Week 32 - Christmas!

Baby's First Christmas was a wonderful occasion for our family. Hayden was so amazing as he ripped into the presents (and then tried to eat the paper), looked at the gift inside, and thanked the person who gave it to him (ok, I'm exaggerating about that last part)! But still, much more than I expected a 7 month old baby would do. His attention span was remarkable and even though he had 3 days straight of shifted schedules and overstimulating parties, he was a trooper. Hardly ever was fussy and he even slept soundly in his Porta-Crib at my dad's house on Christmas Eve! He was thoroughly spoiled with lots of toys, books, supplies, and adorable clothes. We have such a generous and thoughtful family!

His outfit says "Best Christmas Ever" (Thank you Auntie Rachel... it was true!)

Christmas Morning with Daddy

It looks like he's super happy to be getting this bottle drying rack, but really that's his "I'm pooping" face! (However, I AM happy about the bottle drying rack!)

With his cousin Jude

This is the main gift from "Santa". It's an activity table all about food (his favorite topic!). He can actually stand for a couple seconds and play on it. We can also remove the legs so he can play with it on the floor until he is standing better.

Hayden with his Great Aunt Teri and his new Twilight Turtle (it projects the constellations onto the ceiling of his room. He LOVES it!)

Having a son now gives the Christmas Story so much more meaning. I am just in awe of how Mary must have felt to be the mother of Jesus, and how incredible it is that God sent his Son to Earth to live and be among us. I cringe sometimes when I hear the cliche: "remember the reason for the season" but this year at our Christmas Eve church service, the celebration of Jesus's birth really touched my heart.

I know Hayden won't remember this Christmas, but I will for the rest of my life. What an amazing gift he is! Phil and I are so blessed.

Week 31

Welcome to the family, Greyson James Lott! Phil's twin brother Adam and his wife Katie welcomed their 3rd boy into the family on December 20, 2007 at 8:44am. He is exactly 7 months younger than Hayden and 1/3 the weight! Wow!



It's so crazy to see such a tiny newborn and realize how fast time has flown by with Hayden. Greyson is adorable and in a few years, 7 months will be NOTHING! Those boys will be BFFs!

Hayden is getting pretty mobile. He rolls all over the place, and has gotten up on his knees in a crawling position a few times, only to be frustrated that it made him go backwards!

His top left tooth broke through the gums yesterday, so I guess Hayden had been singing, "All I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth" and his wish is coming true! ;)

Despite the new tooth, he has been sleeping really well, go figure! He only wakes up once a night, around 3:30am. I feed him and he falls right back to sleep. He's taking 2 good naps a day (down from 3 shorter naps). From about 9:30-11:00am and from about 1:30pm-3:30pm. We haven't been swaddling him for a few weeks now and he has been doing fine. At night he sleeps in a Sleep Sack (a wearable blanket) and for naps I just tuck a blanket over him from the waist down. He sometimes doesn't even need the pacifier. He spits it out on his own and just cuddles with his Doggie as he drifts off to sleep.

But if it's not one thing, it's another! Nursing has become pretty challenging. I spoke with the Overlake Hospital Lactation nurse this week because Hayden has not been the good nurser that he used to be. I have to nurse him in absolute silence in a quiet, dark area or else he is too interested in his surroundings to nurse. This makes going out for errands and getting together with family more difficult! Also, he is becoming too impatient for the milk to let-down, which can take a minute or so, depending on how vigorously he is sucking during that time, so that is frustrating him too. And he's biting! OUCH!!!!!!! The lactation nurse advised me to go a little longer stretches between feedings (from 3 hours to almost 4) so that he is really hungry and motivated to nurse. She said to always nurse him BEFORE giving the solid foods and if he bites me, to stop the nursing session and try again later. If we give him a bottle (which is part of his bed-time routine with Daddy) it should not be given to him by me, but by someone else, so that he still always associates getting milk from me from the breast. She said it's very common for babies this age to be distracted easily while nursing and said I really need to try to get in the quietest, calmest place possible, even if that means a bathroom with the lights off and the fan on to drown out noise. Ugh! Sounds fun. The good thing is that Hayden is definitely not lacking in the weight department, so if he does back off on nursing a bit, that isn't going to hurt him.

I received good news this week regarding the lump in my thyroid. I had a biopsy on Monday (needles poked in my neck 6 times!) and the pathology lab concluded that the lump is a benign thyroid cyst. I will go back to the specialist in 6 months, where they will do a follow-up Ultrasound and the doctor thinks it will probably just gradually shrink and go away on its own.

Week 30

How did it get to be the middle of December already? Hayden has been awe-struck by the lighted tree in our living room. I'm really thankful he's not crawling yet. I still have to be careful not to turn my back for long, though, because he has become very proficient at rolling and pivoting his way around the floor.

My mom came out for a day (yes, a day!) this week to hand-deliver Christmas presents. She said shipping them from Ann Arbor, Michigan would have cost more, and since my step-dad is a pilot for Northwest Airlines and the flights were pretty open last Tuesday, it was relatively easy for her to just hop on a plane herself (albeit a LONG day for her!). Hayden got to open some of his Christmas presents early and boy did he enjoy that! Since I normally prevent him from ripping paper, he thoroughly enjoyed tearing open a few presents. We still had to prevent him from putting the paper in his mouth, but I was definitely surprised at how well he could unwrap a present! Grandma Judi got him some really neat presents and Hayden can barely decide what he likes most!



Notice that Hayden is sitting up all by himself now! He hasn't totally figured out how to get out of the sitting position gracefully, but his balance has been flawless. I can even sit him in the grocery carts and high chairs at restaurants now! We have really cool "germ covers" for those so it's been fun to try them out. Hayden really enjoys shopping with Mommy and getting that view from the cart. And we enjoyed a meal at Chan's Place with Phil's parents this week and Hayden did really well in the high chair. Grandma Doris even fed him his peas and they didn't end up on the people at the table next to us! :)

Hayden ate butternut squash this week. Surprisingly not a big hit. He made a really sour face and although he will still eat it, he doesn't give the big smiles and wide open mouth ready-for-more like he does with rice cereal and peas.

Earlier this week Hayden caught a cold. I read that a baby has about 8 colds in their first year of life, and this is his 2nd cold, so I think we're doing pretty well. Still, it's no fun seeing him sick. The stuffy nose cleared up in a couple days but he still has a bit of a congested cough. And unfortunately Phil and I caught the cold too, so we were all miserable for a couple days. I'm almost feeling 100% better. Which is a good thing, because my sister-in-law Katie is scheduled to have her baby (Boy #3) in 2 days!! I can't wait to meet him! They have decided on the name Greyson Lott. It is going to be so cool that Hayden's cousin will be only 7 months younger. With all these boys in the family, I wonder if any Lott will ever have a girl?!

Week 29

Hayden continues to enjoy the eating experience, and I am enjoying feeding him and getting to see other people enjoy feeding him too! This week he had peas for the first time. Once again, he loves food!



Due to all the heavy lifting I've been doing, my wrist is really starting to bother me. It used to just be lifting Hayden or carrying him in is car seat, but now squeezing containers and gripping & turrning (like doorknobs and opening jars) all have become painful in my right wrist. I think I need to start wearing a brace and a mommy friend of mine with similar issues has some P.T. exercises I can try. I guess my wrist just wasn't ready to handle a 20 lb baby so soon! No one told me to lift weights to prepare for a baby!

Phil and I are planning a trip to San Diego January 12–19th! Phil has a conference at the convention center there on the 13-15 so we decided to tag along and extend Phil's business trip as a vacation! My Grandpa Doug and Grandma Ruth live in San Jacinto, which is about 80 miles away. They are going to drive into San Diego on Tuesday and go with us to the Zoo and Sea World, and then on Wednesday night we are going with them back to their home for the remainder of our trip. They live in Washington during the summers and in California in the winters, so I was sad when they left this Fall that the next time they were going to see Hayden he would be a year old! He is changing so fast, I am so glad we get this opportunity to go see them sooner! And hopefully the weather will be nice and Hayden will get to be outdoors more. Since the weather has been so cold and rainy here, we haven't been outside much. I'm so excited for our trip, but also feeling a bit overwhelmed thinking about what I need to bring, the plane ride, and whether Hayden will sleep ok while we're away from home.

We had Hayden's Santa photos taken this week. Growing up, we looked forward to getting Santa pictures every year and my mom would put out the whole chronology of Santa Pictures every year. It's so fun to look back over 18+ Santa pictures (we continued to do them as we got older since my little sister is 12 years younger). I want to do the same thing with Hayden as part of our Christmas Traditions. Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed with this Santa and the picture. The Santa had a real beard at least, but he wasn't wearing the Big Red Suit. Instead, he had on a patterned Christmas button-up, red suspenders holding up his red pants, goofy striped socks, and no Santa hat. What's a Santa without a Santa hat?! :) Plus, they had Hayden standing on Santa's knee for some reason, and I would prefer him sitting. And Hayden has his tongue sticking out, like he usually does, but it looks like he just has huge Sock Monkey lips! If it were just that, I might not re-do them, because afterall, that's Hayden for ya, and it's kind of cute to remember that part about him, but I really want a REAL Santa in the photo. Call me crazy, I know. I think we're going to re-do them somewhere else this week. I don't want to look back on this first Santa Picture every year with disappointment and regret.

Week 28

Look Hayden, Snow!!


We got a little dusting of Snow on Saturday and Hayden enjoyed watching the snowflakes fall but it melted before we got him outside. We are looking forward to letting him touch snow for the first time... but first we have to get him a winter coat!

Hayden continues to LOVE solid foods. We introduced oatmeal this week and he loves it just as much as rice cereal. We plan on introducing peas pretty soon, followed by avocado, squash, sweet potato, then banana. Our pediatrician recommended starting with the less sweet foods like vegetables so he doesn't develop a sweet tooth, but I have a feeling he is going to like everything.

He still isn't sleeping that great and this past week even his morning nap has been difficult. Usually he naps from at least 9am - 10am, but lately he fusses for a while and then only takes a 45 minute nap or less. It's kind of frustrating because that is when I usually try to get a shower in and get myself ready for the day. One day last week he fought the morning nap for over an hour so I just gave up, and then he took a 2 hour afternoon nap, but that was it.

Night-time sleep is also still unpredictable. Sometimes wakes up 4-5 times a night and sometimes only once. He seems to do best when we find that magic bedtime where he's not yet overtired but is ready to fall asleep. When he gets way overtired, that seems to be when he wakes up most during the night. If he only takes 2 naps a day we put him to bed around 6:30pm, but if he gets a 3rd nap in, his bedtime can be closer to 7:30pm, which is nice because then Phil gets more time to spend with him.