Big weekend

We are just now recovering from last weekend. On Friday, I went to a work outing, seeing Cirque du Soleil. At the same time, Henry had his first "taste" of Amish food at the Der Dutchman. Well, his taste was indirect. He did not enjoy the experience -something about the Amish scared him. We all got back around midnight, and prepared for the Buckeyes game on Saturday.

On Saturday, Sarah and I had tickets to the game, so Grandma and Grandpa Thornburg stepped up to watch the boy. We spent four hours hollering at Buckeyes from the closed end of the Horseshoe, then it took us two hours to get home (less than a three mile trip). We picked up Mr. Henry at 1:30 AM. His grandparents are saints, by the way.

We bounced up, slowly, the next morring so that Sarah could go to Rachel's bridal shower, and I could kvetch over which camera and camcorder to buy. I then caught up with the fam to celebrate Sarah's Grandma Ida's 89th birthday. After that, we hobbled home to get ready for work on Monday!

Is that a bedtime routine I see? What?

Things are starting to get a little more normal at bedtime. Last night Henry got a bath and pretty much went to sleep right away. Tonight we read some books, walked around a bit, and Henry is peacefully sleeping as we speak. He's been sleeping through the night for about a week, and we're starting to feel out when bedtime should be. It's a wonderful thing to be talking about: "Should we put him down at 10:00? How about 9:30? Yeah, sleep!

In other news, daycare has been a pretty rough morning schedule for us. Sarah wakes up at 4:45 so that she can pump and get herself ready (and do schoolwork ... her addiction). If Henry hasn't woken up by 6:00, she wakes him up. This sometimes slides to 6:30 ... a sleepy baby is a happy baby, after all, and an awoken baby is exactly the opposite. I wake up around 6:00 as well, because Sarah is trying to get out the door by 6:30, which means that I'm in charge. I finish up the loose ends (dressing, feeding, whatever) and whisk him off to day care, usually by 7:00 or so.

The Army says that they do more before 7:00 than you do all day, right? I'm starting to feel like that ... what a loaf I was before! Ah, in 13 years I can do it again! It's a good thing that parents are programmed not to be vindictive, because it would be a ball to start banging pots and pans in the middle of the night when Henry is 13. When he wakes up I'll ask him if remembers the 3:00 feedings, and laugh. Again, good thing that I'm biologically programmed not to act like that.

Another baby, just in case you haven't had your fix yet.

Henry made sure that we told you, our stalwart viewers, that another baby has been blogging and that we should show our support. Ava Elizabeth Crane was born over the weekend to our friends Aaron and Kristie. More info and very cute pictures are at http://allaboutava.blogspot.com.

Don't they look much too happy and well-rested for just having a baby? I'm a bit jealous, I must tell you ... ah, but they won't be sleeping all that well in the near future. Maybe that will make me feel better ... ok no it won't. Congratulations to the Cranes, and welcome, little Ava, to the planet. Hopefully you'll be able to dunk (your Dad sure can't, and it's a waste of his height if you ask me -- the dude is 6'5").

Pictures of the weekend

This is Henry at the UA Arts Festival on Labor Day (today, even). This is him getting his groove on during a reggae set. You see, he's a karate man ... he has to show his groove on the inside.

The other two pictures are at the Thornburg's campsite at Alum creek. Henry's definitely the most photogenic of the three of us.

Go Buckeyes!

Today was Henry's first Buckeye football experience. First, we went to the post office to order his passport. Passport, you say? Yes, our son will be travelling to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, for his uncle James's wedding in October. Anyhoo, we hurried home so that we could get him dressed for his first Buckeye football game. Just in case you can't see from the photos, that's number 27. Eddie George was said to be honored that his number would live on into the next generation, and this youngster looked to have a lot of potential. We agree.

We went up the campgrounds at Alum Creek to watch the game in Grandma and Grandpa T's 32-foot trailer. They call it "camping". I call it "awesome". Henry only caught the 4th quarter, as he was more interested in a nap until then. And then he was too hungry to pay attention to the game. So he really didn't see any of it.

The Buckeyes, while sad that they couldn't keep Henry's attention, bravely played on against the Miami Redhawks. The Bucks basically destroyed them. Santonio Holmes had an All-American catch in the first, and Dante Whitner had a great pick for a TD in the 2nd. The 3rd and 4th were pretty uneventful. Final score was 34 -14.

We're off for some hiking now!

I'm going where, with who?

This week Sarah went back to school, and we were blessed to have family watch the Prince. Next week is daycare (ugh ... what a nightmare decision to have to make), and this week was kind of easing slowly into it.

Grandma T(hornburg) watched Henry Monday and Tuesday, which we very much appreciate. Monday was really rough for me ... I got all misty in the car ride to drop him off. And this was only to Grandma's! I'm not even going to think about next week ... again, ugh.

On Tuesday night, Aunt Sarah arrived to save the day. YEAAAAAAAAAAH AUNT SARAH! She stayed with us through Friday, and just left to return home. We will miss her. She hung out with the boy through the day, hung out with all of us at night, and probably didn't get enough sleep during her stay. Ah well, she can catch up now that she's home!

We truly feel blessed to be surrounded by supportive family. Thank you thank you thank you.

Henry's first football game

UPPER ARLINGTON, OH -- As the mighty Jones Middle School Bears took the field for their season opener, a feeling of anticipation filled the air. These Bears were battered and bruised last season mustering only one win, an away win, and they were hungry. At 5:10 PM when they rushed on the field, they only thought about one thing: a victory over the visiting Worthingway Wildcats. From the opening snap, these boys were determined. In the end, they were victorious .... a 12 - 0 thumping of the ill-prepared visitors. The mighty Bears ran forth as one to ring the victory bell for the first time, since their lone victory of the year before came not at storied Jones field, but on the road.

Of course, Henry Rayo didn't pay attention to any of this. We went to see his uncle Jimmy play, but he was content to sit under a makeshift tent formed by Sarah's umbrella. He laid on his blanket, fed a bit, and was generally content. Grandpa and Grammy Rayo were in attendance, as well as Asia, Aunt Sarah, and Henry's dearest Mommy and Daddy.

Jimmy, who plays Offensive Line for the Bears, hit his blocking assignments as he was supposed to, but didn't have any spectacular plays to speak of. That's all in the job description for the O-Line ... work hard and have someone else get the glory.

By they way, the concrete bleacher of Jones Field are quite painful to sit on. Daddy's butt hurt ... a lot.

Anyhoo, after the game a victory dinner at Chipotle was held in Jimmy's honor, and Jimmy asserted his autonomy by sitting with his friends instead of with his family. He's getting to be all growns up, I guess. Again, Henry was oblivious ... he slept in his car carrier through this portion of the evening.

Gratuitous Henry pics

Three visits with three Great Aunts

OK, two of the visits were with the same Great Aunt, but it's still impressive. Henry met three of his father's four aunts this week. So he went from 0 to 3! In two days!

We stopped over to Aunt Peg's Uncle Joe's on Sunday night for Henry to meet Peg and Aunt Mary Beth, who was visiting from Arizona. Uncle Joe (who was sleeping) and Uncle Sam (who was visiting his parents) both missed out on a Henry sighting. Dems are da breaks, I s'pose.

The following day, Henry met his Great Auntie Pammie. She's Pam (or Pamela, I guess) to the rest of the world, but Auntie Pammie to me. And to Henry. That's her on the right. She was on a business trip, travelling from Connecticut. We had extreme granola food (that's healthy food for you laymen) both Monday and Wednesday nights. North Star on Monday, Whole World on Wednesday. Pammie fed Henry on both occasions. I think it's safe to say that she's pretty taken by our little Prince.

Not that we're keeping score, but here's lineup of great aunts and uncles that haven't seen the boy yet: Joyce, Hank, Peter, Mary, Tom, Chris, Missy, Kendra, and Paula. I may have missed a couple, but I think that's the exhaustive list. I'm giving the folks that married into the family a break, because you've probably endured enough already without your nephew (or nephew-in-law) giving you a hard time. Anyway, if you know one of these folks (or are one), then raz them a bit. My Mom's sibs are pretty much off the hook, though, because we're planning a bit of a reunion-lite in Florida so that everyone can hang out and meet Henry. We missed the actual reunion because we were in no shape to travel at the end of July.

Before I forget my rancor ...

Let me say a few words about how the central office at Columbus Public Schools has worked to make this a seamless transition into family life. We will be focusing on the folks that deal with insurance, so please don't misunderstand this to be a diatribe on everything that is Columbus Public Schools.

Sarah has called those yahoos at least three times, and has been told three times that there was nothing to worry about, and that Henry would be added to the plan. She started calling them on Day 5 of Henry's life, and guess what? My son still has no health insurance coverage. The pediatrician's office is getting a mite snippy, and they have good reason. We owe them $1300. Which we don't want to pay. We should have around $50 of copays, which sounds like a much more reasonable number to me.

They don't answer their phones. One woman's voice mailbox is full, so she can't take calls at all. It just plain sucks. Sarah gets responses from the insurance folks like "is your son covered under your plan?" I don't know .... aren't you the insurance person?

Do you want to know the funniest thing? For the last couple of weeks, they've been taking more out of her paycheck in healthcare coverage. Why? I haven't a clue, because we're getting no more coverage out of the deal.

Not cool, CPS. Not cool.

Ouch! Shots!

I came home today to a woozy and drowsy baby. Very woozy. Very drowsy. These symptoms were caused by a series of vaccinations that Henry received today at his doctor's visit. Five vaccinations, to be exact. I guess the drill is that they do all five at once.

They stuck him in both legs, then tried to make amends by giving him ultra cute band aids. We all know the story, though ... we can't be distracted by a bit of plastic and cotton chicanery. His wounds can't be masked in various and assorted colors, woven into a tapestry of infection prevention.

He didn't seem to mind them much, even if his Dad is already plotting revenge for this grave injustice to his son. Ok fine, he needs his shots ... I aint mad at 'em. There. I feel better.

Are you sticking your tongue out at me?

Henry found his tongue today. He has always used it to eat and cue to us that he's ready to eat, but now he sticks it out all the way (like the WASSUP guys on the old Budweiser ads) and smiles. It cracks us up. I didn't believe Sarah when she told me, then I saw it. Crrr-azy! We don't have any pictures of it, because my !@#$ digital camera has like a 5 second hesitation before it takes a picture. Which means that Henry's tongue is wagging then neatly tucked back in before the camera takes a picture. Argh. In related news, it looks like the household is going to get updated camera equipment. A new camcorder and maybe a new digital cam. We'll see what the budget allows.

It is just too damn frustrating to see something incredible that baby is doing, and not be able to snap it. So we're going to do something about it.

Tomorrow Henry goes to the doctor for his 2 month visit. Stay tuned to see if we get to start getting him off the Zantac! He's taking the Zantac for acid reflux, which may have gone away ... who knows?

Hooray for Grandparents!

Whew! We are finally recovering from last week. I had a crazy retreat for work (reminiscent of the old Arthur Andersen days ... and the work hours), and Sarah had some prework for the school year and a couple functions to attend. When both parents have to be out doing other things, what is a baby to do? Answer: find a grandparent. Thank heavens for grandparents. We were in a real jam, and they dug us out of it.

On Wednesday night, Henry swooped in on Grandma and Grandpa Thornburg, who were more than willing to snap him up for some quality time. They hung out on the back porch, swung on the swing, and offered us both way too much food when we showed up to pick him up. I happily obliged them ... what's a hungry Dad to do? Turn away perfectly good food? Sarah ate, too ... a bunch of desserts.

On Thursday night, Sarah dropped Henry off at the Rayos. My Dad geared up to watch Henry and his cousin Asia without Gramma Bob's assistance. In his words ... "I can handle it as long as there is no pooping." Unfortunately, I can't attest to the presence or absence of pooping, but everything seeemed to go great. My work schtuff ran late, so Sarah picked him up a bit later than we expected, which gave Bob a chance to see the boy. So, all was right in the world.

Thank you thank you thank you to Henry's grandparents (you too, Grandma Pitts)!!!!!! You mean the world to us, and we feel blessed to have you in Henry's life.

More poop stories! Did Daddy poop his pants?

Let's answer that: NO! Henry seemed to enjoy himself, though, after pooping Dad's pants. Let me set the stage.

Sarah has been able to pump more, so I've been taking more feedings. She went down with a headache, so I pulled the 3:00 PM feeding today. Henry was very appreciative of a punctual feeding, and went to work knocking back the bottle. His whole body was working overtime, and Dad felt three huge poops. Good work, Henry! You see, normally we encourage such results of healthy bowels. When he was done, I had to decide: change him or burp him. Change him or burp him. Change him or ... well, you get the idea. I was pulling him up to burp him when I noticed the unbelieveable yellow streak down my shorts (click above to enlarge that picture). So I changed him.

We are currently in the process of extracting the poop from these shorts using various techniques. Here's the kicker: the whole time that I'm treating the shorts, Henry is laying on the changing table smiling at Mommy. And Mommy is repeating the phrase "Did Daddy poopy his pants? Did Daddy poop his pants?"

Again, and I repeat: NO!

The whole thing was pretty durn funny, though.

Ugh! Power outage!

After coming home from Josh's house warming party last night (we decided to bring Henry, and he wanted to leave after about 20 minutes), we arrived to a dark house. No power. We're sturdy folk, though, and not easily ruffled. We lit some candles, sang Cumbayah (no we didn't), and had a very nice family evening. Henry got his midnight meal, and that's when we realized that no power with a baby is a bit different. There are little annoying things like the baby monitors not working, but there are big issues like:

1. How do you change a diaper by candlelight? It can be done, but it aint easy!
2. How do you get a baby to sleep when he is way too hot to go down?

We realized that the upstairs got way too hot, so we grabbed a bunch of pillows, put Henry in his swing, and sacked out on the couch. That did the trick, and Henry let us get some (couch) sleep. When I got up in the middle of the night, I picked up a very sleepy Henry and convinced a very sleepy Sarah to move it back upstairs. Crisis averted!

Our finest purchase ... The Swing!

This baby just loves to be awake! He can't stand being asleep! What are his parents supposed to do? How are his parents ever going to get some sleep? These questions have come up a lot over the last couple of weeks.

The answer? A baby swing. We originally didn't want to buy one, because we heard that they were unsafe, and that manufacturers weren't making them because of liability reasons, and blah, blah, blah. We decided, though, that Henry deserved a swing, and that we needed to get over our previous hang ups. Oh yeah, and we thought it might be nice to eat dinner together once in a while.

So we piled the family into the trusty Murano, and bolted for Babys 'R' Us. For those of you that know Sarah and me, you probably know that we're not big fans of big corporate behemoths. Baby's 'R' Us is a necessary evil -- they have everything, and it's easy to get in and out. Anyhoo, as we're about to pull into the parking lot, we spotted Burlington Coat Factory. We thumbed our nose at 'R' Us, and gave the Coat place a try. You know ... coats ... swings ... that should work out, right?

Ok, so it is common knowledge that they have a baby department too.

We jammed into Coat Bonanza (or whatever), and headed towards the Baby Depot. We turned the corner, and arrived in SWING MECCA. It was glorious. Swings out the yin yang. We turned to Henry and told him to pick the one he liked. He tried a couple of them out, and selected a Graco model with a teddy bear on the seat, and crazy muppet-like toys for him to look at.

And the thing WORKED! He loves it. We put him in it, and he just hangs out. Or falls asleep. It's like a little slice of heaven. We don't leave him in it too long, though, because we start feeling guilty that we're neglecting him.

If you have a baby that loves rocking, bouncing, or anything else that is kinematic, that baby will dig on a swing. And so will you.

As promised, Henry smiling!

Bedtime routines have begun!

Tonight, after coming home from Thornburgs, we were determined to have our first honest-to-goodness bedtime. We started out with a bath, hung out a little bit in the tub, then hit Henry with his first bedtime story. We have tried a couple times in the last couple weeks to tell him a story, but he would get fussy or go to sleep or something like that. We were determined to get through the story this time, though, so we pushed ahead ...

We began with "Owl Babies", an old Thornburg favorite. Sarah's Mom had used her artistic license to change the three main characters to Sarah, James, and Jonathan. Coincidentally, her three kids' names. Anyhoo, Sarah performed a warm rendition of said book, and received critical acclaim for her tender portrayal of the mother owl. Actually, Henry started crying at the moment when the momma owl entered the story. We gutted it out, though, and finished up.

That didn't seem to be enough for our little scholar, so our second book was "The Monster at the End of This Book" with our furry pal Grover. This one went over pretty well also, with Henry making it through the entire book before starting to cue us that it was time to eat his midnight meal.

It is going to be interesting how we will thread Sarah's and my favorite childhood things into Henry's life. Who should read Grover books to him (she or I)? Is she going to get Grover's voice right? Who's childhood should be represented in the first book that's read to him? These things seemed trivial to me before, and they may still be, but they gave me pause this evening. Decisions like these will most likely be the easiest parenting decisions that we'll make, but they're still a bit tricky ...

He Smiled!

You will have to wait for pictures, but trust me he smiled. Big smile. And don't tell me it was just gas, or some Fakey McFake. He's been "fake smiling" for about a week and a half now. This week, though, the real smiling began. Henry's keeping it real, though ... we only get a taste. We either get a coo or a quick smile, but not both. He wants to keep us wanting more. A true showman. Go figure.

To put it in perspective, he also cries, shouts, wails, and screams. He poops, pees, and flails. Sometimes all at the same time. He is not sleeping through the night, but he is sleeping 4-5 hours at a stretch. Consistently. He is starting to figure out his arms and hands, but it's stick basically like two flytraps (see previous post).

Don't count this kid out, though ... he's a fighter. He's already starting to try to roll over, and that smiling ... man it's cool!

OK, he's really starting to meltdown now ... gotta go.

Big Weekend: Acid Reflux and First Babysitter

I haven't been making a big deal out of it (because who wants to hear newly minted parents whine about the new baby?) but Henry hasn't been sleeping all that well since last Monday, and had been fussy most of the week. He would only sleep 30 minutes or so after his feeding, pop his eyes open, and start crying. And forget about laying him in the crib. We thought it was pretty normal, because we're dumb new parents. We could always settle him down after a while, so we let it slide.

On a seemingly tangential note, Momma and Daddy had decided that it was time to brave the new world and see a movie out in the big bad cineplex. Sans baby. Henry stayed with my Dad and "Grammy Bob" (that's what Dad calls her now ... we'll see if it sticks) while we slinked out to attempt a relaxing couple of hours. We went to see Wedding Crashers, by the way. It was really funny, and just what the doctor ordered.

When we got back, Bob ("Grammy" Bob for all you readers out there) noticed Henry's fussiness, and was a bit worried. As she is a pediatrician, we tend to listen to her. She mentioned that he could have acid reflux or that Momma's milk could be low on calories. Low on calories ??!!?? We chose acid reflux. Seriously, though, all the acid reflux symptoms that Bob listed fit Henry to a T. We went out and got some Maalox (who would've thunk it ... Maalox!), put it in the medicine pacifier, and crossed our fingers. By the way, that medicine pacifier is genius!

He transformed literally right away. This is what he looks like now: Angel Baby!!!


(Editor's note: this picture is not stolen from Anne Geddes vault ... it is a picture taken of Henry on Sunday morning, without any editing ... seriously). Big smooches to Bob and Maalox (in that order!)