Great Feet of Strength

Ok, I know you guys are ALL thinking it, so let me say this first: yes, I am aware there is a typo in my title. It is a callback to "Robin Hood: Men In Tights," not an exemplar of my stupidity.

Now that that's out of the way, I'll move onto the purpose of this blog, which is mainly to show off my little buddy! He is getting so big and strong so fast I almost can't believe it.

Here I will show you two videos that showcase his feat of physical strength and mental leaps.

I highly recommend you set the video to the highest resolution you can to optimize Sander's adorableness and your viewing pleasure. :) If you are unsure how to do that, here are some instructions:

1. Look at the bottom of the video where it lists the length of the video.

2. Locate the resolution setting which will probably be set at the crappiest resolution it can offer, 240p.

3. Click on the 240p button and select the highest quality of video you can, 780p or 1080p.

Now that you have good resolution, here is the first video, showing Sander trying to put the binkie back into his mouth by himself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6SqMr_3GZY

Not only is this adorable, but this video shows what a smart guy he already is. He is developing his problem solving ability which most children don't really develop until after two years of age.

If a child runs a toy into an object and it gets stuck, they will probably just cry until their brain develops enough for them to think of reversing the process, i.e. moving the toy backwards, and freeing it.

Sander already sees the problem, "Hey! that binkie should be in my mouth and it is not!" and he tries to correct it, "If I can just grab it with my tongue, or get that dang arm to push it over closer to me, maybe I can get it in my mouth!" Of course, he succeeded by wasn't smart enough to start sucking on the binkie after he got his lips around it....maybe a half genius?

Next, for his physical feat of strength! Learning to control that head and work out those shoulders:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xGdsOch948

Yay for the little dood man! He is getting so big!

Triumph at Last

I was finally able to catch a picture of Sander smiling!

It has been kind of a rough morning because he has been so gassy. Saturday, 23 October he was awake practically all day- from 1:00 PM - 11:30 PM. Then he slept for 6 1/2 hours and almost all day on Sunday 24 October except to occasionally wake up to eat. I was so worried that he was going to be awake all night last night but he actually didn't do too bad. He ate every 2-3 hours but I was able to get some sleep.

This morning he was so gassy and really having a hard time sleeping. He threw up on me twice and I was cleaning the house in between his small napping / screaming sessions. Then at 11:30 I realized that I was starving because I hadn't eaten anything yet nor had I brushed my teeth or showered. So I kissed him on the head and was planning on going to make myself something to eat when I realized that he was totally awake. He spit his binkie out and I went to put it back in so he could soothe himself back to sleep. The second I tapped his lip with the binkie to get him to open up so I could pop the bink back in, he broke out in the widest grin.

Commence the photo shoot! I grabbed my camera and took 224 high speed burst shots of him goo-ing and gaa-ing and making adorable faces. This is the only good picture I got of his big gummy grin.

SUCCESS, success! Grandma Montrose in VA is very pleased to have this picture of her grandson as is Sander's father who has yet to see this face on Sander (Sander mostly just pees and poops on him rather than smiling at him. Don't worry Dad! He'll get there with you too (; ).

I got lots of other adorable faces out of him so I'm going to make a whole album on Facebook called, "The Various Faces of Sander Jay." Check it out on my page later on today if you're interested!

Happy Coming to Earth day!

Yay! A New Baby! And this time it's mine!

I have lots of pictures posted on facebook so I'll only put a few up here.

Delivery

My water broke at 8:00 PM on Sunday, August 29th. All I could think of to say was, "Oops." as I stared down at the growing puddle of water on my kitchen floor and thought about my September 13 due date and all of the baby stuff I still hadn't bought. Casey did a good job only being minorly hysterical while we packed the rest of the stuff we needed into our hospital bags and headed up to St. Marks Hospital. I wish we had been able to finish our Hypnobabies class (we had 2 sessions left) because the extra practice probably would have helped me though the following 29 hours of labor.

I actually did pretty well with the labor- I was singing show tunes in between waves around noon on Monday, but around 7:00 PM, with no rest, food and minimal water in my system I was exhausted. My waves were off the charts strong and very close together. I had no reserves left to deal with the strong contractions and I hollered for an epidural. It took me a long time to actually let the guy stick it in me because I was so close to finishing the birth naturally like I wanted to, but I was very grateful for it. It allowed me to sleep for a half an hour and then I woke up and I think it must have been wearing off because I could feel my waves again and the incontrollable urge to GET THAT BABY THE HECK OUT OF ME.

After an hour of pushing, at 12:45 AM Tuesday, the doctor finally stuck his fingers under Sander's armpits and pulled him out accompanied by a HUGE sigh of relief from me. It was all worth it as soon as they put that beautiful, perfect little boy up onto my chest. He was so perfect and gorgeous and completely surreal. It seemed like after the 9 months and 29 hours of labor that he would never be a person outside of me. I got to hold him for a really long time afterwards which provided a good distraction from the doctor stitching me up- he was not gentle...

About Sander

Sander had jaundice so we didn't get to leave the hospital until Thursday morning. We had some bilibeds delivered to our house and kept him under those for awhile (which he hated) but the jaundice went down and we are doing awesome now.

Sander is the sweetest, most chill baby I have ever seen. He is such a little angel and so easy to be with- I find it really hard to put him down for naps while I'm awake during the day. <3

He has a webbed toe on his right foot which he inherited from his daddy.

He also has a less apparent webbed toe on his left foot that looks like the webbed toe his Grandma Zaugg has on both feet.

His right ear also doesn't seem to have any space underneath the rim at the top. It's just plastered down with a line that makes you think there is space underneath but when you try to pull it up you discover that it is an optical illusion- no space, sealed up tight. I think it might still pop out as he plumps up but Casey has informed me that I'm delusional.

Other than those eccentricities everything else seems to be perfect. He looks just like his daddy but I think the older he gets the more Montrose I can see in his face. His most noticable features are his quizzical brow and pursed lips. I can already tell that he is skeptical of everything he sees and is content to just sit back and observe his world. Aside from being skeptical though, he is the sweetest cuddle-bug I could ever ask for. It's a good thing too- hopefully he won't mind how much his mom loves on him as he gets older (well, until he becomes a teenager at least. I'm not completely delusional.)

Never thought I could love someone so much that I wouldn't mind getting up every couple of hours during the night and interrupting my sleep. I'm excited to see how he grows and develops and I'm particularly excited for when he smiles his goofy smile at me with his eyes open and not just while he's asleep after he farts. Oh man, that kid makes me laugh so much already.

I'm excited to experience his discoveries, family holidays and individual growth with him over the years. Don't get me wrong though- I'm not wishing away this cuddly lump stage at all. I'm going to try to enjoy every part of each unique stage he goes though. It only happens once.