Random pics of the week

We had a play date with Miss Sophia Santoro. So happy these two are only nine months apart. It feels like forever right now but in a few years it won't matter.

Took him for his first walk in the baby bjorn and he fell asleep, it's a keeper!

Pretty much the best aunt on the planet!

Seriously people! How am I ever going to say no to this face?!?

Caiden's 2-month check-up

Caiden had his 2-month check-up this afternoon. He did very good in the beginning, especially for the pretty blond nurse. When Dr. Roberts came in and started inspecting his body he got a little irritated though. Then he became really pissed off when he had to get four, yes FOUR shots. He pretty much screamed bloody murder until a few minutes after he got them and we were able to calm him down. Wow, and we have to go through that 2 more times, at both his 4 and 6-month appointments, lovely.

He has a few things we're still trying to work on. The Dr. said his eczema is still pretty bad so we need to keep applying the Vaseline or Aquaphor. Pretty much keep him lathered up all the time, which means we have Vaseline all over everything all the time; him, me, my clothes, his clothes, blankets, his car seat...everywhere. My elbows are sliding off my knees as I type this right now. We also discovered he has a stork bite on the back of his neck. We thought it was just a dry patch but nope. And, since I know some people will call and ask what it is, here is medicaldictionary.com's definition:

A stork bite is a common type of birthmark seen in a newborn. It is most often temporary. Stork bites occur in about one third of all newborns. A stork bite is due to a stretching (dilation) of certain blood vessels. It may become darker when the child cries or the temperature changes. It may fade when you push on it.

He weighed 14 lbs. 0.5 oz. (93rd percentile), 24.25 inches long (89th percentile) and his head is in the 65th percentile (yes, I would have thought that last one was a little higher, too ;). All in all another great appointment and we have a big, happy, healthy baby.

I love this picture, it looks like Caiden is saying, "Daddy why are you letting this man mess with me so much, HELP already!"

Hands to the face

Caiden has found his hands. Well just his right hand so far. Yesterday I started noticing he'll put it in front of his face and stare at it until he goes cross-eyed. I got a few pics of it today.

Smiley baby

Warning: this post is picture heavy. We had an amazing visit with my Aunt Sue who flew in from Nebraska this week. We did lots of shopping for Caiden's room and she was able to spend some quality time with us. Thanks for everything Aunt Sue!

At the Catamaran Resort looking at the ducks.

He is smiling like crazy this week. I couldn't help but post this succession of ridiculously cute pictures of great aunt Sue making him smile.

Bottle time

We introduced the bottle this week, at 6 weeks! The first night was pretty good. He played around with it for about 10 minutes, but then he drank all 4 ounces! Marc was so excited and happy, he came into our room with a big grin on his face saying how happy he was that he was able to feed our baby. It was so cute. As relieved as I was that he took the bottle and that I now get out of one of the feedings it was still a little sad to see him taking the bottle and not needing me. But really, it's so nice that I can go to bed a little early and Marc can take care of putting him down in his crib for the night. Now I just need to go to bed instead of sitting there watching him eat the bottle, haha. 

The second night was a little different. It's the one right before we go to bed, between 9-10pm. Caiden is sleeping during this time so it's supposed to be a "dream feed", where he doesn't really wake up and just starts sucking. But that night he did not want to eat and just slept. Marc gave up and tried about 30 minutes later and viola! Just had to wait till he was ready I guess.

Overall I think it's totally going to work, we've used a couple different bottles because we wanted to do 5 oz instead of 4 and the first bottle we were using was only a 4 oz bottle. But he doesn't really seem to care about the nipple shape or bottle or whatever so that's good. I still have to pump before I go to bed otherwise I'm in some pain by the time he wakes around 3am to eat again but that's okay.

It's also the start of the NFL season which means Sundays are now reserved for the couch and the tv. Marc's team, the Washington Redskins played the Saints and they won, 40-32!

Marc's parents in town

We've had a full house this past week and lots and lots of pictures have been taken. Marc's mom has been extremely helpful, like letting me sleep in till 10 and pretty much just holding Caiden all the time while I can do anything I want, well, as long as it doesn't last longer than 3 hours. The minute he realizes he's hungry he lets us all know. A couple times Marc's mom called us, "When are you coming home, he hasn't stopped crying in 20 minutes and he's eating my arm?" Poor Grandma. But we were able to go on our first date night, just the two of us. I was able to get my hair done, all kinds of stuff we're going to miss doing once they leave. Luckily we still have my sister!

His eczema has got so much better. We pretty much lathered his face in Vaseline for 5 days and now you can't even tell. I can't say the thrush has got much better...stay tuned for one more week, if it still hasn't changed then I may try something called gentian violet, it's an over the counter topical antiseptic. A lot of the mommy blogs swear by it, the only problem...it turns EVERYTHING purple that it touches, including his mouth so you have to be very careful you don't get it everywhere.

Somehow whenever he is sleeping on Aunt Sara he is in the cutest positions.

Grandpa Mashhoun and Caiden sleeping. Pretty much the same thing my Dad did with Caiden when he was here...haha.

We were able to go to our yoga class on Tuesday night, the first time back since I gave birth. So many people in the class that I've never talked to remembered me and were asking about the baby.

Doing some stretches with Caiden before class. His face looks so funny in this picture I couldn't help post it.

Grandma and Grandpa Mashhoun

And of course...GO BIG RED! His first Husker game, broke out the red!

He's finally starting to be entertained by his activity gym. Yes, he's asleep here but before he was entertaining himself for a good 30 minutes.

We mailed out his announcements last week and here they are. Marc and Sara took the pictures, amateur hour over here but we just weren't on top of it the first few weeks at home and the last thing I was thinking about was getting his newborn photos taken. I wish we had a photographer friend that lived here, would have made it much easier.

Caiden's 1-month check-up

We had his one month well baby check-up today. We ended up switching pediatricians and offices and we can happily say that we are glad we did. We weren't able to meet with the pediatrician that we picked for him because he didn't have any available appointments this week but the doctor we met with was great. We do get to meet the pediatrician we assigned to him at his 2 month appointment. This was a very eventful appointment, this kid is high maintenance, let me tell you.

First for the fun stuff. He weighed 11 lbs. 7.5 oz. (88th percentile), 22.75 inches long (88th percentile) and his head is in the 76th percentile. He's growing great and a very healthy baby. He did so well through out the entire appointment, until...he got his first shot, only one, right in his thigh and boy did his face turn bright red and he screamed for a good 20 seconds. After that he was all good. I wasn't sure what to expect but they don't waste any time and just stick the needle as fast as they can in his leg, I felt so bad for him. Hopefully he doesn't develop a fever, otherwise we're going to be running to the pharmacy to pick up some baby Tylenol. It's probably a good thing to have on hand so we should pick some up anyway.

In other news, we have thrush. His tongue has had white stuff on it for about a week now and I just thought it was breast milk. Apparently it's pretty common in breast fed babies since it's a type of yeast infection. We have to give him 4 drops a day of a prescription we picked up on his tongue and they also prescribed some cream to put on his butt and that I can put on my nipples (I know, tmi). But my nipples have always been sore and apparently thrush is probably why, I've just been dealing with the pain because I thought it was normal but now that I have this cream I'm really hoping it helps and I'm looking forward to no pain soon. The doctor said it should go away within a week.

We also received a prescription for a vitamin D supplement to give him, once a day on his tongue. I guess breast fed babies don't get enough vitamin D (mainly because they don't see the sun enough). Just another thing to deal with for the next year until he can start drinking cows milk.

So his umbilical cord stump fell off on Friday, but there was still some goop left in there so the pediatrician applied some silver nitrate to the inside and it's supposed to remove all that gunk and help it heal within the next week. She said the side effects are redness to the area but that will eventually go away.

He also has baby eczema. It's pretty bad and covers almost his entire face so now we have to apply some Vaseline or this Aquaphor lotion that we have all the time until it gets better. And another thing to worry about, sigh.

Now this is crazy. We've noticed a little bump on his left clavicle, aka collarbone, and the pediatrician thinks that during delivery he broke his clavicle. I did some research on this once we got home and clavicle fractures are the most frequently encountered birth injury, especially with larger babies (and ones that were in the birth canal for 2 hours being pushed and pushed). I really can't believe none of the doctors caught this at the hospital but it's not a big deal as it heals really quick in newborns and there won't be any problems as he grows older. The pediatrician said we could have an x-ray done just to confirm that's what it is but there is nothing they would do for it at this point since it's already healed. We decided not to do the x-ray.

So like I said, high maintenance. I'm actually really happy with how the appointment went and all of these things are so minor in the grand scheme of things that I'm not worried about anything, just glad we're getting them taken care of. Hopefully his 2 month appointment is less eventful, besides the shots he's going to have to get.

Getting his temp taken

How tall are you baby boy?

Weight taken. Yes, it says 11.8 oz., but the nurse clocked him at 11 lbs 7.5 oz. so that's what we're going with.