Andi’s exciting life.

Today Falco went in for his recheck, and we found out that we got some bad information at his last visit. First of all, today his weight was 14 pounds, 11 ounces. It is very unlikely that he gained 11 ounces in a week given how much he eats, so his weight was probably somehow measured wrong at the last appointment. So, his weight is perfect and no cause for worry. Secondly, that “tooth” is not a tooth at all. I showed it to the nurse practitioner today, and she said it was an Epstein pearl. Upon further research, it sounds like it’s really a Bohn’s nodule. Either way, it’s not a tooth and I’m surprised his doctor didn’t realize that when she saw it. Basically, at the visit today we were told that we are doing a great job with him and there is no reason to be concerned about his feeding or weight. Good news! He was also ultra cute at his appointment. He did have moments of fussiness here and there because he was ready for a nap, but for the most part he was smiling and laughing at everyone. They all said how adorable he was, and I have to agree.

Falco is teething! Not only is this starting pretty early at 3-1/2 months, but he is getting a tooth that he shouldn’t get until way later. Normally babies get their two bottom center incisors first, then the top two incisors, then bottom lateral incisors, then top lateral incisors, followed by molars and finally canines. Our boy is getting a bottom molar as his first tooth. He hasn’t been eating well and has seemed fussy and uncomfortable, so yesterday I felt around in his mouth and felt something hard. I looked and saw two little white dots on his gum where it looked like a tooth poking through.

I took him to the doctor today, and she confirmed that it is in fact a tooth. She was a little concerned about the fact that he isn’t eating very well, so we have to keep a feeding log for a week and go back to review just how much he eats every day. Today he was only 14 pounds, which was a little less than she would have liked. I hope that his appetite will pick up and his weight will have gone up at his next visit. I actually don’t think it’s an appetite problem exactly but that it hurts his mouth to eat. Poor little guy!

Remember when I talked about how great Falco had been sleeping lately? Well, that comes and goes, at least in the nap department. He’ll have a couple of days where he goes to sleep for naps with no problem and sleeps for an hour and a half or so for each nap. Then, there are days like today when he sleeps maybe a total of an hour and a half all day long, and yet he acts tired and cranky all day because he hasn’t gotten enough rest. Those days are frustrating, let me tell you. I have heard and read that daytime sleep gets a lot better for babies at five or six months, so I hope that will hold true for us.

As for nighttime sleep, he still does pretty well, but sleeping through the night was a one-time thing. He needs to eat once per night and sometimes he needs his pacifier once or twice in addition to that feeding. He does a very good job with the bedtime routine though, and I really think we have it pretty good at night even though he’s not sleeping straight through. Going to bed at night and sleeping until morning is a distant memory for me, but I’m sure it will happen again someday.

Today is our tenth wedding anniversary! I’m proud and excited to be celebrating this milestone with Matt. As luck would have it, we got to spend the day together today. Matt might not consider it to be so lucky because the reason we’re together is that he is home sick with a cold. I’m not glad he’s sick but happy we’re together. Falco is being less than a dream when it comes to naps today, but he did let us sleep until 7:00 this morning and isn’t being too bad. We might try to go to an early anniversary dinner if he cooperates.

To celebrate this occassion, we’re getting new wedding rings. We were broke students when we got married, so we didn’t get fancy, nice rings. We’ve said for years that we’d get new ones at #10, and it’s finally here. I’ll post photos of our new bling when they get here.

Oh, and speaking of Matt’s cold, I got it first. I was sick last week and then Matt started getting sick on Monday or Tuesday. As soon as I felt it coming on, I was sure that Falco would get it and dreaded having a sick baby. Amazingly enough, he still hasn’t shown any sign of a cold (knock on wood). I thought babies were supposed to be immunocompromised, so I thought he would surely catch anything he was exposed to. I don’t know how he can be around us sickies and stay well. I know it’s just a matter of time before he gets sick for the first time, and I’m not looking forward to it!

Just a reminder: Falco’s new monthly photo is up. It looks like his neck grew longer in the last month!

Falco slept through the night for the first time last night! He went to bed at 7:00, and I got him up to feed him at 10:00 before we went to bed and didn’t feed him again until 6:00 a.m. I did go in and give him his pacifier at 1:00, but he went right back to sleep. He has never skipped that 2 a.m. feeding before, so this is a big accomplishment for him and it came out of the blue. We’ll have to see if it was a fluke thing or if it will start being the norm for him.

I finally uploaded more photos for your viewing pleasure. Here are photos from his first month that I took with my phone, some while we were still in the hospital. Here are photos from January, including my mom’s visit. Enjoy!

You can see to your right the link to Falco’s weekly journal. Since I wrote this by memory for his first nine weeks, I may have left out milestones that I don’t remember. I’ll start updating it weekly from now on so it will be more complete.

As for the unanswered questions, one of the biggest things I wondered about Falco before he was born was what color hair he would have. He is now 2-1/2 months old and I still don’t know! The hair he was born with is kind of a light brown and his eyebrows looked red. He has new hair coming in now, but depending on the light it can look dark brown or light brown or blonde. This child is going to be a year old before I know what his hair will look like! I always hoped that he would have red hair like Matt, but now that he looks so much like Matt in every other way, I won’t be disappointed if he has dark hair like me. His eyes are still a gorgeous light blue, but I guess it’s still too early to know if they will change. I had no idea I would still have so many questions about what my son would look like after he was born. One thing I’m sure of is that he got his daddy’s eyelashes. I took these photos to illustrate my point:

Here is my first Falco movie. I’ll be frank and say that it’s not very good because it’s too dark and a little lacking in content. I’ll work on improving my film making skills, but for now here’s a pretty cute little movie of our baby.

I can’t remember if I ever mentioned here during my pregnancy that we were planning to use cloth diapers. We started out with a diaper service, which meant that they brought us clean diapers and we put out the dirty diapers for them to pick up every week. I thought that I might want to start washing my own diapers instead of using the service, but Matt was sure that once Falco got here I would have enough to do and wouldn’t want the hassle of washing diapers. Well, in our second week of service, they didn’t bring us enough clean diapers so I had to wash diapers a couple of times to make it through the week. As it turns out, washing them is extremely simple, so I ordered our own diapers and cancelled the service. A couple of weeks later and I’m very happy with that decision. It’s nice to save the $75 a month that the service cost and I like to be able to choose whatever kind of diapers I want to use.

There are about a billion options when it comes to cloth diapers. We have gone with the classic and inexpensive option of plain cotton diapers with waterproof covers over them. The thing is, there are tons of extremely cute choices when it comes to covers and I’m having to fight back the urge to collect them all. We only need a few covers in each size, but there are so many adorable patterns that I want to keep buying more and more. I’m trying to restrain myself on the diaper shopping front.

Overall, I’m pretty proud of our success with cloth diapering. Matt is great at it and hasn’t complained one bit. I feel like it’s better for Falco and better for the environment, so I’m really pleased with our choice. Oh, and speaking of diapering, Matt still makes fun of the wipes warmer, but I’m convinced that Falco likes it. Matt doesn’t know this yet (he will now), but I might actually have to buy a second wipes warmer. The one we have works great and is easy to refill and use, but it only works with disposable wipes. Now that I’m washing Falco’s diapers myself, I could switch over to cloth wipes and just wash them with the diapers. In order to have warm cloth wipes though, I would need the “Ultimate Wipes Warmer,” which is the only one that works with cloth. I’m sure I could sell our first warmer on Ebay to make me feel better. At this point I can’t stand the thought of a cold wipe on my little one’s tush…