Colin is 4 (months)

The little Coco-butter is now 4 months old and becoming a better human every day. I'm getting a little apprehensive because I can't believe it's almost Back to School time and I'll be leaving my little guy and heading back to work in a couple weeks. Here's the latest on Colin Alexander Rogers: Age 4m.

Likes:

• sleeping in Mommy and Daddy's bed (no we don't co-sleep, but he falls asleep nice and hard after his early morning meal and can sleep a couple hours more if we leave him on the bed)
• his JumperRoo (which he is now a pro at using and gets everyone in the house smiling when he uses it)
• his feet - he hasn't quite gotten them into his mouth yet, but he loves to hold them and usually only talks when he's got his feet in his hands
• LIAM!!! - zOMG his big brother is probably the most awesome thing Colin has ever encountered
• diaper changes - probably the time Daddy and I get the biggest smiles from him is when he's trying to make diaper changing difficult by grabbing feet, diapers, or various articles of clothing
• Lamaze toys - he was obsessing over Mortimer "Bruce" Moose earlier in the month but switched to Jacques Peacock. Then we got him a "knot monster" the other day when we wanted to go to Roseville and he love love loves that.

Development:

• talking/cooing - he's a chatty little guy, but see above note about feet
• rolling over - ummm, still trying hard on that one; Colin gets about halfway over and decided being on his side is better
• no longer needs to be swaddled, but it still calms him down a lot of the time
• can be put down for a nap/sleep without falling asleep in the arms
• has basically outgrown the Puj (his baby tub)
• almost reached out for me in his first moment of "Mommy, you need to come here and pick me up" when he caught eye contact with me after I had been at the grocery store and didn't come get him as soon as I got home. He also cried really loud then.
• sleeping for long long stretches at night and on a good-night schedule that usually has him asleep within 30-45 min of putting Liam to bed each night (8-10hours of straight sleeping baby = bliss for Momma)

Growth/Doctor Stuff:

• Dr. Honeychurch is still not concerned with Colin's poop-schedule. Yup, Colin is still pooping only once every 3-4 days. Because he's not straining and his belly isn't distended and there's no blood in the stool, he's just not a poopy baby. It's just so weird for a mostly breastfed baby to not poop all damn day. Liam pooped at least 3x/day and he was mostly formula fed by this age.
• Jon thinks Colin's hemangioma is getting smaller. I can't see a difference. Doctor said it would actually shrink from the inside (middle) out so I don't think it is shrinking just yet.
• Both Daddy and I were WAY off on our guesses for how big he would be. We had a bit of a cheat in that we weighed him the day we took Liam in to ask about his fever & rash. Colin was 14 1/2 lbs on that day.
• 15 3/4 lbs (55th percentile)
• 27 1/2 inches tall (99th+ percentile)
• 42 1/2 cm head circumference - my babies have such enormous braincases
• Got more shots at the doc's this time. Only, unlike the 2 month visit, he was not so much of a trooper. And boy was he miserably grouchy for the rest of the day.
• Still mostly breastfed; he takes only about one bottle/day anywhere between 4-6oz of formula.
• Had an allergy attack this week. Basically, seasonal/environmental allergies. Luckily his only reaction was red rimmed eyes and lots of congestion (which led us to haul out the dreaded sot snucker)
  

Where we've gone:

• 4th of July celebration at the Stonehouses. Colin did a little better swimming in their pool than he did in Katherine's pool in June.
• Spent a day at Granny's with Granny and Mannam while we were at a food & wine afternoon with friends.
• We went to the doctor for Liam; ergo we went to ice cream at Ben & Jerry's scoop shop
• We went to Roseville to go shopping for a breast pump adapter for the car; ergo we went to Big Spoon for fro-yo.

Happy 4 months my little man. I love you!!!

long day at work

It's my fault it was a long day. I left on Friday telling myself that I would get into work one day over the weekend to check on my exam and make sure it was congruent with what I taught. Well, of course I didn't do that.

There's was no way I could have done so on Saturday because the power went out all over the county. That also threw my plan of doing skads of laundry out the window too. We ended up going to my Granny's and visiting with her and my mom while we did about 3 loads (my poor widdle guy had no more clean warm jammers left and of course he was filthy when we went down). Best part of the day . . . my son ate a whole chicken soft taco from Taco Bell (picked at it of course) and then he ate chow-mein at dinner! This is the kid who only eats protein! He NEVER EVER EVAH eats noodles (seriously, whose kid won't eat buttered noodles or mac-n-cheese?) but he had his fill of my Granny's dinner. :)

Yesterday we ended up getting a babysitter while Jon and I looked at some real estate available in town. It was a bit of a let down considering there's nothing decent in the price point we're still stuck at. Everything is tiny, 2 bedroom 1 bath less than 1,000 sq. feet kinds of places. Then you add that they all are suffering some kind of major structural malfunction like mold, or non-permit extensions. Ugh. We apologized to the new realtor for wasting her time on us. Then we hit WalMart and got the little things we've been needing. It was nice to go without the boy since it was so crowded, being Sunday afternoon and just weeks before Christmas. Forgot to get a battery for the scale; I still have no idea what my current weight gain is, but I am 24 weeks today :)

So I got up early and went in and got my test all ready. Then I found myself staying until 4:30. Somewhere along the drive home I realized I forgot to eat lunch today and have been surviving the last 5 hours on a diet coke, 100 cal pack of pretzels, and a big handful of almonds. Oops, bad me - not good for either diabetics or pregnant ladies to go that long without eating. Had to bring home work too since I'm trying to get their work graded as quickly as possible (new notebook thing I'm trying) as the quarter ends in 7 school days!!! Ack! So a lot of them turned in their notebooks today and the rest are due tomorrow. Plus the tests have essay questions that need to be graded before I can run the test through the scanner. I posted on my facebook today that if teachers got paid for all the overtime hours and work we take home, then we'd make as much as physicians. Ain't that the truth.

Jon dashed off to pay the rent (oops - it's the 6th) and get us some hamburger at the carniceria. I had to change my very stinky boy's diaper and he gabbed the whole time at me. Let me tell you, this blue kool-aid (berry blast?) has made for interesting diapers in the turquoise spectrum. I fed the cats and came back out to find my boy had done a fabulous job stacking his cars/trucks in a fine balancing act. What's more amazing is that I got him to leave it alone long enough to let me photo it before he tossed them all to the floor in his Godzilla-like glee.
Now I'm super excited because my Hubster is making burgers with onion, garlic, and crumbled bacon mixed IN THE MEAT!!! Should be SOOOO tasty.

Happy news

Keeping you in the dark on the happy news for a moment, I just have to say my little Yam is being so cute right now. He's recently just reached the point where his little characters "talk" to each other. Right now his sitting at the coffee table with a construction worker, a cow, and a jeep and they are having the most intriguing conversation. Occasionally, the cow hops on the jeep . . . I didn't know cows could drive.

Okay, so my happy news. . . This morning when I woke up, I did NOT have to take my fasting blood glucose. Yup, it's not a day I have to check my sugars. I called in my glucose levels to the perinatal high-risk clinic last night and yes, I got a bit of a chastising with one of my fasting level being 100 (they want them <100, <90 is even better) but I totally understand that my night-time snack was heavy on fruit and milk (all carbs - no protein). I didn't even admit to the cookie I had :) But after that, she told me that my levels have been so good lately that I can now reduce my number of stabbings to 3x/week. Yup, Tues, Thurs, and Sat. I'll still have to check fasting and after all meals; at least it's only 12 stabbings instead of 28! Of course, the first Thursday this time in Thanksgiving! But she told me I could check on Friday instead (well, I'll check on Thursday because we're doing Thanksgiving dinner with my family on Friday as my mom has to work on Thursday). Hooray!

words and noises

Liam has a new favorite word, CAR. He brings us his cars, he says car.
It's fast out-pacing Elmo.
Even cuter? His new noise, vroom-vroom.
Vrooming whenever he plays cars.

bring on summer

BBQ with the Tavares family. Logan is the best buddy.
Played with his cars all day and shared sippy cups.
Good role-model; Logan's 50-weeks older.
The cutest widdle buddies ever.

look out!!!

Has discovered throwing objects behind him.
This is a delight now that he has real blocks.
Caught one in the cheek and one in the arm.
Those things really fly!