What are you doing Tommy?

Chillaxin. 

Tommy's started to eat.  He's still not fond of pureed food, so his list of achievements includes: canned green beans, cooked rice grains, puffed rice for babies, spaghetti noodles, rice crackers for babies, avocado, saltines, and a little bread.  He seems to like to "chew", though he doesn't have any teeth just yet.  His favorite thus far is the puffed rice for babies which disintegrates in his mouth fairly easily.  We'd like to broaden his horizons to more nutritious items, but are thrilled at the moment that he's eating anything.  Tomorrow I'll give him some banana.

The orange goo around his mouth is pureed sweet potato.  I managed to get a spoonful in his mouth which he swallowed, but could get him to take any more.  Pasta however was a hit tonight.

I've finally been brave enough to try woodworking while Tom's asleep.  So far he doesn't seem to notice - wow!

I'm making some oak benches to match our antique farm table, first seen on this blog here.  Apparently some of you were praying back then because we're off to a start filling this table with kids!

It's going to take a little while working a little bit each night, and some on the weekends... stay tuned.



Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks; or, small victories

Our dog Mario was an "only child" for about 10 years before Tommy arrived.  He's a terrier in every sense of the word, and was awfully fond of ruling his kingdom (otherwise known as anything he lays eyes on).  When Tommy arrived, his world crashed down around his ears.  We've never felt comfortable with Mario too close to Tom's face, and certainly never left them unattended together, even for a second.  I'm thrilled to report that over the last 7 months, Mario seems to have mellowed out a bit and accepted Tommy into the pack.  I wouldn't use the term fond, but Mario more than tolerates Tommy's presence.  I'm guessing this is due in part to the presence of food on Tom's clothes, face, hands, and general vecinity.

Tommy is enthralled with his Mario.  When you ask Tom where his puppy is, he looks all around and grins from ear to ear when he spots the dog.  Tom especially likes it when I make Mario speak.

It's hard to capture on film, but Mario really seems to like his baby.  In pretty much every photo I've ever taken of our dog, he looks dejected.

Tommy is just starting to crawl and pull himself up. 

We try to feed Tom food at least once a day, never making a big deal of it, but trying notheless.  He's been very interested in what we eat.  Last Saturday Katie and I went to Arella's Pizza, and he actually ate a few small pieces of soft inner crust.  At first he'd spit them out until they were good and mushy, and then he'd "chew" them and swallow if I got them far enough into his mouth.  Then I pre-soaked a couple in water and he'd eat them straight down.

Tonight I got him to eat some white rice - not rice cereal, but cooked grains.  He was able to mash them up in his mouth pretty well and swallow them.

I'm wondering if maybe the texture of pureed food disagrees with Tom.  Is anyone surprised that my son is picky snobby particular about his food?  I'm hoping we've crossed some barriers and he'll start eating a bit more this week.

Tommy "cried it out" yesterday, twice, and fell asleep for a nap.  It took about 30 minutes each time, but this is a huge success.  We've had little success letting him cry and it's gone on for much (much, much) longer than 30 minutes before.

Tommy continues to get better at crawling.  He was moving along great tonight, but by the time I grabbed the camera he'd tired out a bit so I time-compressed this video for you.  It's not very exciting, but still kind of cute.

Katie and I continue to plug away at small projects around here.

We replaced a couple of wall sconces in Tom's room with these cute lantern-style sconces.

Home Depot (you can do it, we'll watch; you can do it, good luck; you can do it, because we don't know how) has a few bath vanities for sale right now, including countertops and mirror, for less than the typical price of a vanity countertop.

We picked one up to replace this beaut' in the basement bath, complete with gray porcelein sink.  We had actually planned to replace the top/sink, and refinish the cabinet, but for the price we couldn't say no.

With matching gray porcelein commode.  I can't find gray fixtures anywhere online, so I'm guessing these are worth a fortune...  Interested parties should contact me right away as I'm sure (praying) they'll go fast.  If not, they'll go in the trash.

Our clawfoot tub is close to install-ready.

We had the feet chromed.  There's some spots on the chrome from when I rinsed the scouring powder out of the tub, but they wipe off.

The porcelein is in great shape after nearly 100 years.  All we need now is the drain assembly and tub faucet and we'll be ready to lug it upstairs for Tommy's bathroom - stay tuned and pray the next posting isn't titled something like "My strained back; or my visit to the hospital".

Strength of wills

Christmas break has been over for a few weeks now, and we've gotten back to "normal" around here.  Tommy goes to bed no later than 8pm, and many nights no later than 730pm.  He gets his bottle and typically goes right to sleep.  We get get 3-4 hours before he's up to eat again, though he usually requires pacification at least once in that span.  We repeat this 3-4 (sometimes 2) hour process all night.  I try to pacify him whenever he gets up, and if he won't go back to sleep, then Katie feeds him.  He's usually up sometime between 530 and 730am, though this is unpredictable.

Several things can wake him up in the night.  Like most babies, he's a light sleeper and the house needs to be very very quiet after bedtime.  I even have a sign I put outside the door to warn visitors they ring the bell with peril to their lives.  Gas pain is a frequent disruptor of sleep - no, not the noise I cause, but rather the gurgling bubbles in Tommy's belly.  It's common to help him pass gas in the wee hours of the morning through a variety of positions/techniques, though they don't always work.  We've modified Katie's diet constantly and have identified some problematic items, but nothing has seemed to spare him entirely.  Katie calls it the Bakker curse - apparently this is yet another trait he and I share.

Whenever Tommy wakes up, he's good for 1-2 hours before he melts down and needs his morning nap.  We generally start the nap process at the first sign of fussing, otherwise we soon enjoy a tantrum of epic proportions.  Oh, and if we miss the morning "nap window", he may not go back to sleep at all.  We've been suspecting for multiple weeks now, but there's really no question in my mind now that little Tommy Bakker is, shall we say, strong willed (there are no words in the english dictionary capable of describing the strength of my son's convictions).  Suffice to say, we are very keyed in to Tommy's morning routine.  Once asleep, he will generally nap for 1-3, on rare occassion close to 4 hours.  This is also impossible to predict, and he may require frequent pacification, swaddling, singing, and rocking, just like at night.

Tommy will not eat food.  He can be sitting in his Bumbo laughing, and if I get out any of the accoutrement associated with "the poison" (otherwise referred to as food), I get sideways glances and the stink-eye from a very serious little boy.  He'll allow a bib to be placed, but if a spoon nears the orbit of his head, he purses his lips and starts spitting in tasty anticipation.  We've tried a host of foods/cereals, delivered in every conceivable fashion to no avail.  I guess I should come clean now.  I did actually get him to eat rice cereal 6-7 weeks ago, on top of which I gave him his usual bottle.  Within the first hour of sleep that night he puked all over himself and his crib (Tommy, mercifully is a dry baby and puke/spit-up are very rare), and hasn't touched food since.  We've decided to wait a while and chill out - I'm sure this will happen on it's own sooner or later.

Tommy needs to take an afternoon nap, but we've had little success here.  The most effective technique is to strap him his seat and go for a drive, though he never sleeps more than 45 minutes to an hour.  Otherwise, he requires non-stop attending to get a small cat-nap or two.

I've recently added to my prayers - not only do I pray that some of these things will improve soon, I've been praying that Katie and I adjust a bit and have strength.  How about you?  Anybody have trouble getting their kids to sleep & eat?  We're actively soliciting advice...

In totally unrelated news, we saw signs of mice when we returned from Phoenix.  I'm guessing the ultra-cold (for Utah) temps we had over the holiday encouraged them to seek warm shelter.  We cleaned up thoroughly, loaded my traps with peanut butter, and set them in the basement utility room and under the sink.  I saw signs in the basement briefly, but nothing touched the traps.  A couple days ago, I noticed the traps under the sink were still set, but devoid of peanut butter (what the heck?).  I re-loaded the traps and adjusted the triggers to be a bit lighter and the next morning they were clean again (how is this possible?).  I re-loaded again, and added a "tin-cat" and sure enough, I caught one last night!  Of course, I had to let him go down the street alive - I felt like the bugger had earned the right not be destroyed after cleaning up 6 mouse traps without springing them.  Good thing I didn't have to get some of those "mouse huggers".

I'm dreaming of green lawns on a Phoenix Christmas

I was able to take some vacation over the Christmas holiday, so we packed up and headed to Phoenix.  When I saw the going rate for airfare, and thought about all the extra baggage fees for all the crap we'd have to travel with, (not to mention the TSA viewing my, uh, baggage on the full body scan), I decided we should drive.  I did manage to save a grundle of $, but I think flying would have somehow been easier.  Tommy was able to make it about 6 hours total drive time before completely melting down and screaming his lungs out.  After construction/traffic/fuel/baby feeding delays, we slid into Page after 9.5 hours (you do the math...).  Oh, and we took our dog Mario too.  (if you're dog people, this is hilarious).

We visited with Grandma, and Tommy's clone, Grandpa.

Spent some time with our cousins Josh & Samantha, and their parents.

Met my folk's new dog Lucky - he's a really funny dog.

Lucky & Mario ended up being thick as thieves.

We all swapped some germs.

Received some great gifts - I sure hope these stretch or I'll have to give them to Tommy...

We visited Zoo Lights - thanks Doug!

Josh & Samantha taming the lion.

Tommy took his first carousel ride.  Just like his dad, he seemed more interested in the whirling universal joints and cams overhead than anything else...

Grandma & Grandpa had some portraits done.

We also celebrated Josh's birthday, and visited the Addinks, but neglected to get any photos.

On the return trip we intended to stay in Cedar City overnight, but due to a road closure we ended up in Beaver, Utah at the Quality Inn.  (Don't let the name fool you).  The guy at the desk wanted me to know all the guestrooms had been remodeled this year.  While I couldn't detect any signs of remodeling inside the room, there were piles of sinks, old carpet, glass, broken furniture, and toilets right outside the window.  I wish I had snapped a photo, but the camera was packed away in the trunk and it was about 2 degrees outside.  We celebrated New Year's Eve at the local "Family Restaurant".  I was actually shocked - it turned out to be pretty darn good with lots of scratch-made dishes.  The place was packed with locals, and they asked me if we had reservations when we walked in the door - wow.  Check out their cute website.

We finally made it home mid-day on Saturday.  While we really enjoyed the trip, Tommy didn't sleep down there and we're exhausted.  He had his 6 month checkup yesterday - got more immunizations and discovered he's got dual ear infections (so he didn't sleep at all last night either).  Please be praying that Tommy can get back into a routine quickly, and we can start having some of those 5-6 hour stretches of sleep!