Posts Tagged ‘baby gear’

My favorite is the third one. This is the first time it looks like Rhino notices his hand. He’s been doing it every now and then since, where he’ll be staring at his hand, jerk it to the side and follow it with his eyes. Earlier today I found him babbling and cooing at it, even!

All these videos are from Tuesday. There are more on Vimeo.

Rhino in White on Couch from Melissa on Vimeo.

Matt Talks to Rhino on Couch from Melissa on Vimeo.

Rhino in Brown Shirt from Melissa on Vimeo.

I heard that newborns are most interested in high-contrast images. We can tell this is true with Rhino, he was always looking at the blinds in the daylight or Matt’s hairline. I printed out a handful of black and white images of checkerboards, stripes, and targets and pasted them to cardboard and taped them to his swing. Now most of the time when he swings, he is staring up at the side where an image is taped.

Rhino has often been fussy during diaper changes. We set up a new, more comfortable changing station for him and decided to give him something interesting to look at. I took a mobile that came with the Pack ‘n Play and removed the cute but potentially uninteresting (for now) bears that it came with and taped some of my images to the mobile. It is set up on the changing table so Rhino can look right up at the papers and he obviously enjoys them. Now he has started cooing and babbling and during about half of his diaper changes he holds little conversations with his black and white buddies. This isn’t a diaper change video, but this is just what he does!

I usually like to use the mei tai to carry Rhino in when we’re out and about, but we also have this Hotslings baby sling:

He loves the mei tai and often falls asleep in it, but only if I’m moving (he’ll get cranky if I stand still for too long.) I tried the sling before the mei tai because I thought it would be better for a newborn. When we first tried it out, he hated it and looked so uncomfortable. We went to a party last night where a lady with a four month-old son claims it’s her all-time favorite baby item. I thought I’d give it another try and we did better this time. Rhino didn’t seem quite so scrunched up and he hung out in there for quite a while. It’s easier to throw on than the mei tai (which requires some wrapping and tying of straps) and I’m going to try to use it around the house more, if Rhino is up for it!

I love carrying Rhino around and definitely plan to for quite a while. “Babywearing” is definitely the in thing these days and there’s good reason! If you’re interested in reading about them, here are some of the benefits of babywearing.

We have a lot of videos of Rhino hanging out on a Boppy pillow or in his swing. Really, he does other things too.

Sleepy Rhino on the Boppy from Melissa on Vimeo.

Rhino (Awake) on his Boppy from Melissa on Vimeo.

Rhino (Awake) on his Boppy from Melissa on Vimeo.

Fussy Rhino in His Swing from Melissa on Vimeo.

Fussy Rhino in His Swing from Melissa on Vimeo.

For Christmas Matt got me a Babyhawk mei tai, which I adore! I chose the fabric on both sides and the straps. We have a sling carrier also, but Rhino and I both like the mei tai better. Sometimes I tie it so his head is pressed against my chest and he sleeps as I walk around, but I like it best when he has room to look up at me. I’ll be doing my thing and he’ll just stare up at me the whole time and is so cute!

Rhino went to our small group with us tonight for the 3rd week of our 4-week lesson. It was difficult to concentrate at all on the discussion — Rhino kept fussing and just looking so darned cute! I think it was tough for the other women in the group to keep their mind on the lesson, as well! Rhino had all ready met Wayne and Rena at the hospital, but tonight he got to meet Bill and Claudia. Robb and Janeece weren’t around this week, but we’ll meet up with them next time. Here is Rhino in the carseat in his cute hooded jacket before we left.

And here is a video taken with Bill’s camera of Matt after he burped Rhino. No sound, but still cute!

Rhino is a week old. He had his first pediatrician visit yesterday and he has gained back his birth weight. On the 16th, when he was discharged from the hospital, he was at 8 lb even, now he’s back up to 8 lb 10 oz. He still has a tinge of jaundice, but it’s nothing serious and there’s nothing we should do about it. He has also grown to 21-1/2 inches.

We’ve been doing just fine on our own. We’re about to have our families out to visit for a few weeks. Matt has had ten days of paternity leave from work and goes back on crew Saturday night. It has been nice to have him home to help out in the middle of the night, with taking care of things around the house, and doing diaper changes. We are doing just fine with sleep and get naps during the day when Rhino naps. Everything is going wonderfully and it has been so great getting to know our son!

Rhino, Asleep on Boppy

Mommy and Baby, Matching Pajamas

Matt with Rhino

Rhino on Tummy on Soft Blanket

There really hasn’t been too much of interest over here. Pregnancy is going well. I’ve had two appointments since my last update, both of which are fairly uneventful. My strep test came back negative, thankfully. Nothing’s really “happening” yet. We hired our Bradley instructor as our doula. She’s on call for us exclusively since last Friday until Baby is born. The doctor didn’t seem thrilled about our plans, but she doesn’t work for him. Plus, she’ll be spending time with us at home from the time that I start labor, if I like, until a few hours after Baby has arrived. It will be nice for Matt to have some extra support, to have another person “on our side”, and to have someone with us before we head down to Santa Barbara. I’m feeling more confident about the whole experience and am now just getting a little anxious! I don’t mind being late, I just don’t want my doctor to start pressuring us into induction or for things to run too late that getting all our PCS paperwork finished in time becomes too stressful.

The ladies from our Bible study are planning a second baby shower for us, though it will be after Baby is born. I thought it would be nice to plan around when my mom is visiting, but that is so up in the air it would be impossible to plan around. I set it for March 2nd, the weekend that Matt’s parents are visiting, so that will be really nice to attend with his mom. We’re going to do a dedication at the church also, so I picked February 24th (I sure do hope Baby is here by then!) and maybe my mom will be out for that! She sent us some really cute knitted and crocheted christening outfits a little while ago (I’m not sure if she wore them as a baby or if we did) that would be perfect for the occasion.

We had plans last break (Mon-Wed) to visit with our friends Denna and Adam in Ventura then head down to LA to spend some time with Jen. Well, Matt’s monthly training came up on Tuesday, so we weren’t able to make it down to LA on Monday. We did go hang out with Denna, Adam and their son Tyler during the day for chatting, shopping, and dinner before heading back home Monday evening. Then after Matt’s morning training on Tuesday we made the drive down to LA. The weather has been really rainy and crummy out here, so driving 3 hours in the pouring rain was sort of a bummer. Jen’s been out here for a while, but whenever we get together she usually wants to escape the city and visit with us, so we had never been down to see her place! We relaxed at her apartment, ate cookies, met her roommates, and watched some movies. It was nice to just veg and chat with her. Wednesday morning we went to the Apple store to pick up an FM transmitter for our iPod for listening in the car and had lunch at the farmer’s market. I wish we could have spent more time, and this will probably be our last opportunity to go down there, but it was really great to spend some time with Jen. The drive back wasn’t so terrible at first. It was still raining like crazy, but traffic wasn’t bad and we were making really good time until we got just north of Santa Barbara, almost home. We were then sitting at a stand-still for over 2 hours over an accident. Matt took a nap and we watched some Invasion on the iPod and got progressively grumpier. It was a long drive home and we didn’t make it to our Bradley class (Barbara said it’s the most important one, too!). We have our 12th, final class this Wednesday so we should be able to catch up a little. It was a long trip home, but we were safe, just tired.

I’ve been working on school, trying to get as much finished as possible before all my time is taken up with Baby and moving stuff. The term goes until the middle of April, but I don’t expect to get too much finished in March. We have 3 times that relatives will be visiting, will have to take care of all the paperwork for Matt to get his orders and Baby to travel with us, and will be dealing with packing and moving issues on top of recovering and getting used to Baby. I’m really looking forward to it, but I know schoolwork will be the least of my concerns. It’s going kind of slowly, though. I’m doing a big critical thinking paper on obesity in the U.S. and have a handful of calculus papers that I’m thinking about working on. I am just not so motivated right now and it’s not exactly fun stuff for me. My mentor wants me to knock the 3 classes I’m taking out early so I can pick up another before the term is over, but that just isn’t realistic. Once we’re in Japan I’m hoping I can burn through them more quickly, but right now it’s just not going to happen.

Tonight Jen drove up after work and hung out with us for dinner. She and Danielle had been planning a baby shower for me at the church, so she headed over to set up for that around 6. Matt and I popped over at about 7 and met up with Katherine (and daughter, Laura) and Jody. It was a small shower, but I don’t have too many girlfriends, and it was super-nice! Danielle picked up a cute cake (strawberry — my favorite!) and there was plenty of yummy snacks. They decorated the place really nicely with purple streamers, candy-filled baby bottles, and cute animal plates.

We munched and played some fun games. First everyone wrote some fun baby advice on a note card for Matt and I to hold on to. We were also all given 3 clips to place somewhere on our clothes and were prohibited from saying the word “baby” for the entire evening. If we messed up, we’d have to give up one of our clips to the person who heard us (or encouraged us to) say the forbidden word. Jen slipped within the first two minutes when Matt took a look at our cake and sneakily asked her “what does that say” as if he couldn’t read it. Everyone thought it would be pretty easy to just replace “baby” with plenty of other words, but when you get into conversation, you forget all about it and we all had a good laugh at each others mistakes. Matt won the evening with 6 clips. We played another game where we had to list names of baby animals. Jen had a huge list (ostrich, eel, camel, eagle … there were maybe 40 animals) and we’d have to give the names(s) of the animal’s baby. We got a point for each correct one, or if Jen was feeling generous, would give half a point for creativity or effort. It was pretty tough! We were all impressed that Jody knows a baby female zebra is a filly and who knew that a baby eel is a fry? I won the game with 18 points, but most of them were just guesses. It was fun and educational!

Then we got to the gifts! Andrea and Mama had sent some to the us in advance to bring to the shower. Mama sent some cute things that I had as a baby, which is really sweet (Peter Rabbit piggy bank, ceramic clown head to hang on the wall, etc)! She also sent us bath supplies like hooded towels and some really cute onesies! Andrea sent us the bathtub we wanted, bath supplies, and an adorable Nightmare Before Christmas onesie/hat! (Matt loves the movie and she periodically sends him things like t-shirts and rubber masks and this was just perfect!) We also got a nice card from Danielle, some diapers from Katherine, a pretty baby footprint frame and really soft blanket and gift card from Jody, and a Pack’n Play (to match our stroller!) from Jen, Mom, Aunt Ginny, Aunt Connie, and Mom-Mom. It was a great time and was really sweet of Jen and Danielle to set up.