This baby business? Whew. Our average weekday is hard. I made a log:

515-530: henry wakes, nurse while ben showers

530-545: play with henry in bed, change his dipes while ben gets ready for work

545-615: get ready for work (dress, shower, make smoothie and eggs, help pack diaper bag, squeeze in a few last minute baby kisses, no wonder I almost never make it out of the door on time)

615 ben leaves to drop H off at the caregivers, i leave for my carpool to work

630-4: feel underworked and terribly sad that i am not making better use of my time at home with henry. crunch numbers to try and see if there is anything to be done. there isnt.

430-445: get home and nurse H, who has just woken up (ben and H have been home for a couple of hours)

445-530: spend time with my boys. try not to "get stuff done" but make it quality time.

530-545: H and ben bathe while i start dinner and get the room ready for bed (make bed, get dipes and pjs together, pick up floor, change water in humidifier)

545-630: nurse H and spend some more quality time with him before putting him to sleep while ben finishes cooking and watches a little surfing on the net and cleans up a little

630-640: wolf down our dinner

640-710: chat while we clean up (not the dishes- too noise) prepare for the morning, take care of little thing

710: H wakes up. we know that until we come to bed, he will just keep waking up. so ben goes to bed and reads a bit and lies with him

710 till i give in and go to bed to read (930ish?): edit photos for that wedding, make a tiny dent in the laundry that needs to be folded, type up these notes, refrain from blogging, try and give the cat 5 minutes of affection, pick up messes, wash cloth dipes, pay some bills

bed time to 5ish: lie in bed and try not to focus of what did not get done (those dishes, the rest of the laundry, mailing that package, calling my mom....) H wakes several times in the night to nurse.* i honestly have no idea how many. in the beginning of the night (9-12) i think it is every hour. then we get a long stretch. then it is frequent again in the early morning hours and we are using every trick to keep him asleep past 5.

we love H more than anything we could have imagined. we are so completely filled with joy and gratitude that he is in our life, and almost every moment spent with him is a good one. but. it is still hard. i hate that H goes to sleep so soon after i get home from work. miss alone time with my husband. i am frustrated that our only day off together too often involves catching up around the house instead of taking an adventure with H. i'd love to watch at least half a movie one evening without one of us having to go to bed.

so i wonder; how does this compare with your routine, if you are also in the thick of it. if you have made it to the other side (please tell me there is one) when does it get better?

*unless he is sick or teething, for the most part this just involves scooting him down from the crook where he is nuzzled by me, then scooting him back up after he passes back out within 5 to 10 minutes. THANK GOD.

Guys, is this totally going to be little H in 6-8 months, or what?! I CANNOT WAIT for the day when Jamie posts photos H's papa teaching him how to surf. *That* will probably be a bit longer than 6-8 months from now, but still.

via piccsy

And just like that, little man is officially over his grandpa fear. PS- Henry in his costume.

I know it has been food week here, but I am breaking that to end with a quick talk (call for support?) on sleep and the mama being away.

Let me preface with an overview of our sleep sitch; we sleepshare. (co sleep, whatever. H sleeps in our bed.) He is nowhere near sleeping through the night, but we are not too fussed with it and have no desire to sleep train any time soon. Sometimes a gentle rock puts him right back to sleep, sometimes he wants to nurse. Especially because I am away from him at work so much during the day, I look at this as a time for us to (albeit half asleep) bond and be together.

Enter some situations where I might be away for a night (or few). With this project on the horizon, I might be doing a bit of travelling next year. H and Ben will come along for some of it, but to come for all of it would be a bit much on the little guy. (And potentially pricey buying extra plane tickets.) Ben is a stellar hands on Dad, and is completely up to the task of being at home with the little man. But we are all a little nervous about the nights, since Ben simply can't offer what I can. He can have a bottle ready, sure. But it isn't quite the same, I don't think.

So I am curious. How old where your little ones when you were comfortable being away for the night? Those of you who let baby wean on their own, how old were they? A lot of this travel happens next summer, and he will be over a year old. Maybe I shouldn't even be sweating it, it is so far away? Thoughts and your own experiences would be sooooo welcome!

And, have a great weekend dudes! We are having a bonus day off together all 3 of us. A scene identical to the one above is happening *right now* and I have been able to get so much done! Yeah!

Speaking of Henry and baby led weaning, we celebrated H's 6 month birthday by giving im solids for the first time. We may have gone over board. I think his favorite thing was smooshing the avocado around, and maybe sucking a little on the banana. For now he is mostly interested in playing, and gnawing on the occasional pear.

Big news I forgot to share; H has been sleeping unswaddled for the last month or so. This is huge, people. I thought he would be sleeping swaddled through high school, when he had kids of his own, into retirement. I couldn't understand how he would grow out of the need.

And then he did.

BUT. With non swaddled sleep has come sleeping on his side. And with sleeping on his side has come: THE ATTACK OF THE LEAKEY DIAPERS.

It is a nightmare. He leaks out of two diapers a night. He goes through jammies like there is no tomorrow. He soaks up our bed sheets, and worst of all; he requires middle of the night diaper changes. (He hates being changed when he is sleepy, the poor thing.)

Is there anything to be done? We love our fuzzi bunz cloth during dipes the day, but have always used a single disposable at night. (Either 7th Gen or Earth's Best for no chlorine and all that.)

Help!

And.... We are almost sitting. I can hardly believe this little guy is almost a guy who sits up on his own. He has a good grasp on the tripod sit, where he leans on his hands in front of him. He can push himself to upright, and hold it there for a few moments before leaning forward again, or toppling over.

I think life will get a bit easier in some ways. He will be able to sit and play with a toy, instead of sit on our lap and play with a toy. (Sometimes he sits in the bumbo and plays with a toy, but he always drops the dang toy then lurches over the side to get it.) And for this, I will be thankful.

But as always, I am wistful. He isn't my tiny baby anymore. Already. Lightspeed, I tell you.

Hey cool guy! You turned 5 months old last week! Like Celia observed with Lucia, you are really turning some cool corners, which made our weekend on the go (just home from 4 days in LA) pretty delightful. I think it's time I sit down and write another letter, and capture all these changes before the memories slowly fade....

Lucia with Henry's papa / Henry with Lucia's papa

You guys, the babies met this weekend for the FIRST time. It went by far too quickly, and I'm getting teary eyed knowing that the next time they see each other simply won't be soon enough.

*jamie's note. see another adorb picture Celia took here...

I am sorry. I know I just posted this photo on ADF. BUT LOOK AT THOSE BABY FEET.

Do please stop over and say hello at The Littlest, where I wrote a guest post about Henry's best vintage goods and where I said the thing aloud that you are not supposed to.

Henry has mastered rolling from back to front. The trouble is, he doesn't really like being on his tummy. So he gets there, then complains. I was greeted with this face the other day. "Mom, why are you taking pictures instead of helping me???"

I really wish I had taken photos of him in the same spot like I meant to. With something for scale reference? Oh well. Here is a catch up of the little guy, months 1 through 4.

If you care to, visit A Desert Fete where I posted a little (or maybe long) letter to Henry.

My dad mostly lives in Tokyo for work, but gets to spend about a week out of each month at his home in Las Vegas. Every month since Henry was born he drives down for a little visit. "I don't want him to forget what I look like!" He explains. It is the most heart warming thing ever, he loves his little grandson so much.

This weekend was his monthly visit, and we discovered a new development in Henry; fear of strangers. Every time my dad held him (or even looked at him too long) he was greeted with this face:

(accompanied with some loud complaining, and left unatended some actuall wailing.)

It was soooooo sad! My dad took it like a champ. We went out to the Blind Lady and ran into a few friends. Henry had the same reaction with them. It is comforting that it wasn't just his grandpa that he was afraid of, but it also makes us nervous. We don't want him to be that baby! Are we not socializing him enough? It is hard, we are so busy all the time and so our are friends that we don't socialize as much as we would like to. Hopefully it is, like most things, just a phase during this period of new awareness.

Luckily my dad snuck in a few cuddles before he left.... (Henry seemed to forget for a few minutes that he was upset by my dad, and was able to be comforted by him. Ha!)

If you came over to Hank & Lucy as a reader of ADF, you know that I am seriously into summer. As I was mentioning yesterday, this summer's adventures have taken a little bit of a back burner to the baby. (I will expand on that here, since this *is* the baby blog...) We always planned on being the kind to really get out and about with the little one. But I have to admit, the whole having a new born thing was a *little* bit harder than we expected, my body took a *little* longer than I would have hoped to recover, and our bank account was a *little* too drained by the maternity leave.... Not to mention the dreaded car seat. And so, we have spent a lot of time at home. Which is fine. The little guy really shines when we are at home. When we are out and about he is hard to engage, he is so distracted. And so I am just trying to stay present and know that he will only be this little for so long. Besides, in my mind, we still were going to have some adventures this summer. I just have yet to plan them.

Hello, summer will be over before we know it.

And a comment from Shayna motivated me to finally do something about it.

And so we are testing the waters, a quick one night camping trip on Sunday with friends, only an hour away.

I am so excited.

I think it will be pretty easy with Henry. We already sleep share, so he will just share out air mattress. Besides keeping him fed (easy), and well shaded, and warm at night, he doesn't need much else.

But if you have any good tips for camping with baby, I would love to hear them!

{photo by moi}

We purchased very few toys for the little man before he was born (like, one, maybe 2??). He receieved a good amount of hand-me-downs and a few gifts, plus I don't think you need many. Especially for such a little guy. But as I have been watching him learn to grab and hold things and take them to his mouth I was reminded of this teething ring that I saw (and resisted buying) when I was pregnant. It is the perfect size for him to hold, and he really likes putting fabric in his mouth. Win! It came in the mail Saturday while we were on our way to the farmer's market. The whole time we were there he kept a hold of it! So cute.

Little Henry chilling out in his ring sling.

(an instagram, obv. are you all on there? i think i have taken to treating it like mini blogging. love it.)

I thought I would share some community resources for any of you reading locally (?). And even if you're not, maybe this will encourage you to get out and find something similar in your own city!

Online message group: One of the first things I joined, kind of early in my pregnancy was this "Natural Families" yahoo group. I was desperate for alternative childcare resources, as most of the mainstream ones did not appeal to us, and I just wanted some sort of better filtered referral in general. It has been a great place to bounce questions and ideas off of other more experienced moms & families with similar approaches to life & parenting. And it did eventually lead to the woman we hired for childcare (yay!).

Lactation consultant/breastfeeding support: Before Henry got here we took a breastfeeding class that we really liked. A few days after he was born it was clear we might be having some latching difficulties (ouch!). I called the lactation consultant who taught our class, Robin Kaplan. Guys, she rocks my world. She called me back on a Sunday. Easter Sunday. While she was in New York on vacation. We talked through my problems and she (accurately) assessed that I wasn't in urgent need (though she gave me the number of another consultant in case I wanted in home help ASAP) and suggested that I save money by coming to the free breastfeeding support group that she hosted later that week.

I went to the group when Henry was 6 days old. Even though I was walking funny and still had a catheter in. (Oh, I haven’t told you about that fun yet?) It was awesome. So many like minded moms! So many babies! Free lactation help! I went most weeks during my maternity leave and it was great. In part, it was nice to just have somewhere to go that was out of the house, with real people to talk to, that it was ok if Henry cried. And it was EXPECTED that I would whip out my boob and start feeding him.

I did end up hiring Robin for an in home consultation, but she has been so much more. The lady is always there for me. It is awesome. Oh, and you can check out her resource packed blog here.

Babywearing groups: Ok I haven’t actually been to one of these but I am dying to go to a local one. Like Lucia and her strollers, we have tried everything with Henry & carriers. He is finicky about positioning (likes to be facing out) and which carrier type. At the baby wearing group they will help you with different techniques and positions (helpful for things like the ring sling- which I want him to like so bad, cause we bought a Sakura Bloom sling and it is beautiful. Something I WANT to wear.) And some groups have a lending library! Great, so you can test out what your baby likes before you buy.

That's what I got for now!

xo

I'd just like to take a moment to mention what a knock out Mr. Mom Ben is turning out to be.

Their first day home alone last week got to a rough start. Even though we had been practicing once or twice a week with the bottle, it still wasn't Henry's idea of a party. And he let it be known that morning. I am pretty sure he cried more than he ever has in one day. Papa was stressed and I was sad as can be.

But by afternoon things turned around. Like a switch flipped and he realized the bottle thing wasn't so bad.

And now every day I come home to a happy smiling baby, dinner on the stove, and more chores done than I was ever able to get to in a day. (Ben more often comes home to find me and Henry asleep on the couch together, me having not even managed to feed myself lunch, and piles of laundry everywhere.)

Well done, Ben. You kill it.


PS.... Thanks for all your support on my last post. Obviously, Ben being so awesome has made the transition back to work a bit easier. But it is still hard sometimes. I am not (yet) managing to pump as much milk as Henry eats during a day. (Who knew it would be so hard?) Yesterday I *had* to go back to the office for something I forgot, and it caused me to miss out on nursing him at 5. Since regular nursing is crucial to keeping up supply, and I left the pump at work, I was so sad to miss this feeding. Which of coursed spiraled into all the sadness and guilt about not being at home with him. I cried the whole way home. Sigh.