Introducing… Elliot and Winston!

So our just-turned 11 week old baby has been drooling a lot and has chapped cheeks and a cough as a result. Gam Gam saw him the other day and asked, “Is he teething?” to which Logan replied, “How should I know?” As far as we know, teething is something babies do that results in teeth… He did a little reading on the subject in our What to Expect book and found Elliot to have about 9 of the 11 listed symptoms… I guess he is doing everything else early, he might as well get this out of the way too. Logan got him a teething ring that goes in the refrigerator and we have been trying to find other things that he might like to chew on. We walked over to a yard sale in the neighborhood yesterday with Elliot in the Bjorn and he chewed on the side of the carrier the whole way there. We gave him some Tylenol yesterday afternoon because he was getting rather inconsolable. Fortunately we haven’t needed to do that again yet…

I still haven’t gotten a video of him rolling back to front, but not for lack of trying. I can confirm at he can do it, but my timing has been off on filming. He also was grabbing his own hand this afternoon, which kinda made him mad because he couldn’t figure out who kept grabbing his other hand!

Yesterday, Logan smoked a pork butt and salmon and we had friends and family over to eat it. I wasn’t in an entertaining mood since I was tired, but I eventually came down and had a nice time. Aunt Lisa was there and she let me show her all of Elliot’s pictures from his recent photo shoot which made me happy. Gam Gam and Lisa held him and played with him giving Logan and me a break. They were also nice about saying things like, “Look, he wants his momma!” which stroked my poor little new mom ego.

Today we played Linzy’s Stick Your Tongue Out game. He is getting quite good at it and he seems to really like our reaction to it.

According to Logan, Elliot rolled 3 times yesterday from on his back to his front… and daddy didn’t get a video of it! When I got home from my evening shift we tried to get him to do it again for the camera, but he was too tired and hungry.

Logan also told me that Elliot was playing a game with Aunt Linzy where she would stick her tongue out an he would stick his back out at her. Funny!

I’ve been working the afternoon/evening shift in the ER this week. It has been nice to be able to spend the mornings with Elliot, but the evenings have confused him some. It’s difficult to keep a routine for a baby when you are a resident. Fortunately, the Dyers were here yesterday to help. Gam Gam gave Elliot a bath, which he really needed. Linzy has been getting good at changing diapers and soothing him. Clarence showed him his evil twin in the mirror…

Elliot is also getting better about not needing to be rocked so much to get to sleep. In fact, I put him back in his crib shortly after feeding him at 2am last night. He was awake but drowsy and he horsed around for a minute or two and then fell asleep.

He did fine. I was worried that he would be totally freaked out. He was difficult to get to sleep in the crib but once he was out at about 9:30 he slept until 12:30. I heard his increasingly agitated grunting on the monitor so I went to get him before it escalated. I fed him in our bed where I fell asleep and woke up again at 1:30 with him beside me. I tried to put him in the bassinet but he woke up. So I changed his diaper, fed him the other side, rocked him, and put him back in the crib. At that point I turned off the monitor since it was defeating the purpose of the entire endeavor of me getting a little more sleep. At 4:30 I heard Elliot yelling (not crying, yelling, like as in, “Hey! Hey! You guys left me in here!”) so I went to feed him again. He rested in our bed again until about 5 when I nursed him the other side. At 5:30 I managed to get him back in his crib so Logan and I could go get ready for the day. All in all, I’d say it was a success.

In other news, Elliot got to meet his dad’s Pappy yesterday. He fell asleep on Pappy’s belly for about and hour and a half! Pappy and Juanita brought him an adorable outfit set with a sports themed onesie, pjs, a bib, and a toy.

Yesterday evening Elliot almost rolled over back to front! He swung his leg to the side and got his hips square on the ground but he could not figure out what to do with his arm underneath him. Logan eventually helped him the rest of the way to tummy time.