Being Sara

Ever since Xander was born, everyone has commented on his hair - he was born with a full head, and never seemed to loose too much of it. Six months later, his hair continues to grow of course, and it was starting to fall into his eyes, and over his ears. So last weekend we asked my mother-in-law to cut his hair (it should be noted that although she is a teacher by trade, she is the designated barber for almost all of the men in the family, and even some close friends). As his hair has grown, it has started to come in blonde, and I often joked about his blonde roots. When all of his hair was finally trimmed, it was almost shocking - he went from being a brunette baby to a blonde baby in a matter of minutes. He looks so much older now with his “big boy” haircut. Although his hair is still soft, it’s not that soft baby hair that we couldn’t resist touching when he was a newborn. The first haircut was a rather bittersweet experience - it’s exciting that he’s getting older and bigger, etc., but it’s sad that this one little piece of his infancy has been cut away…

baby, babies, infant, infants, parent, parents, parenting, haircut, haircutting, baby’s first haircut

Last week Zach and I went on a trip to Las Vegas. It was planned well before Xander’s arrival, and although Vegas wasn’t my ideal vacation spot, Zach had a conference there, so it ended up being a cheaper vacation, all things considered. While Zach and I were in Vegas, Xander stayed with a series of relatives. Xander did fine with his family, and I’m sure the whole event was harder on us than it was on him. I knew I was going to miss Xander, but it almost surprised me how much. There were lots of babies out there, and every time I saw one, I first compared the size to Xander’s size, and then I wanted to chase the baby down and play with it, because I couldn’t play with my baby. We flew home very late, and didn’t get to my in-law’s until 2:30 am. It took every ounce of self control that I possess not to wake Xander as soon as we walked in the door, but I knew he hadn’t been sleeping great that week, and I didn’t want him to wake up in the middle of the night and not go back to sleep. All in all, the trip was a success, and it provided Xander with some excellent bonding time with our extended family. I am very happy to be home though - and it feels so wonderful to cuddle my little boy!

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My memory tends to fade pretty quickly these days, and this past weekend is a memory that I don’t want to forget anytime soon. Nothing extraordinary happened. It was a quiet weekend home with the family, but that quiet weekend was so wonderful!

The weather finally warmed up this weekend. The week prior was so very cold, and all week you could hear people talking excitedly about the weekend and the nice weather it promised to bring. And this time, the weather preditions were right! The temperature skyrocketed from single digits on Friday to the 40’s on Saturday. So Saturday afternoon Zach and I bundled Xander into his stroller, and put an end to our hibernation. It was so nice to be outside in the fresh air. It was breezy, and a little chilly still, but very nice. We walked downtown to the local coffee shop (that sell only free trade coffee). We bought coffee and hot cocoa, and lunch at the market. We sat in the comfy chairs by the window and played with Xander, watched activity on the street and read a newspaper, and just had a leisurly afternoon. Then we strolled home. The next day we did the same thing. Getting outside was wonderful, and having that relaxing time with my family was also wonderful. We weren’t worried about changing diapers, or doing laundry, or getting to the dump, or any of the other thousands of things that pile up on the weekends. We just enjoyed the company, and laughed at our baby. Sunday afternoon while I was putting away clothes we watched a movie. Xander was in such a good mood! He laughed and laughed. I didn’t even have to touch him - a silly face would send him into giggles, which then in turn made Zach and me laugh as well. The whole weekend was this protected little coccoon of family time, and I loved it. I’m addicted to it, and I can’t wait for more!

baby, babies, infant, infants, parent, parents, parenting, family, families, family time

Zach and I are going to Las Vegas this week. We’re leaving on Thursday, and coming back the following Thursday. Zach is attending a conference out there, and I’m tagging along. We planned this about a year ago, and purchased the tickets well before Xander was born. It’s a good thing we got the tickets back then, or I think I would have backed out of the whole trip by now.

Xander is going to stay with relatives while we are gone. All of the relatives are perfectly capable of taking care of an infant, but even the knowledge that they are capable parents does not allieviate my nervousness in leaving Xander behind.

I don’t have any interest in gambling, and Las Vegas was not in my top ten list of places to visit, but Zach has the free hotel room (and it’s a really nice hotel!), and the free plane ticket, and his food is paid for. In terms of vacation costs, this is definitely a cheap one. I’m very excited about 6 full nights of uninterrupted sleep. In fact, this is the biggest selling point for me - uninterrupted sleep. I realize that I could have that without the cost of flying someplace, but it just worked out this way.

So this week I’m wrestling between my guilt of leaving my child with other caretakers, my worry that although these caretakers are perfectly competent and love my son, they aren’t me, and won’t be able to comfort Xander the way that I do, and excitement about some time with my husband, a vacation for the two of us, and a week of good sleep.

baby, babies, infant, infants, parenting, parents, vacation, baby care

About a month ago I started experimenting with rice cereal for Xander.  At first, we were only giving him a few teaspoons about 3 times a week.  Xander would tolerate us poking that spoon into his mouth for about 3-5 minutes before he’d had enough.  This behavior didn’t really suggest that he was ready for solid foods yet.

About 3 weeks ago he became quite constipated.  In an effort to relieve his discomfort, we tried peaches.  I happened to be at my in-law’s house for this, and didn’t have any rice cereal to mix the food with, so I gave Xander half a container of straight peaches, and he loved it.  When we got home, I tried mixing the peaches with rice cereal, and Xander once again disliked it.  I’m pretty sure that the texture was giving him a hard time - no matter how watery I made the cereal, it was still grainy, and he likes stuff smooth.

So, we’ve tried peaches, prunes, peas and applesauce.  Xander wasn’t thrilled with the peas, but I think that was because they were a bit thicker in consistency than the other foods, and he isn’t used to that yet.  So, every night (usually before his bath) we’ve been giving Xander about half a container of the Gerber Stage 1 baby food.  We do have a food processor, and could make our own baby food, but since I’m already struggling with laundry, dishes, house cleaning, cat care, baby care, and a full time job, I’m not really ready to tackle that project as well.  Also, I like the Gerber packaging - the food that we’ve been buying comes in little plastic containers with a resealable cover, so we can put half the food into a bowl, and put the other half in the refrigerator for the following night - very convenient.

Our experiment with solid food is going well so far, but I have no idea what to expect next.  Right now Xander is eating about half a container.  When will he start eating more?  We’ve been giving him “dinner” at night, but when do we need to start giving him meals during the day as well?  So many things to think about, and solid foods are definitely more time consuming than a bottle.  So now we are onto the next adventure - solid food…

baby, babies, infant, infants, parent, parents, parenting, feeding baby, solid food, stage 1 food, gerber food