Do You Have to Dress Babies?

Bath Robe
Originally uploaded by deirdred75.

Nathaniel is an English baby, and as his Aunt Kate informed us, the English love their bath robes/dressing gowns. So thanks to his doting aunt, he now has a proper English dressing gown.

It's a good thing he has the bath robe because it is proving very useful during what I now call poop storm 2005. We kept at baby rice this week and each day Nathaniel has liked it more and eaten more of it. Today he drank formula out of his cup. But the introduction of solid foods and formula to his diet has meant a whole new world in the diaper arena. Yesterday he went three times in rapid succession, requiring two entire changes of outfits. He waited all day to reward me today, but it was as if no diaper could contain him. It was everywhere. We're now moving him up to walker sized diapers in the hopes this will provide a better containment system.

But for now Nathaniel looks content to live in his dressing gown. He's lying on the floor while I type this now, grabbing his toes, flinging his arms, and making his happy raspberry noises at everything in the room. Maybe I can just avoid this whole problem by keeping him in a semi-naked state all day ... I don't know how he'll look running to the grocery store dressed like this.

Not as good as mommy

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Originally uploaded by deirdred75.

Today Nathaniel had his first taste of baby rice. I sterlized the spoons, and the bowl, and the measuring spoons that I made it with. Then we mixed up a batch of baby rice, got him in the bumbo, and shoveled up his first tasting of baby rice cereal. Nathaniel didn't think much of it. I think we got five spoonfuls to his mouth and maybe a fragment made it into his belly. But this is only the first step. Today baby rice, tomorrow lamb vindaloo.

Gonzales Here I Come

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Originally uploaded by deirdred75.

Now do you think Nathaniel can serve as both Attorney General of the United States and team captain for the U.S. Soccer team?

The Boys

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Originally uploaded by deirdred75.

Daddy and Nathaniel chillin on a Saturday morning. Daddy is very very nice to Mommy and gets up at 6:45 a.m. when some little boy decides he is done with this sleeping thing.

Stand and Deliver

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Originally uploaded by deirdred75.

Daddy wants him walking at six months. I say immobility is its own blessing for now.

I like to stand

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Originally uploaded by deirdred75.

The boy hates tummy time with a passion. But let him stand-and he is happy as a clam.

Life on a Train

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Originally uploaded by deirdred75.

It does seem as if Nathaniel spends 50 percent of his life on trains, tubes and buses. But he loves them. On the train he can sit on Mommy's lap, breastfeed, play with toys.

Here he is playing with his Swish, one of his favorite toys right now. It is light, colorful, and, best of all in Nathaniel's opinion, very suckable.

Travels with My Aunt

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Originally uploaded by deirdred75.

Nathaniel and Fiona on our trip to Cambridge. This was during our very first country house weekend since arriving in London-we really enjoyed ourselves. And although Nathaniel didn't get to indulge in roast lamb and port like Mommy and Daddy did, he had a pretty fabulous time. He even saw his first set of cows on the adjoining farm.

He also had his first shower. After having formula mid-week with Granny, Nathaniel's bowels decided to take a vacation. They returned to full functioning form in the middle of the weekend. It hit his diaper with such force that everything just went immediately into his hair. The only way to clean him was to strip him bare and shower him under the tub tap. He was a pretty good sport about the whole thing. And at least his bowels didn't wake up on the train.

Conversations

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Originally uploaded by deirdred75.

Grandma doesn't look like she is buying whatever story Nathaniel is telling her. I think Nathaniel is explaining that he doesn't really need naps.

Grandma and Nathaniel

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Originally uploaded by deirdred75.

More photos from Nathaniel's Miami jaunt. He was very pleased to wear short sleeves.

Life with a Four Monther

My Pooh
Originally uploaded by deirdred75.

When I envisioned having a baby, I fantasized about being a hip cool mom who was completely chilled out. Instead I was really upset when I was reading about parenting types in one parenting book and realized that the only category that really fit me was the highly-strung.

My problem is that I am too wishy-washy on too many counts. I conceptually like the idea of Nathaniel being on a structured routine, but I don't actually have it in me to do what it takes to put that in place. But I also can't deal with a total free for all lifestyle where naps come whenever and Nathaniel goes to sleep whenever he feels like it. So instead I occupy the no man's land middle ground and feel guilt stricken and idiotic as I read all the parenting books.

Problem number one is sleeping. Nathaniel was a pretty good sleeper for the past months--giving me six to seven hours of sleep at a time most nights. But bedtimes were a bit of an ordeal. He would fall asleep nursing, then wake up 35 minutes later crying and demand more nursing to sleep. Sometimes he would wake several times during the evening so that he wasn't actually down for the night until 10 or 10:30. I was growing rapidly depressed sitting up in his darkened room nursing him back to sleep (especially as I listened to the sound of Doug flunking his dance off in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas). Plus many of the parenting books rank nursing your child to sleep as one of the seven deadly sins of parenthood (sure to lead to a breastfeeding 21 year old they promise).

So I decided briskly and with resolve that we would stop nursing to sleep. Enter in a week of horrible nap and bedtimes and punctuated with crying and three hours to get to sleep. Then he started waking up three or four times in the night. Then he started crying when I even walked into his room with him. So I decided that was not working at all. I switched back to nursing when he needed it (that would be at almost every sleep period) and decided to revisit the problem once we had got back to normality. Unfortunately that hasn't happened yet. He is up three times at least a night, hungrily eating. Because I think I started tinkering with his sleep just as he has reached the point where I am no longer capable of giving him enough calories to eat. So I am trying to give him a bit of formula to try and tide him over while we get ready to go onto solid foods.

But that of course leads to yet another of these parenting issues. Some books say no solids until six months old, lest you want your child to become an obese heart attack prone diseased adult. Others say get your child on foods as soon as you need to--mainly when he starts waking up in the middle of the night hungry after being a good sleeper. So who knows? I will of course continue on this path of parenthood which I think mainly involves reading a thousand books, being more confused than when you started, tentatively choosing a path, then feeling for sure that you are doing it all the absolute wrong way.

Bumbo

Bumbo
Originally uploaded by deirdred75.

So Doug and I went browsing for high chairs this weekend and kept seeing this little moulded plastic baby chair, the bumbo. I of course decided that we needed it immediately. Doug, who had asked before starting out on our expedition whether we could make it without buying any toys, said he wasn't sure about it. We returned empty handed (and no new toys either.)

Then I had lunch with my NCT group and several of them raved about the chair. So of course I ran out and bought one the next day, justifying it by saying it allowed us to put off the high chair purchase for at least a month. The bumbo appears to be the coolest accessory for four month olds. The interesting thing about the seat is that helps your baby sit up when he can't quite manage it on his own yet, and then traps your baby into a sitting position when he is a bit more mobile.

Anyway Nathaniel seems to like it. It gives him a whole new perspective on the room. And soon we're going to be using it for Nathaniel's first forays into the world of solids--mmm baby rice here we come.

All About the Eyebrows

Slinker and Me
Originally uploaded by deirdred75.

When Nathaniel was born he had a decent head of hair on him, but was absolutely hairless on his face. I remember asking Mom with a bit of concern on day two--"He will grow eyebrows won't he?" Now he has a big bald spot on the back of his head, but has grown in a pair of manly eyebrows on his forehead.

It's a good thing because Nathaniel is king of the raised eyebrow. He quirks one to express certain moods--curiosity, distrust, scepticism. The two brow raise is surprise, enjoyment or, as in this photo, just to be really really cute. Draped across his belly is one of his favorite toys--Slinker. Slinker was once longer than Nathaniel, but now our boy has outstripped his toy. Thankfully Nathaniel is still amused by Slinker's various crinkly and rattling segments, and the upbeat melody he blasts out of his mouth whenever squeezed.

I Wear My Sunglasses at NIght

Sunglasses
Originally uploaded by deirdred75.

So our son has set foot on U.S. soil finally. He toured Miami, spending time in the Aventura Mall, the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, and the Miami International Airport. Yes he is an international man of mystery.

Nathaniel loved his time with his Grandma and went to bed better for her than he does for me. I am sure that will be the story of my life. Every time Mom comes over to give me some relief because I am frazzled, Nathaniel is his most angelic.

What Nathaniel has decided is that he hates sunshine. Being born into the sunless environment that is London, Nathaniel hasn't had much experience with the bright face. Every time a ray of sunshine touched him in Miami (which was unfortunately very infrequent for my tastes), Nathaniel fussed about it. Hopefully a few days on the sunny and warm side of the Atlantic Ocean this summer will cure him of that.

Priorities

Football
Originally uploaded by dyrlac.

When Blair scheduled his wedding, he failed to consult the Fulham fixture list. Accordingly, I had to take the whole family (including Nat, Grandma and Great Grandma) to the somewhat seedy Churchill's pub in Little Haiti to watch Fulham-West Brom. Fulham won the desultory match with a header in the 90th minute marking the game's sole goal, but no complaints as we needed the points.

Here's Grandma and Nat enjoying the "action", such as it was.

Our first flight

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Originally uploaded by dyrlac.

On 13 January 2005, Nat took his first flight. A doozy of one from London to Miami for Dad's friend Blair's wedding. Nat was an angel for most of the flight, but not a big fan of the numerous long car rides that one takes in America.

Confidential to Richard:

1. A 30 inch seat pitch is pretty inhumane to folks not in bulkhead rows (though sadly, this looks to be a case of revealed preferences).

2. When someone buys three seats at once, they expect them to be in the same row. Not sure why this is so controversial.