Big Baby

Over the past three weeks you increased your weight by 25%! I guess when the doc said it was time to add solid foods he knew what he was talking about! You went from a lean, mean, ready for martial arts 4 month old to a plump 5 month old; exactly what we wanted. Bring on the growth spurts.

Eating

Your mom and I were very pro-breast-milk when you were born. Supplementing your diet when you had jaundice was not what we had in mind, but we are way to practical to be stubborn in a situation like that. Now however we are drifting away from the breast-milk-only world. Some of what has happened to move us this way:
- You are not making weight and Dr German started you on solids to bulk you up (its working)
- Now that solids are in, you're eating less milk, anticipating what is next (and dropping milk production)
- We have had four months of up all night with you
- Formula is really, really easy
- I learned that I was completely formula fed (and I seem to have turned out fine)

So from here the path is less clear and you are enjoying a bottle as I type...

Love,
Dad

That new baby smell

Babies have a certain smell and it is really hard to describe and when you get to hold a newborn close you will know what i mean. My point in writing is that you have lost the particular smell you had for the first couple or few months of your life... never would have thought there was something to be known here. I wonder if it would catch on as a fragrance?

Love you,
Dad

Food, Vacation, And The Chills

Avocado, rice cereal, and banana are the three solid foods you started with. Like all of us, you suck it down when tilted back so that it doesn't have anywhere else to go.

You spent last weekend with Grammie and Grandpa Walker. Mom and Dad were able to escape to Cle Elum and get two nights of sleep uninterrupted by you... a really great thing. Mom was great and didn't call once to see how you were doing. When she picked you up, everyone was doing great!

Over the past couple days we've had temperatures ~14degrees at night and 30 during the day. All the heaters are on in the house to keep the temperature up and you are in your hats and sleeping bags. Even though it is so cold you still love being outside in it!

Dad

Focus on growing

You didn't grow much over the last two months and your doctor wants to see you in 3 weeks for a weight check. Even more interesting is that today you will get your first solid foods to try to jump-start your calorie intake and put on the pounds. Other than the your doctor says you are doing great!

On another note, you are really starting to experiment with sounds. You have a favorite screech and some tamer "coos" and "kois" and they have flown forth over the last 2-3 days... here comes the talking!

Tyler is like Maggie

You know... Maggie from the Simpsons. Maggie has that nook in her mouth all the time and over the past couple days you have gone from not able to suck on your Nuk to really, really wanting it. Amazing how that changed. You Mother and I agreed that we wouldn't be the type of parents that give you the Nuk to shoosh you, so don't get to dependent on this thing ;-)

Dad

First Christmas Tree

We setup the Christmas tree yesterday and to say the least, you love it. You are a huge fan of staring straight at lights and this takes it to another level. None of the lights blink or twinkle but that is solved with a slight rock back and forth... baby heaven.

Love you, Dad

Carrie, Taylor, and Josh

You really like watching football and country videos on the TV. Some of your favorites are Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, and Josh Turner. You are far too young to watch TV (even while you're bouncing) so enjoy it for a few more weeks before we cut it off.

Dad

Little Man

Say hello to your little nickname, Little Man. Did you get the movie reference? Well I hope not, you're going to be really old before you can watch that... in the spirit of your Nanna Bananna, say in another 30 years I'll let you watch rated-R movies... and in the spirit of Grandpa Kelly we can negotiate a contract if you want to watch them earlier, but it doesn't come free.

Dad

Lunch

You and your Mom come to lunch around once a week at Clearwire. Today we met up with Karl and Jordan, colleagues from Expedia and went to Purple in Bellevue. I really enjoy seeing you and your mom in the middle of my day! It goes well with the pictures of you, our family, and friends that I have at my office. Whenever I need a reminder of you I just look down :-)

Laughing, Eating, & Sleeping

Last Thursday you laughed for the first time as I was playing with you. Then two hours later you laughed for your Mom too.

Right now you are holding your almost empty bottle on your own.

For the last three nights you've slept 6+ hours the first time we put you down to sleep.

All in all things are happening VERY fast!

Love you,
Dad

Holding my hand

You discovered you can hold your own hand. It is really, really cute. As Jessica describes it, you looks like your own best friend!

Laughing

I cannot wait for you to laugh! From what your mother and I are reading you are due for it in the next couple months and one time (while I was home) you let out a single syllable, so you are close!

In general you're being good ;-). You typically sleep 4-6 hours between feedings at night and I take one of them so your mother can sleep more. Right now we are working on the latter half of a bottle and hopefully you fall straight to sleep afterwards. You seem to stay up longer with Mom than me, sometimes up to 1.5 hours.

Your "tooter" title is wearing off as your system settles down and I've started to call you "Little man" a lot more, very fitting as you grow and show more personality.

Well, you're done, thats all for now.

Jeff

Working Dad

I went back to work last week and let me tell you, it is awful after two months of spending all day with you and your mother. The first day I missed the two of you terribly during the day. After a few days I no longer missed you until I got home and realized I hadn't seen you two for so long. Now I don't really miss you but when it is time for me to go to bed (about 9 is the start of the first sleeping shift) I feel like I've hardly seen you and I want to stay up.

Such is the way as a working dad, maybe some day society will pay for moms and dads to stay at home with their kids. That is probably up there with star trek's assertion that in the future there is no need for money and instead society values bettering oneself.

Sleep Cycles

You are an interesting sleeper... some days you hardly sleep at all and others you sleep almost all day. It seems that depending on what is going on in those intestines of yours your sleeping or waking time is significantly impacted. For example last week you went almost 3 days without sleeping more than an hour at a time, then you sleeps for almost two days straight once you pooped. Ah, the wonders of the world.

Airlines and Smiles

Over the past week we flew to Baltimore to visit the Studers. You thought the planes were great! The only fussy flight was the last leg home. You also started smiling a lot more and we can coax smiles from you when you are generally happy. It is really rewarding to interact and learn about you while you are learning so much yourself. Oh, and your mother and I are exhausted, but what else is new... :-)

Time time time

It is so hard to find time to do this with a baby!

Tyler is now experiencing a few new fun (for him or his parents) activities:
1) Tummy time where we place him tummy down on a boppy or the floor so that he can practice holding his head up and using his shoulders/arms.
2) Sleeping at night, which he does little of. We're training by not letting him sleep for more than a couple hours during the day without getting him up to play and leaving our bedroom dark at night.

He is growing _so_ fast! He smiles at us from time to time because he is amused rather than because of his intestines. This is the point where I hoped I would make it too. When Gus and Nicole made it here their spirits improved so much... not that mine are bad.

Work starts 10/5... not looking forward to that, but it is a necessary evil.

Jeff

Day 12

Our nickname for Tyler is Tooter because he does that pretty much all the time...

We went to the Museum of Glass today with Great Aunt Gwen, Great Uncle Dale, and Grammy and the right side of your face was burned by the radiant head from the furnaces; oops.

Day 11

Today you spent a lot of time awake during the day and of that time you were really interested in our faces. You are a really cool kid!

Day 8

Today you met everyone at the Renton History Museum where Mom volunteers. Nana Banana brought dinner again, two nights in a row! We also took a nap when you fell asleep after eating at around 7pm. You laid on my chest for two hours sleeping soundly.

Day 7

Today Nana Banana brought dinner to Mom and Dad. Having help while we get used to having you around is really helpful.

Day 6

Today you went to Boy Scouts. All the adults and boys were excited to meet Sprout!

Day 5

Sunday you went home. Mom and Dad weren't really completely setup for you when we left so we ran around to get setup with nursing stations for mom and changing stations for Dad. We slept fairly well, you are a tired baby!

Day 4

You have jaundice worse than most babies because you have A+ blood and your mom has O-. So last night they started you sitting under blue LED lights to help break it up. Mom was discharged today but you get the pleasure of being admitted on your own to Pediatrics for another night under the lights.

Day 3

Forever let the record show that you ate for the first time through a straw. First you didn't know how to suck, now you don't know how to start sucking when presented your food source.

Day 2

Mom and Sprout are doing great. He is an awesome baby boy!

Day 1

Welcome Sprout at exactly 12:30. Mom went into labor at 11:15 on Wednesday and at 3:15 she said "I need drugs" so we went to the hospital. You were a testy baby keeping the nurses concerned with your heart rate and moving mom every 30 minutes. And you were in a hurry, coming in 3 hours instead of Dr Brown's predicted 6 hours. I'll never forget the sight of your cord wrapped around your neck twice and two doctors with both hands trying to pull it off of you... they had to try twice to get it off.