small portion of her newly honed mobility.

Months 1-3

AKA, the fourth trimester

Have you ever noticed how needy a newborn baby is? How most of them are not "good babies" that soothe themselves to sleep or can be left alone, even untouched, for most of their day (and night)?  Not to mention that they are sort of boring.  Seriously.  They are super cute to look at, but mostly it's eat, poop, sleep, poop, eat..... and so forth for the first three months.

Picture this.... you come home after a long day and instead of walking into your comfortable 72 degree house, hopping into your comfortable bed and listening to your favorite song on the radio you open the front door and are flooded with freezing water and terribly loud noises.  It's what every new baby experiences. Forget the enjoyment of being rhythmically squeezed for an average of 8-24 hours. Think instead of what must be processing through their brains.  Shock, fear, anxiety?  Whit was decently calm when he was born, but he was somewhat drugged up from my epidural.  Eilidh experienced her birth the same way I did, naturally medication free. And she came into the world screaming.

I can remember reading somewhere that it helps a baby to sleep if you swaddle the baby and wrap a sweatshirt that smells like you around an old-fashioned alarm clock and put it near their head.  Something about being wrapped up tight near a warm, familiar scent and that tick-tick-tick fools them into thinking they are in the womb again.  That seems like a lot of work to me.

The truth is, human babies are born about three or four months too early. Their brains are only 1/4 the size of an adult brain.  The next closest mammal newborn has a brain 1/2 the size of an adult.  But humans are bi-peds.  Even in the best birthing positions, the ones that open up the hips as much as possible, wouldn't birth the head of a three or four month old baby. Human babies are the weakest and most vulnerable mammal at birth. 

So what do we do to deal with these "needy" babies?  There are so many items on the market that you can buy to help soothe your baby but I've found on this subject (as with so many others) that I took the easiest and least expensive route (that's not me saying I'm cheap and lazy...) Mommy's arms make baby happy, so use them! 

Here's my advice for some of the common complaints.  (And my excuse for not posting much during this "fourth trimester")

Baby only sleeps when... I'm holding him, he's sleeping with me. So do it! Hold, sleep, whatever it takes.  But do your research and do it safely. If your arms are tired or you find the housework piling up, call in reinforcements or consider wearing your baby.  Side note: Daddy sleeping with baby on his chest makes Mommy swoon.

Baby wakes up if I place her on her back. So lay her down on her belly until she's fully asleep.  If you are concerned about SIDS, stand over her like a hawk and then flip her to her back when she's good and asleep. Side note: The first night she was born, Eilidh went to the nursery to be weighed and checked out. The nurses told me she would only settle when placed on her side. At first I felt disappointed that they knew something I didn't, but I realized that I hadn't actually put her down yet.... and now I'm grateful that I knew going in she wouldn't sleep on her back unless she was very deeply asleep.

Baby wants to nurse...all...the...time....So do it.  Ok, that's not a possibility, but introduce a pacifier if you need to, sucking feels good to them, releases all sorts of good endorphins.

I'm exhausted. Buck up, your baby will eventually be a three year old, still exhausting, but in a different way. Seriously though, sleep when you can, however you can and enjoy those precious seconds when you are awake and not delirious from lack of sleep. And maybe next time you'll get a "good" baby.

Home Sweet Home

For the last decade or so, whenever someone asked where I was going [on a trip], I would reply "home."  That evolved the last five years to "home to Virginia" to highlight the fact that I had two homes.  Knoxville became my home in so many ways.  We had close friends there, careers, we were beginning to put down some roots.  We brought two babies "home" there.

But one can never truly sever the ties to their hometown.  This is the only home Kirk can remember and likely it will be the only one that Whit and Eilidh know.  Although I can remember many places that I've lived, this is the only one that ever truly seemed like home to me.  Our roots run deep here and I suppose they always will.

Anytime Kirk and I would come back to this place it was as if time slowed down and we could breath more deeply.  Our five years in Knoxville flew by and the one year we spent in northern Virginia the first year we were married was the blink of an eye. 

I've been "home" for less than a month and there are some times when it seems I never left.  The fact that our furniture still sits in a house in Knoxville is about the only thing making our time there tangible.  Surprisingly, the feeling I always had while on vacation here hasn't left me.  I would say that it has something to do with me being home with the kids, but I experienced that in Knoxville both last summer and after Eilidh was born. It just isn't the same.  There's something to be said for country life; there just seems to be more here.  Far fewer things, places and people, to be sure, but  more space, more time, more.... living.