• Weeks 1-4
• Weeks 5-8
• Weeks 9-12
• Weeks 13-16
• Weeks 17-20
• 5 Months
• 6 Months
• 7 months
• 8 months
• 9 months
• 10 months

 

• Main Alec Page

Weeks 9-12

Week 9: Alec is still not sleeping well at night. Most nights he ends up in our bed with us, he falls asleep on my chest after he is done eating and we just kind of stay that way. It's a bad habit and one I want to break but its the only way to guarantee at least 2 hours of sleep, if not 3-4. Some nights I would do anything for that sleep and putting him in his crib to have him wake up 5 minutes later is just too cruel. I am hoping at 3 months he will miraculously sleep through the night like his mama did :)

While the nights can be rough, our days are great. He is laughing and smiling and so much fun. He's schooching along on the floor too when he has belly time. He lifts his head high and looks all around. He isn't reaching for his toys too much yet, though he does reach for my face and was playing with it/grabbing at it the other night which was so sweet.

He still has a lot of his baby reflexes - still startles like crazy, stands up and tries to walk, holds his arms in the "fencing" mode. I'll miss these when he outgrows them.

Week 10: Alec got his 10 week pictures taken at Sears this week. he was such a good smily boy!

Alec gave me his first belly laugh - it is so funny to see him just shaking with laughter. He has the funniest little laugh. There is the "cough" laugh and then there is the full out chortle. He cracks me up.

He has discovered his tongue. He pushes it out of his mouth and was imitating Mike sticking his tongue out - very cute! He likes other peoples tongues too, and wiggling your tongue at him makes him laugh.

He is still desperately seeking his thumb. He squirms all around trying to find it - but only tries to suck his left thumb and contorts his body all the way to the left to find it. He uses the right hand to shove his left hand into his mouth. Most of the time he ends up gnawing on the heel of his palm. When he does finally find his thumb, all the fingers are splayed wide open, like you would draw a finger turkey. If he is gnawing on his palm, the fingers are wide open and covering his entire face. All of this is accompanied by terrible grunting and moaning. It's enough to break your heart if I weren't laughing so hard at him!

We still call him by some of the nicknames he had at birth but mostly he is: Baby A, Big A, smiley guy or pea. And of course, mom's little boy! He is also still fuss-budgy :)

This week he had another freakish growth spurt. He is so long it frightens me - how did he get so big!

He slept from 12-5 the other night, though this seems to sadly be a fluke and he was back to his old ways last night. Though he does give me hope. I love watching him sleep, he is either peaceful and completely out of it or making a million strange (and loud!) grunts and groans.

We had our first Mother's Day and Alec was just the best baby! We went out to lunch at Jae's and he slept the whole time. Then we went to Tiffany's where he bought me a pair of earrings (with a little help from his dad). He's learning early that Mother's Day and Tiffany's go together :)

Alec is wearing size 2 diapers now - he is just trucking through the sizes. My big guy!

Week 11: This is a big week for Alec. He had his first special day - his baptism. It was quite a hectic weekend and he was really a trooper through it all. He slept all day Saturday while we were out running errands and then when the whole extended family went out to dinner at the Naked Fish Saturday night he was very good and happy to be passed from arm to arm, well at least until he decided to go into his starvin' marvin act. He is not in any danger of starving with all those rolls he has now!

Then Sunday at the baptism we could not have asked for a better baby, First, he looked so beautiful in his baptism dress which had been mine and my mother's and his grandfather Bruce's christening bonnet. He was very Elizabethan. He fussed a little at the church but took his bottle and passed right out. Didn't even wake up when Father poured the water on his head. It was amazing. And then of course he was the star of his party. Quite the exhausting weekend for this 11 week old guy!

He is starting to roll over from his back to his stomach. Well he definitely gets onto is side, but the bottom arm is very much in the way and he has no idea what to do with it. I need to give him more belly time and hopefully he will try to roll onto his back that way as well.

We got him one of those gymini things where he lays on the floor and toys hang over his head. He loves it. He isn't really swatting at or reaching for the toys yet but he will accidentally hit them when he is moving his arms and legs wildly in excitement and that excites him even more. He also loves his Peaceful planet aquarium and lies in his crib on his side "talking" to his fishies. He is so vocal, and was delighting his grandparents all weekend with his coos and gurgles. I love the coos but I still love his marching man expression the best with his pursed lips.

He grabbed and held onto the tissue Michael was using to clean his face with so maybe holding things isn't too far off. We'll have to get the rattles out and see what happens.

Alec is sleeping on our bed while I am on the computer. While the bed still dwarfs him, you can see how big he is. He is so long! Especially his torso. He is in one of his very relaxed sleeps - legs spread out, arms spread wide above his head, deep shallow breaths. He must feel safe and secure in his life to be able to sleep like that, it looks so exposed to me.

This morning he woke up so happy, I took him to his changing table where we had some quality changing time. He is so funny the way he loves his changing table so much. He gets so excited doing this making moves and then he sort of arches his neck and stares at the ceiling and starts babbling at it and flailing his arms and legs everywhere in excitement. The ceiling is plain white. I have no idea what he sees. This weekend all of his grandparents loved hanging out around him at his crib or changing table because this is where he does his best talking. He's just a happy little guy.

Last night I was wondering what he was thinking about as he stared out into space. Then it hit me - how does he even think? He has no language. He doesn't "know" English, he has no words to put into thoughts. His thoughts must be visual and sensory. I was overwhelmed with amazement at this little being.

His new name for this week is Angry Alec, or sometimes the Angry Buddha.

He is big. According to our mail scale he is about 15 pounds. He has the cutest rolls. On his legs we really have to pry the rolls apart during his bath to clean his many crevices.

Week 12: How can my baby be 12 weeks old! It seems impossible. He used to not exist, and now he is here and it seems impossible to imagine a world before he existed. The love we have for him is overwhelming. TO me he seems to have come from nowhere and is magically just here. It is unfathomable to me that I grew him inside of me. It went so fast, one minute we thought of having a baby and the next minute here he was.

I stare at him and offer silent prayers of thanksgiving that he is not going to daycare and I try to treasure each day and moment with him, to memorize his face as it is now because I know tomorrow will be different. But then tomorrow comes and the new face replaces the old. He changes so fast we can't hold his picture in our minds. I am also thankful for Kodak.

This was a HUGE week for Alec. On his 12 week birthday he went on his first plane ride from Boston to Durango via Dallas Fort Worth. He was so good! I knew he would be (proud momma moment). He slept all the way to the airport and until we got to security where we had to get him out of his carseat so the seat could go through the X-ray machine and the guards could pat him down. even then he was good. Off to the gate where we changed him and then we were boarding the plane. He cried some but quieted down to eat and then slept for a good amount of time on the plane. Michael and I slept and read - we had free time! It felt great. At DFW we went to the Admiral's club to wait for Mike's mom to meet us. Alec got changed there too as we had quite a bit of privacy, not too many business travelers wanting to sit by the couple with the baby :) Judy met us and we were off to the plane to Durango. It was a small jet and we had to take a bus to the satellite terminal - yuck. But Alec remained a trooper through this flight as well and was awake for ur demost of it. He even seemed to like the wicked turbulence we hit on oscent to Durango.

We had a great time in Durango and Alec got to meet his great grandparents and he had a good time playing with them. Though he seemed a bit out of sorts at times and would be playing along fine and all of a sudden turn beet red and let out a blood curling scream. Very out of character for him. Nothing seemed to be bothering him so I chalked it up to change of altitude, too many hands holding him, change of schedule, etc. In retrospect I also chalk it up to many new developmental milestones happening at the same time. Not to mention messed up sleep schedule - that and the time change just about killed Mike and I - I have never been so tired as our first night in Durango. Working on 3 hours of sleep the night before made us pretty miserable - but not ALec! he was ready to play all night! That kid :)

Alec rolled over (5/25)! He'd roll occasionally since birth, but those were just flukes. This is a concerted, repeated roll. He rolls! From his back, to his side, onto his stomach. And of course once on his stomach he looks startled and then mad because he really doesn't want to be on his stomach and he hasn't mastered stomach to back rolling yet so he is stuck. Very mad - its like he thought rolling would be so cool and only to find out he is on his stomach. Oh the sorrow!

He laughs (5/26). He's chuckled in the past and I've gotten one big belly laugh, but nothing like this. This was continuous gleeful chuckles, high pitched and gurgly, eyes lit up and mouth wide open in a huge grin. He looked so ridiculously happy that my heart hurt. Michael got it all on video too. Alec is so much fun these days.

He reaches and grabs. Friends got him this whoozit big face rattle and Alec LOVES it. He'll stop whatever he is doing and freeze and stare at this toy. He purses his lips when he is staring so intently which is the cutest thing ever. Then as he begins to take the toy in, he will start to move his legs wildly and bat at the toy with his closed fists. The fists are slowly starting to open and he does sometimes grab the toy. It's amazing how simple something like reaching and grabbing can become this overwhelming milestone. It is amazing to see him figure out that he has hands, that they can do things, that he can feel with them. He likes to grab my shirt and seems to pat faces now as well. He is an explorer.

The trip back to Boston went well as well. Though Alec sort of melted down on the stupid bus ride at the DFW terminal. Oh well what can you do, they should outlaw those stupid satellite terminals. Sandwiching 30+ people in a tiny bus whith all their carry on luggage, then try to hold a baby in a car seat while standing in a moving vehicle. Of course no one offered us a seat so I couldn't feed poor Alec, he was so miserable and crying. Once we got to the terminal he wasn't interested in eating though. Which was odd since he hadn't eaten in about 5 hours. Unfortunately this pattern continued through most of the next flight. All he wanted to do was sleep, had no interest in eating. I thought I would die from the pain. Finally as we were getting ready to land in Boston he decided to eat. 12 hours later. Strange strange child.

Alec has always loved his mobile and Aquarium in his crib and while I was doing dishes while he napped I heard him so figured he had woken up and was talking to his fishes. So I went in to check on him and he was turned on his side away from the fishes, staring intently at his crib bumper and scratching at and holding onto the crib bumper safety tags like crazy. It was the funniest thing. All these toys and he is absolutely fascinated by his crib bumper tags. The scratching is new too, I think he realizes not only can these hands touch and feel, but they can make noise. He is so cool!