All About the Kids

In an attempt to learn more about the personality of Titus, we’ve found something that makes him unique, according our local expert (a NICU nurse who administers vitamins daily).

Most babies don’t like their vitamins–but Titus stops crying the minute they touch his mouth.

I was very excited when Sarah gave me permission to give Titus his first taste of vitamins. They looked like iodine, smelled like rotten apples mixed with coffee, and had all the signs of being as appealing as cod liver oil.

Thinking back to the ways I used to torture my little brother and sister by giving them odd tasting food and watching their faces contort (whether they ended up liking the stuff or not), I was very excited to give Titus his first non-milk taste. At the time, he was crying and pretty hungry, so it was easy to take the little half-full dropper and shoot some of that stuff down into his mouth! To my surprise, his eyes popped open, his mouth snapped shut, and he had a good ‘ole time slurping the vitamins down!

It’s been about 2 weeks since he started taking his daily vitamins, and he hasn’t pulled up his nose once. I now know that if all else fails (bouncing, going outside, walking, stroller rides, music), there’s always the vitamins to help quiet the crying baby…at least for a minute or so…

Wow, it’s been 6 weeks since Titus came into the world! I’m still not sure if it’s the longest or shortest 6 weeks of my life, but it has to be one of the two!

As Sarah said last night, “he’s so fun to watch!” because it seems like he’s always changing a little bit each day. Towards the beginning of the week I was amazed because I could lift him off my chest without supporting his head (sometimes), and Sarah said he had been doing that for days.

Yesterday he was laying on his stomach, and decided to hold his head up. That wasn’t such a big deal until I noticed that his feet weren’t hovering inches above the ground as usual–he was actually using his arms to lift his head! Now I know that isn’t a huge accomplishment to those of you older than 6 months, but Titus has been trying to look around by fashioning a teeter-totter out of himself, and using the weight of his legs (not much) to balance out his head (quite big and heavy) which didn’t work so well for him!

So things continue to change, a little at a time and sometimes unbeknownst to me!

I suppose it’s been a while since I’ve posted any updates about Titus. To tell the truth, not a whole lot has happened in the last couple of weeks! That sounds funny, since so much can happen so quickly with babies, but maybe it’s just that things are progressing as expected. Here’s the list of new developments over the past two weeks.

1. Titus is now using a pacifier, NUK, plug whatever you want to call it. He’s not very good at it yet, but it gives me an added edge when he’s not hungry but not really content enough to be quieted by my medley-of-memorable-songs.

2. He flipped again! I still don’t think it was entirely intentional, but two times is better than one.

3. After weeks of substance-less burps, he seems to have finally mastered the art of spitting up! Even though baby clothes are 1/4 the size of my t-shirts, he still generates a load of laundry each day or two.

4. He weighed in at 11 lb 11 oz yesterday, which was not as much as the doctor was hoping for. We consider it pretty good that he’s more than maintaining his weight, but now that we own a baby-scale, we can measure him daily to see how his weight is doing.

At the risk of placing excessive expectations on the little guy, and knowing full well that I’m walking down the dangerous path to owning an honor student bumper sticker…Titus rolled over today!

At 15 days old, this is a bit early to be rolling over, but I want to disclaimer this with the fact that none of the three of us (especially Titus, as you can see in the picture) had any idea that he was actually going to flip anytime soon! The funniest thing was that I don’t think he planned to do it at all. To recognize this, I thought I’d write a 5-step instruction set from Titus to any baby who wants to learn how to roll over:

Step 1: Starting on your tummy, tuck your knees up underneath your body as far as possible.

Step 2: Pull your arms in close to your sides, keeping your elbows and hands in tight like you’re going to start doing narrow push-ups.

Step 3: Move your head back and forth, from the right to the left side until you get so dizzy that you can’t keep your balance anymore!

Step 4: When your head is too heavy to hold up any longer, swing it to the right, and just let your body follow until you’ve rolled onto your side.

Step 5: Take a few minutes to get a bearing, then finish by flipping your left leg over your right, and bingo! You’ve just rolled over!

Titus weighed in at 11 lb 6 oz, and hit the 2′ mark during last Friday’s doctor visit. That means he’s almost back up to his “playing weight”!

It’s funny, because when Titus gets mad, he straightens out and goes rigid (I can hold him suspended in the air by his heels and under his neck). So when the nurse started poking and prodding him, then set him on a cold table on Friday, he popped those little legs out there and easily measured 24″ from head to feet!

In other good news, his jaundice went from a 14.5 last Tuesday to a 9.8 last Friday, and we’re starting to see it leave his legs (legs clear up first, they say) already.