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!)

Grabby Grabby!

The day has come where Henry's arms and hands are not completely mindless appendages. When we brought him home from the hospital, arms sprawled and curled up randomly. This is no longer true. Most of the arm movement is still relatively random, except that those arms simply detest being covered up. Ole Swaddly Joe does not like his arms in the bundle, they gotta breath, man!

Those hands, though ... they resemble Venus Flytraps. They just hang out, looking cute. You know, baby hands, right? Wrong. If anything gets close to them, they're doomed. Here are a couple stories ...

Henry found his own hair a couple of days ago. His hands meandered up to his hair, the Flytraps detected something, and they latched on. As we all know, pulling hair is not cool .. it hurts! So Henry got upset, which just made the Flytraps latch on harder. Pull harder ... get madder ... pull harder ... what a tragedy! It took two grown adults working together to pull Henry away from, well, Henry.

The very next day, the young lad got me in a double death grip. We were just goofing around and I got my face too close to the Flytraps (I should know better, right?). One latched on to my nostrils, and the other gripped furiously onto my bottom lip. We hung out there for a couple of minutes ... that's when I didn't think it was cute anymore.

As a sidenote, he also got a handful of my chest hair. Don't worry, all hairs in the incident are still attached, present and accounted for.

Isn't this kid cool?

I wanted to make sure that you all got your baby fix today, and got to see the latest Henry pic. This was taken about three hours ago. Henry really digs this toy (thank you Steve and Bonnie -- I think), and will chill out with all of his Baby Einstein friends for quite a while. This is a big deal, because this baby doesn't like to do two things:

• Sleep
• Sit still and hang out quietly

He likes moving it, and moving it, and moving it well. He digs on taking laps through the house, bouncing on beds, or anything else that is kinetic. He does not like things that hold him in place. Like Daddy trying to take a nap, or laying him down to do the same. These things need to be finessed with Prince Henry (pronounced on-REE). This magic carpet seems to do the trick (for now, anyway), which is music to his parents' ears.

NEWSFLASH: I have been talking to Henry quite a bit about writing his first blog entry, and he has relented. His thought now is that if he could write most of you letters while still in the womb, what's stopping him from blogging now? Also, Sarah may be convinced to blog. Maybe you guys want to hear a couple other viewpoints about how this new family thing is going?

Vital statistics (seriously, these are the only ones that count)

I wanted to let everyone know a couple of Henry's vital statistics after week 3.

Longest sleep time overnight: 6 HOURS!! Yeah! Seriously, this dude has us trained to be escstatic about almost getting a good night's sleep. How did that happen? We think he is falling into the bad habit of only sleeping well if he's with one of us. When we put him down, it's only a matter of time until he starts fussing. And it's not a lot of time.

Weight: Somewhere around 9.5 pounds. This one is hard to calculate, because we have to do it by me standing on the scale, remembering how much I weigh, then having Sarah give me the dude before the digital readout goes out on the scale.

Cute faces: Uh, I stopped counting at somewhere around 3,355,789. I'm a little biased, but if you've met the dude, you'd agree. And if you don't agree, you should probably ... uh, I'll keep it clean (it is a family blog).

Number of meals per day: Around 37. OK, that's an exaggeration, but this little guy can eat. He is getting quite the chubby little Rayo face. His cheeks are starting to approach what his uncle Bryan's cheeks looked like at his age. I'll get you a picture tomorrow.

That's about it. Shoot me a comment if there's anything in particular that you'd like to know about our oft-crying cherub.

Do we take him to the game?

Time to vote!

Before Henry was born, we bought OSU football season tickets, and we bough the Texas game. We bought this unborn baby an outfit for the Texas game, and had our minds set that this baby would see his first football game before he was able to, well, see the football game!

This idea doesn't sound like a slam dunk anymore. We do have a Baby Bjorn, and he digs it ... usually falls asleep or just hangs out for an hour or more. We know that going to a Big Ten game is not an orthodox thing to do with a 2 month old baby, but we're not all that orthodox, anyway.

So, send your comment, your rant, or whatever. Is this so crazy that it just ... might ... work, or is it just crazy Belleview crazy (a.k.a. crazy Children's Services crazy).

Ah, let the child controversies begin!

Happy anniversary to us!

Sorry to all you Henry picture lovers, but last night was chock full of busy-ness. Sarah and I celebrated out third anniversary by willing ourselves out of the house, eating at a fantastic organic restaurant called North Star, and finishing it up with the world Graetest ice cream (that's right, we made it to Graeter's).

Henry was our guest of honor. He did very well. He was awake most of the time, but didn't meltdown until our ice cream cones were finished. Then, since the Henry eruption was imminent, we snapped him up and busted home. Then some Henry dinner (the 9:00 PM installment of dinner) was served up, and the evening was over.

This anniversary was our first glimpse of how things are going to be different. We eaked out all the anniversary we could, and it was great. But it wasn't nearly as important to us as our first two anniversaries. Nor should it be. Not for us, anyway. Henry is Numero Uno now. Little trivia tidbit: Henry means Head of the Household. Seriously. And he sure is.

Newsflash: I added some more pictures to Henry's photo album on Yahoo! Photos. Click on the link on the left or click here.

Also, please send your good Henry pictures to hepcatrayo@yahoo.com, and I'll post them on the blog as well. I know for sure that Henry's grandparents have some good pics, and I'm still looking for the picture of us at Molly's wedding from Mr. Brian George Dershaw. I'll cut him some slack, though, because he may be at the hospital right now meeting his first child for the first time.

Real Bath (whew! he likes it!)

Mr. Henry got to take his first honest-to-goodness, soak me in the water, pour some over my head, feel that warm water goodness bath this evening. For most of it, he was very peaceful (see top picture). Hanging out, giving us some baby babble ... just chillin'.

Then we washed his head, and all hell broke loose. See Exhibit B at right.

We got him toweled off, and put in his super-cool robe (legend tells that his Grandpa Thornburg picked it out), and he was back to being cool as cool can be.

And he smells squeaky clean baby sweet!

Where Did Daddy Go?

This is the image I left as I gathered my things and trudged off to work. Two weeks off went by in a blink. Amazingly, Henry didn't seem to grasp the gravity of the situation as I left.

Work was OK today, I suppose. About 300 million people came by my desk, so I didn't really have a chance to do much work. Oops. Nobody from Cardinal Health is reading this blog, are you? If so, please translate this paragraph as: "Wow, I couldn't believe how productive I was, and that I could work so many hours in a row, and how happy I could be returning to work."

I didn't feel as bad about leaving home as I thought I would, and the feelings of abandoning my family, while palpable, were not overwhelming. Which made me feel a little guilty. I'm assuming that the roller coaster of parenting emotions don't really get any better anytime soon.

I did, however, return home to a very tired Sarah and a very active Henry. He has taken to the daytime, and was quite awake for most of the afternoon and evening. Because he is wide awake after most feedings, there is much less down time between feedings, which means that we will be a little less rested. Tomorrow we will try to give him a real bath for the first time, as his bellybutton should have dried all the goop (that's a clinical term) that was left after the umbilical cord fell off last week. Maybe that will do the trick for beddie-bye time.

Anyway, Day 1 of Michael working, Sarah holding down the fort is now behind us, and the family survived. Whew!!!

Big weekend ...

(this part was written Saturday night)

Henry, who is fussing in his crib (not crying, just fussing) has had quite a weekend. Some more friends have come to see him from out of town, which shouldn't be surprising by this point. Everyone digs on the Henry, and they come from miles around to see the babe.

In addition to this, though, Henry has attended his first wedding (congratulations Molly and Ben!) and his first party (thanks to the host, MattE). He was a perfect gentleman at both auspicious occasions, and wowed the crowd.

(then Henry woke up, and Daddy didn't get to finish the blog until Sunday night)

At the wedding, the bride specifically asked to see Henry. Pretty important little dude! The bridesmaids ooh'ed and aah'ed over the little guy until it was finally time for us to take our seats. The wedding ceremony was beautiful, and the music was incredible, but I just stared at Henry the whole time. Big Daddy Dershaw sat with us ... hey Brian, could you email us the picture you snapped of us in the pew? I'll add it to this post. After the wedding, I went solo to the reception, abandoning my family. I didn't stay very long.

Anyway, the important part was that HENRY WAS AWESOME THE WHOLE WEDDING. Perfect angel.

He was just as perfect at the party the next evening. Henry crashed MattE's party and totally stole the show again. We were hooked up in the Baby Bjorn (I'll include pictures of that soon) and he was chill the entire time. Momma got some mediterranean appetizers, and Dad got a brat and a burger. Mmmmm good.

More on the exploits of Henry tomorrow. And I'll have another picture, all you grandmas and grandpas out there.

Henry's first trip to the doctor

Another first is now behind us. Henry has been given a clean bill of health by our selected healthcare provider. Actually, our pediatrician is out on injured reserve, so they had to call up a replacement from the minors. Just kidding, doc. Dr. Forsythe was filling in for Dr. Williams (no relation to Hot Rod, Hot Plate, or Hot Sauce Williams) for this visit.

I was very excited for this visit until I started to think about shots. What parent wants to see their child being poked and prodded with a bunch of needles? Would he cry? Would he wail? Would he take a swing at the doctor? Would I wail?

It turns out I won't find out for a while, because there were no vaccinations today. The doc checked some things, asked us if we had any questions, and sent us on our way. All in all, it was a pretty uneventful trip, which is what I was hoping for in the first place! Stay tuned for accounts of his 2 month checkup, where there will be vaccinations. Oh, the humanity!

Oh My God He ... oh, I guess he's fine!

Thankfully, parent freak out number one is now behind us. About 30 seconds after this picture was snapped, Henry let out three gigantic burbs that sounded more like him hacking up a hairball. At least I thought they were burps. Sarah, who had a birds-eye view of the whole thing, saw Henry's panicked face and the fact that he stopped breathing for a couple moments.
I didn't see Henry's panicked face, but I sure saw Sarah's.

Right after these "burps", Henry shut his eyes and wouldn't open them for what seemed like an eternity. We moved his arms, his legs, talked to him ... nothing. I snapped him up really quick (editor's note: Daddy Michael made sure to support Henry's head) and his eyes fluttered open. He wasn't dead! He wasn't dead!

It's amazing how two rational, intelligent (dashing, charismatic, etc., etc.) human beings can go to pieces in the blink of an eye, at the smallest chance that something is wrong. In our defense, Sarah's and my "panic mode" is to focus and solve the problem, then go to pieces afterward. That being said, I shudder to think what we'll go through when he spills on his bike, or falls on the steps, or starts swimming ... maybe we'll be a little calmer by then.

Whew! All is safe and sound with momma, baby, and daddy.

Say bye-bye, Henry!

The throngs of family and friends have come and gone, and we're down to a small trickle of close friends who have yet to see Henry. Sorry today's blog took so long, but our accountant just got back the numbers for us. 30 people have been shuttled in and out of our house, so Henry has had a lot of practice at his goodbye wave. He still hasn't mastered it.

Monday was the first day without all the baby fanfare, so Sarah and I are settling in to the feedings, changings, and resultant crying. Sleep is going pretty ok, which is to say that we are sleeping. It has been nice to get into our rhythm with just the three of us. It's not always smooth, but we're getting solid as a family.

That being said, we have had an enormous outpouring of family support for Henry's (and our) first week, which Sarah and I are very thankful for. Our parents have been great, our friends incredibly supportive, and even our neighbors, which we really didn't know two weeks ago, have started to come out of their shells because of this little boy. At the top of the support list is my brother Bryan and his wife Sarah. I won't embarrass them with a bunch of public praise, but they know what they did, and we really appreciate all of it.

There are a ton of others to thank, and we'll get around to it ... after our nap.

Henry' s momma

Ah ... she sleeps!

Give me but a moment to take a step back and talk not about my precious son, but about my incredible wife Sarah. She has been so strong through all of this. I absolutely adore her. We have had a ton of family come through, and she's still healing, and this schedule is horrendous for two folks that weren't accustomed to it ... and she has been simply radiant through all of it. Ok, not all of it, but all of it that you bystanders get to see. And her sense of humor is coming back. At least she says it is ...

This picture was taken on our second night with Henry. Sarah was still in quite a bit of pain, and this nap was exactly what the doctors ordered.

Now that the pain has worn off a bit, Sarah is rarin' to go. I have had to play stairs cop so that she doesn't truck up and down them all day (bad for her stitches). I'll be sitting with Henry, and I'll hear the washer or dryer start up ... which is downstairs. I'll call down to her, and get a very defiant "I feel fine ... they said I should cool it for a week." She is now planning our evening walks, which will happen every evening, thank you very much. Yoga and cardio machines are a couple weeks away ... and oh by the way, she is only 8 pounds over her pre-pregnancy weight. She's a machine, I tell you.