P.S.

I know I said in my last post that I was done… let’s just consider this a P.S.

Christmas has come and gone now, Gretchen turning 6 months old on Christmas day. We open our presents on Christmas Eve, typically right after our Christmas Eve picnic. Since the picnic part was delayed until around 7 that night, we decided to open presents first so as not to interfere with Punk’s bedtime. She took to the concept of opening presents right away, eagerly ripping paper from the boxes. That’s also where she decided to leave convention behind. Rather than pursue the gift inside the box, her goal was to try and consume as much of the gift wrapping as possible. Have I mentioned before that she’s quick? Try as hard as we did to make sure she wasn’t actually eating any of the paper, I’m sure she managed a swallow or two before we were done.

My sister, Aunt Kelly, sent Gretchen a teether – it has a hard plastic square handle and a soft plastic, water-filled triangle for chewing. She told us that, in addition to the books Gretchen’s cousins sent, she made sure to send only *quiet* toys. Never was such a bold-faced lie ever told. To date, that teether is the noisiest toy we have! Every time Gretchen plays with it, and it is one of her favorites, she has to scream and moan. You get used to the noise, however, it’s somewhat detrimental to phone conversations – which is when she plays with it the most. Apparently, “Uhhh…AAAAAAAAAAH!” and “OOOOOOOOOOOH!” in the background are distracting to the person with whom you’re conversing.

For Christmas, I made all the grandparents a DVD of our daughter’s first 5 months – plus the 2 ultrasounds. I even threw in a slide show at the end. I’m quite pleased with the results, even making the 5^th month segment something of a human cartoon. Most of the video footage I’d shot during month five was Gretchen in her jumper. I spliced all of them together, adding a Cajun/Dixie style soundtrack, sped up the video to double-time and dropped in sproing sound effects for the jumping.

We’ve been working with Gretchen on rolling over for a couple of months now. She’s been able to do so for a while, but not without much consternation. Being a subscriber of the Lead-By-Example mindset, I would get on the floor and demonstrate for her the technique necessary to properly execute this necessary, albeit tricky, cornerstone of locomotion. We would then put her face down on a blanket and then give her verbal encouragement as we coaxed her repeatedly to perform. She promptly dismissed our admonishments and examples as hype and propaganda, only rolling over after she became thoroughly enraged with our lack of effort to pick her up. It looks like our hard work has finally paid off, as this past week she started rolling over without turning into the Baby Hulk! While we were at work Friday, we received a call from a VERY excited Aunt Julie exclaiming that Gretchen had rolled over. When we were home that night, we of course made her perform the task several times on a multitude of surface types – in her bed, on our bed (much softer), on the carpeting, on the linoleum, on a blanket, on a train, in the rain, on a boat, with a goat. I tell you, Sam I Am, we made her roll through green eggs & ham! You pretty much can’t make her stay on her stomach now unless she wants to. Currently, she is only rolling to the right; but, as a baby, I managed to get around quite nicely for a couple of months rolling where I wanted to be. I’m thinking of taking bets now on whether or not she skips crawling and goes straight to walking.

Every day Gretchen learns more control of her muscular system. She’s now quite adept at shaking her head No. It’s something of a game for her. She’ll shake her head a couple of times and then quickly look back to you to make sure she hasn’t made you disappear. Once she confirms your continuing existence, she grins madly and then starts over. Luckily, this game only has a 10 minute duration at this point. We’ve tried to get her to do the Yes nod, but so far she simply watches us and then tells us “No – I cannot do that” with a quick head shake.

We are very blessed with our daughter. She has brought more joy and happiness to our lives than I previously thought possible. Isn’t that right, Gretchen? Yes it is. YES. It is too! Un-huh!! Stop saying no!!!

The End

Thanksgiving has come and gone and with it comes the close of this journal. I’ve been writing here for just over a year now – my original plan was to just detail the pregnancy and delivery, but Gretchen was so cute I had to keep writing…plus there were plenty of pages left in the journal I’m transcribing this to. Well, I’m pretty much out of paper now, so…

The End.

Alright – I’ll go ahead and post the latest and then close.

Granny & Grandpa (my parents) came down for Thanksgiving, arriving last Tuesday and leaving this morning. We had a great visit with them. Gretchen was a trifle scared by Granny when she first showed up. She cried when Granny swooped in a tad too quickly, but then warmed up to both grandparents quite rapidly. We spent the last several days playing and laughing…usually not at Grandpa’s jokes, though. (That’s a joke.)

We’ve also purchased a “Johnny-Jump-Up” for Gretchen. She absolutely loves it! The doorway from our living room to the kitchen/dining room is like 3x a normal door’s width so we hang the unit there and plunk her down in it. She takes it from there. Gretchen will literally spend hours playing in that silly contraption, jumping like some drooling, balletic flea – giggling & grinning the whole time. She’s learned to plant both feet to stop herself, and how to spin around and around. The jumper has handles for her to use. The picture on the box showed the child hanging on to them and having fun. I showed this to Gretchen. She dismissed that as pure marketing hype, having discovered the real use for the handles is obviously for teething. Watching her using both hands to try and pull the strap with the handle to her mouth is amusing – but it’s something of a frustration point for her. Once she has the handle in her mouth, she starts jumping again – which immediately pops the handle from her tiny maw. By then, though, she’s thrilled with the whole jumping thing that she’s forgotten about the 10 minute strap-to-mouth struggle. Eventually she stops jumping and notices the straps, starting the whole thing over.

Speaking of teething, she now has two teeth that have broken through the surface of her gums. The bottom front two teeth have made their appearance. Granny found this out first when Darling Granddaughter chomped down on her pinky. Hearing grown-ups scream in pain causes my daughter to laugh. Actually, if someone cries around her, she starts laughing, too. Apparently, when Madeline cries (when Gretchen is over at Aunt Julie’s), which is about 30% of Madeline’s waking hours, Gretchen laughs at her. Looks like she’s inherited my sense of humor.

We’ve come a long way in the food trial area. We now know that Gretchen loves sweet potatoes, peas, pears, bananas and applesauce. She’s somewhat indifferent in her enthusiasm towards carrots and peaches and so far has not really given regular potatoes a fair shot. A couple of months ago, we could typically enjoy a couple of days in between her monstrous bowel movements. The doctor said this was okay, as long as it was regular. HOWEVER, now that she’s eating food, she has decided to start moving her bowels two, three, seven times a day. I personally liked the save it up approach better.

She’s sitting up and can roll over, though she typically doesn’t want to roll over. I wouldn’t put it past her to ignore crawling and just go straight to walking. She laughs at just about everything, but still gets this hiccups if she laughs too long.

Everyone has told us – and I mean EVERYONE…friends, family, total strangers at the mall – that their first child was perfect, but their second one was the exact opposite. Gretchen is a total joy. She’s almost always happy, sleeps through the night and eats like a champ. Maybe she’ll be an only child.

Designated Food Shoveller

I was the designated food shoveller tonight, feeding Gretchen a couple of baby pastes; carrots and pears (not combined – each in their own compartments). Tonight was the first round of pears. Gretchen only required two samplings before she decided she enthusiastically likes them. She has a voracious aptitude for attacking the spoon, looking very much like a chubby piranha during a pudding frenzy. Using the scientific method [read: trial-and-error], we have learned to administer the fruits AFTER the vegetables. Our little angel is already quite intent on becoming independent. If you make the mistake of allowing the spoon to linger a nanosecond longer than necessary, she’ll lunge for it, deftly removing it from your hand like some neonatal ninja. While it is entertaining to watch a 4-month-old try to feed herself, you really only want this to happen on flooring that is relatively high on the easy-to-clean scale.

One other trick Gretchen’s picked up has also become quite the hindrance to the feeding process. About 3/4 of the way through the meal, she’ll notice that her bib is a veritable smorgasbord of chin dribbles. Typically, one third of everything we put into her mouth winds up on the bib, either directly shot there from her mouth or indirectly after it crawls down off her chins. Since there’s such an abundance of eats available that don’t require our intervention, she grabs the bib and starts sucking away at it, grinning at you the whole time. I’ve decided that dinner is over at this point – at least my part of it. Ashlee still contends that you can divert her attention back to you and the spoonful of fresh foodstuff. Right now, that’s only a theory as it has yet to be proven in any type of lab scenario.

Baby Cereal is Nasty

When was my last entry – a week & a half ago? So what’s happened? Hmm…

Gretchen has been given quite a bit of cereal. I tasted some of it one night – ICK! There was a total lack of flavor. Being king of the household, I mandated that flavor shall henceforth be added to my daughter’s nasty rice cereal. We’ve since mixed the cereal with: apple/prune juice (not much better in the flavor department), applesauce and also baby-style mushed-up carrots. The carrots came back and bit us. Who knew carrots would stain? I’m ready to start adding more variety to the child’s diet, but apparently my kingly authority gets trumped by Mom. She says you have to feed babies the same thing for 4 or 5 days so you can see if there is a “reaction” to it. I pointed out that a facial expression is an immediate reaction. Apparently we’re watching for something more along the lines of an allergic reaction. Oh.

I had a nasty bout with my sinuses this past weekend. Weston had a cold, too. One of the two of us managed to give Gretchen a runny nose. I blame Weston. He’s oblivious. (I asked him. He evidently thought being oblivious would get him a snack.) Luckily, her nasal mucous flow is clear, letting us know that she is sans infection. Triaminicin is not on her favorites list. We also found out she HATES having her nose wiped…or sucked clean with the Bulbous Baby Booger Removal system the hospital bequeathed us. And let me tell you, it’s darned near impossible to jam that thing up her schnozola when she’s squirming like a worm on a hook!

4-Month Check-up

Went to the doctor today for our 4-month check-up…and got four more shots. Gretchen hasn’t changed her mind any on how she feels about being repeatedly stuck with needles. She measured 24.5″ long (in the 50-75 percentile), 42 cm on her head circumference (75-90 percentile) and weighed in at 15.04 pounds (75-90 percentile). Doctor Morel seemed quite pleased with how well we’re making Gretchen develop. She kept saying, “Oh, you guys are doing so great with her!” Um…okay…thanks? I mean, Gretchen is doing the hard part – growing, we’re just making sure we keep shoving bottles in her face and her butt dry.

So now that we’ve crested the four month mark, it’s time for “real” food. Real here equals rice cereal. Grits. Except that the first few days have to be diluted, so Baby’s first meal is, ya ta da da! Gruel. Mmm…gruel. Rice cereal watered down with Similac. Gretchen doesn’t seem to mind, though. She took to it like a pig to mud. We pretty much expected it though, since she’s been ogling us eating lately. It was almost to the point of making dinner uncomfortable – having someone with a penetrating gaze staring at your every move from the plate to your palate.

Anyway, Gretchen thoroughly enjoyed eating. I videotaped her first meal for future reference. When Ash finished feeding her, Gretchen had this Rice-Cereal Van Dyke working. We have a sample pack of Pampers throw-away bibs, Bibsters, that are basically paper towels with flower prints, that Ashlee seems to like. We’ll probably wind up buying some, even though I offered to duct-tape a Scott towel to Gretchen’s chest…or go to Red Lobster and swipe some of theirs.

So… Much… WASTE

EGAD!!! How is it possible for someone so small to produce so much waste?!?

As I just found out, part of the teething process is a *slight* interruption in the child’s bowel movements…making them irregular, or more frequent, or runny to the point of diarrhea, or green and so foul-smelling industrial air-freshener can hardly cope! Gretchen & I were playing last night when I noticed she had a slight stench about her. When I pulled her sweatpants off, I noticed a discoloration of the onesie she was in. NEVER a good sign. When I removed that, there was clearly some diaper overflow working on her stomach AND back. I nearly passed out from the fetid reeking aroma that wafted out of the diaper when I started to remove it. What was once my darling, pink-skinned, chubby daughter had become some rank little monster the color of pea soup. After a rather futile attempt to clean her with the baby wipes, she was still the wrong color and I decided it was bath time. This whole time Gretchen is smiling and laughing at her silly dad, who’s doing his best to NOT heave on his offspring.

I ran the bath and plunked L’il Punk into it. She kicked at the water with her feet, grinned real big and then peed. Cut me some slack here, huh?!? Fine. I drained the tub and started over, finishing the bath with no more incidents. I doubt I’ll ever look at split-pea soup the same.