4 Months

Tessa is 4 months and it's got to be my favorite age yet. I told David that she can go ahead and stay 4 months old for the next 6 months or so. She has started to be so much fun. She is so social. She loves to stare at people and smile at them to get them to smile back and talk to her. She'll honestly stare at strangers in the grocery line until they give her attention.

Her 4 month appointment went well. She is in the 54th percentile on her weight and 81st percentile in her length.

As for milestones, she is really close to rolling over. She can roll from her back to her side but hasn't quite figured out how to get her arm out of the way. She loves to try to crawl. She'll be on her tummy and will bend her knees back and forth trying to move. It's pretty ineffective but it's cute that she is trying.

Sometimes when she brings her knee forward, I'll put the palm of my hand on the bottom of her foot and she'll straighten her knee and push off my hand. Doing this, she's been able to scoot herself a few inches. She seems to enjoy that.

She lately discovered her tongue and has loved sticking out her tongue and licking her lips. It's pretty cute.

In the last few days, Tessa's had a lot of firsts. She had her first plane ride. She did pretty well. She really liked being able to stare at everybody at the airport even though it kept her up past her bedtime.

She also got to visit the beach for the first time. She seemed to like digging her hands and toes into the sand and then eating it as she stuck her fingers in her mouth.

On Thanksgiving we gave her solid food for the first time. We just started her on rice cereal. She doesn't seem to know what to think of it yet. She suckles the spoon as if it were a bottle which is pretty cute but rather messy.

Then this picture was just too cute to not share. We were waiting for some work to be done on our car at Walmart so we were just killing time goofing off in the toy aisle.

Halloween with Tess

Usually for Halloween, David and I go to a haunted house. This year though we went to a nice, family-owned pumpkin patch down the road from where we live. Since Tessa is too young for trick or treating, I put her in her Halloween costume for the visit to the pumpkin patch. Thanks Grandma for the costume! Here are some pictures from the day.

A Few New Tricks

At 3 months Tess is doing great. She is about 13 pounds. She's been getting some good chubs. Everyone at church keeps saying how big she is getting.

She's gotten really interested in looking at things closely. She is especially fascinated with the pattern on a few of our decorative pillows. It's funny to just watch her stare intently at the pillows and lean in for a closer look.

At three months, Tessa's learned a few new tricks!

Here she is singing along with her dad:

Whenever we sing or read or talk with Tessa, she likes to get involved and she tries to talk along with us.

Here she is trying to rollover. She can generally manage to rollover from her tummy to her back but sometimes she forgets how to do it or gets an arm caught in a bad position.

Then she can sit in her bumbo, though she doesn't really like it:

She just recently pulled off sitting on her dad's shoulders.

Just in the last few days she has become more adept with her hands. She is able to find her bottle regularly with her hands. So far her hands normally just get in the way whether it's accidentally pushing the bottle away or putting her hands in her mouth but it's cute that she's trying.

Then before she gets too much better with her bottle, I wanted to take a picture of her showing how she got the nickname "Tess mess."

It's fun watching her grow and learn new things even if they are just small milestones.

At three months, she's also started with her nanny who has been amazing with her. It's nice to see her so happy and doing so well with her nanny.

Mona Lisa Smile

It is very hard to get a picture of Tessa smiling. She is smiling all the time now but whenever you pull out the camera she loses her smile and makes a funny face.

However, David has been persistent in trying to catch her smiling.

And his persistence finally paid off today,

A whole 2 months old

Time has gone by so fast. Tess is already two months old and boy has she grown. At her two month appointment, she measured about 23 inches long and 11 pounds. So from her two week appointment to her two month appointment she has gone from the 10th percentile to the 50th percentile in weight and from the 40th percentile in height to the 79th percentile in height. I'm already starting to think about pulling out the 3-6 month clothes. She still fits into the 0-3 month clothes but they are getting tight especially her one piece sleepers length wise. And trying to get her squirming arms into clothes that just barely still fit can be a bit tricky.

New developments:
She has really started to like batting at things. Especially toys that rattle. I think she is getting more control of her arms and is actually trying to bat at the toys and not just flailing about.

She continues to learn how to make new sounds. Unfortunately, occasionally she thinks the best time for practicing new sounds is between the hours of 1 and 2 in the morning. :P Her favorite sound is still "gah" but she has also learned to make the "b", "oo", and "h" sounds. She also can occasionally repeat a sound for the ever popular baby sound "gagaga". I like to hear her learn and practice. It will be so incredible when she can actually communicate with us. She has started smiling socially occasionally.

I recently started back at work and that is going well. I of course miss her during the day but she is doing really well with David. Here she is with dad napping in her sling leaving David hands free for working a few hours a day from home.

We've recently been spending nearly every evening interviewing potential nannies and that has been going well. We have had about 40 applicants so far so we've been doing a lot of phone interviews and have just started doing in person interviews. I feel like we've met alot of really great people and I'm hopeful about finding the right person soon.

A little after turning two months:
Just a few days after her two month appointment Tessa seemed to become a whole new baby. She started smiling way more, becoming much more talkative and looking at us in the eye more. It's been really fun to be able to engage with her more lately. I love sitting her up on my knee and looking at her and chatting and smiling.

Schedule With The Baby

Being a stay-at-home dad for awhile is a little weird. It normally doesn't happen. Everyone wants to know what the life of a stay-at-home dad looks like. It depends on the day and what kind of mood I'm in. Here's a few of the days I've done.

When I first got off work (probably Monday the 22nd or the Friday before) and wanted to get some work stuff done, then my day looked like:

• 6:00 AM -- Baby wakes up and want to eat.
• 6:30 AM -- Put baby back down for a nap. Get some work done.
• 8:00 AM -- Baby wakes up.
• 8:00 AM -- Make formula for baby.
• 8:05 AM -- Feed baby.
• 8:30 AM -- Lay baby down on bed. Turn on Baby Einstein station on Pandora. Dance baby around to music.
• 9:00 AM -- Put baby in play gym in my room. Try to get some work done.
• 9:30 AM -- Baby starts fussing. But I still want to get some work done. Put baby in sling to hopefully keep her placated but still have both hands and attention available.
• 9:45 AM -- Baby starts fussing in sling. Rock baby to take a nap.
• 10:00 AM -- Try to rock baby to sleep.
• 10:10 AM -- Baby has closed her eyes for a few minutes. Try to put her down in her crib.
• 10:13 AM -- Realize that i preemptively put the baby down in her crib and that she wasn't really ready. Decide to read her some stories to try to calm her down.
• 10:30 AM -- Phone into work for daily standup meeting.
• 10:45 AM -- Baby has fallen asleep during meeting. Go upstairs and try to get some more work done.
• 11:45 AM -- Baby wakes up and wants to eat. Feed baby.
• 12:15 PM -- Take baby on a walk after eating in her stroller.
• 12:45 PM -- Try to put baby back in her sling and get some more work done.
• 1:15 PM -- Try to get some lunch because I'm getting really hungry.
• 1:20 PM -- Baby spits up all over me and herself in her sling. Change the baby, but leave my clothes on.
• 1:35 PM -- Put baby in swing while I finish making lunch for myself.
• 1:50 PM -- Give baby some more food because she spit it all up.
• 2:15 PM -- Message Erin and try to get her to come home.
• 2:20 PM -- Erin tells me she won't be coming home for another hour.
• 2:25 PM -- Realize baby is napping. Get some work done.
• 3:00 PM -- Ask Erin what she wants for dinner.
• 3:05 PM -- She replies canned soup. Thank goodness.
• 3:30 PM -- ERIN GETS HOME! Hand baby to Erin.

Tessa decided somewhere one of these days that she just loves to snack. So, every half hour or so, she would decide she wanted an ounce or so to snack on. As you may expect, this got a little draining.

About the same time, they said at work that we're not going to be releasing code for the next few months after all. So, I kind of lost a little bit of drive to finish this project super quick. So, I haven't been working on it since Wednesday.

Thursday, my schedule was similar to the first one given. But, since I was drained, I wanted to play X-COM some. X-COM is a tactical game where you play a tactics team with the goal to destroy an enemy alien invasion. I figured out a particular position that I could use while playing X-COM on my laptop while holding and feeding Tessa at the same time! I would prop up this (soon-to-be) gross t-shirt on her to suck up any milk she spills, and also to prop up the bottle. I would then hold her in one hand, and then have another hand free to use the mouse or fix the bottle's position if it got out of position. Baby slept so much that day (she likes being held and snacking all day long). It was a pretty great day. I think that Tessa had a pretty great day too since she fussed very little that day and slept a whole lot while I was holding her.

Trying to smile

First Selfie

Nice path in our backyard

Is Gentle Formula Really Gentle?

I should be washing bottles right now. Tessa (and Erin) will be fussy if I feed the baby a dirty bottle. But I'm blogging. Because that's what the Texas Wilcoxes told me I should do.

Erin started getting formula from the pediatrician when she went in for visits early on. She would get the gerber "gentle" stuff. Apparently, that stuff is supposed to be "easier" for the baby to digest and makes the baby less fussy. Erin liked the idea of a less fussy baby.

When all of the formula that we received for free in the mail ran out, it came time to buy our own. We could by the regular formula, or we could buy the "gentle" formula. I ran the numbers in my head and it turned out that the gentle formula was about 15% more expensive per ounce! That adds up! If we keep buying this stuff, I will be driven to the poorhouse! Here is a picture of the two different tubs we have side by side. The yellow is the normal stuff and the purple is the super expensive stuff.

Nonetheless, Erin wanted the gentle formula. She said she could tell a difference. I think it could be all in her head. Erin told me that as long as she's home, she wants to use the gentle formula, but while I'm home, I could use the normal stuff.

That got my mind running. I could set this up as an experiment. I found two equal things of tupperware in our pantry. I put an equal amount of formula of the two kinds into the two containers. I marked one of them on the bottom to signify it was the "normal" formula instead of the super expensive one. I then mixed them up so I can't tell the difference. I then labeled the two containers "A" and "B".

I will randomly before each feeding flip a coin to determine which formula she will get. I will then gauge fussiness on a scale of 0-10 after the feeding. Where possible, I will also determine the amount of time spent trying to make a bowel movement. I understand that this may not be as easy, though.

Here are some obligatory pictures of the baby! I liked this one below because even though I'm not an army guy, I am definitely her hero. I probably always will be too.

Here's another one a bit closer up.

6 week old baby Tessa

Tessa has been changing and growing so much lately that I thought I better post an update on how she is doing.

Appearance:
Already my little girl is feeling like my big little girl. She has grown SO much in these past few weeks. She has moved up from newborn clothes to 0-3 month clothes and from newborn diapers to size 1. She weighs about 9 pounds and seems to have gained a few inches atleast. Here are some recent pictures so you can see how much she has grown.

Personality:
She is also growing more independent. There are times now that she prefers to look out at the world instead being cuddled up with me. I feel like I understand the phrase "they grow up so fast" so much better now.

Then also sometimes she doesn't want to be held at all and is happier kicking her legs in her play gym.

Likes:
She still likes to be held and rocked to sleep though we have been working on having her fall asleep on her own with some limited success. Though she hates the baby bjorn, we have found that she loves her sling, which makes carting her around easy and I enjoy the cuddle time.

Dislikes:
She does not enjoy getting the hiccups which is unfortunate since she gets them at least 3 times a day. The baby books that say babies don't mind or even notice the hiccups obviously have not met Tessa. Her absolute least favorite thing though is probably getting meal-time interrupted for burping. It's very necessary though to avoid fountains of spit up.

New developments:
She's started smiling more and I think they are intentional smiles now. She has also started experimenting with making sounds. She can make the sounds "gah" and "kah" and seems to enjoy "talking" with mom and dad. Also, her neck muscles have been strengthening a lot lately. Here she is showing them off.

Three week old Baby Tessa

It feels like things have recently settled down to a new normal and we have really been enjoying baby Tessa. Here's a little update on how she is doing at three weeks.

Appearance:

At three weeks she measures approximately 20 inches long and weighs a bit over 7 pounds (up from 17 1/2 inches long and 6 lbs 10 ounces at birth). She wears newborn diapers and clothes. Her eyes which were blue/grey at birth are now grey. David and I both think they are making their way to brown but we'll see. She has lots of light brown hair that almost looks like it has a hint of red in the sun.

New developments:

She is doing well with lifting her head for moments at a time. She'll lift her head off our shoulder when being burped and during tummy time. She doesn't love tummy time but will tolerate it for a few minutes at a time. Her current tummy time record is 30 minutes. 

Likes:

She enjoys being held and rocked to sleep. Sometimes she likes going to sleep to the sound of being read to in a soothing voice. She is likes being taken on walks; it calms her down if she is fussy. She also enjoys just being talked to and looked at. And of course she loves eating. :) 

Dislikes:

She doesn't like being swaddled and fights it until it is done. She also doesn't like getting her clothes or diaper changed. If I had a hates section I would put the baby bjorn there. Just seconds into attempting to put her in it, she starts screaming. 

Personality:

We've been lucky to have such a happy, good baby. She generally only fusses if something is wrong. She seems to me to have a strong little spirit. Breastfeeding was hard from day one at the hospital but she tried so hard. I was so amazed looking down at this little one only hours old and the way she determinedly kept trying. After several visits to her pediatrician and a lactation consultant we have learned a couple of factors that made breastfeeding much harder for her than it is for other mom/baby pairs and have since switched to formula, but I really admired her fighting spirit she showed.  

Most common facial expression:

Her most common expression is surprise. She opens her eyes super wide and raises her eyebrows and just looks about the world in wonder. David calls it her clueless look.

Lessons Learned:

It feels like there are a million ways to mess things up when it comes to raising a child, and depending on who you ask, whatever you do is one of them. So I've learned all you can do is do your best.