Garrett Videos

I’ve been a little late on posting some of these videos.

 

 

 

Clean Bill of Health

I hadn’t been to the doctor since I went to get a physical after  I turned 30.  I turned 35 this year so it was time to go back to the doctor again for another physical.

I didn’t like my last doctor that much and he was way across town, so I picked a new doctor.  I choose Dr. Shelly Ferrill at the Cinco Ranch Family Medical Center.

I like her a lot.  She did a complete set of test and everything is tip-top.

Dinner and Rock Band

We had some friends over last night.  We grilled some steaks, chicken, sausage, and veggies.  Afterwards we played some Rock Band and had a good time.

Insurance Claim

After almost two months, 6 estimates ranging from $900 to $3500, and a dozen phone calls, we finally got a fair check from the insurance company for the damage done to Kelly’s car.  Cha-Ching!

Astros Game

My friend Eric was able to get some discount tickets to the Astros Game against St. Louis on Wednesday.  Grandma and Grandpa watched Garrett for a few hours while we went with Josh, Andrew, & Eric. 

We had good seats and we had nachos, chili dogs, cotton candy and a couple of beers. 

It was a good game and the Astros won.  When we left it was pouring down raining so we got soaking wet in the rickshaw on the way back to the car.

Good times.

6 Weeks Old

On Wednesday, Garrett turned 6 weeks old.

 

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A co-worker of mine asked me the popular question, “how much sleep are you getting?”  I gave him a sleepy grunt.  He recommended a book called “On Becoming Baby Wise: Giving Your Infant The Gift Of Nighttime Sleep.”  And touted that by following the instructions in this book from day one he was able to get his baby to sleep through the night at two months old.  Obviously I was interested so he lent me the book.  I began reading it and it seemed to have some answers about feeding and sleep.

Then in another really good book we got from the obstetrician called “Baby 411,” it rates different sleep techniques.  The Babywise method was rated an “F”.  It went on to say that the “American Academy of Pediatrics issued an alert regarding their concerns with this book.” 

Wow, we’ve got to be careful where we get our advice from.

Also Garrett hadn’t pooped in a day. Since almost every diaper we changed was dirty, we were concerned that he may be constipated.  We looked it up in “Baby 411,” and it said that at around 6 weeks a baby’s bowels slow down and they may only poop once every 24 hours and be prepared for “The Mother Load.”  Which we experience every day now.

A few people have also recommended that we try adding  a little rice cereal mixed in with his formula to help him sleep through the night.  We tried this and it didn’t have any effect on him.  We looked that up in the “Baby 411” too and it says that’s an old wives tale.  This book has been really helpful.

Kelly’s Baby Picture

Here’s a baby picture of Kelly when she was still in the hospital.

A lot of people say that Garrett doesn’t really look like either Kelly or I, but if you take this picture and the previously posted baby pictures of me, I think its pretty easy to see the resemblances.

Backyard Birthday Bash

Friday night, grandma and grandpa kept Garrett over night and Kelly and I went to a friend’s birthday party.  It was also his neighbor’s birthday so they combined the two into one big backyard party.  They had a DJ, a keg, loads of Jell-O shots, a vodka watermelon, a huge spread of awesome food and lot of fun people.

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It was nice to get away for the night and sleep in the next day even though we were hung-over.

The Happiest Baby on the Block

A friend of ours lent us The Happiest Baby on the Block DVD.  This is a pretty good video about calming your baby down.  In the video they talk about treating the first 3 months of life as the “4th Trimester” where the baby is really still just a fetus.  And if you do things that remind them when they were in the uterus, its calming because they are accustomed to it.  In the video he teaches the 5 “S’s” of calming your baby down.  They are swaddling, placing them on their side, shushing or white noise, letting them suck a pacifier, and gently shaking them to mimic the normal movements in the womb.  With the right technique you can take a screaming baby to calm baby in a few seconds.  Garrett’s already pretty calm but some of the techniques have been useful.

One Month Old

“Garrett, how many weeks old are you?”

Garrett turned one month old on Friday.  He’s able to focus on our faces and smiles sometimes.

He can even roll over from his tummy to his back.  The first time I thought it was an accident.  The second time I thought it was a coincidence.  But when he did it 3 times this week, I think he actually knows what he’s doing.  He sleeps between 3 to 4 hours at a time.  A couple of time he’s slept for 5 hours.

We like taking pictures.  We probably have over 400 pictures of him already.

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4 Week Checkup

Thursday went back to Garrett’s doctors for his 4 week checkup.

I look a little tired in this picture.

Garrett now weighs 9 lbs. 9 oz. and is 22 1/4” long so he’s grown 2 inches and gained almost 2 lbs since birth.  His eye is much better but we still need to massage the tear duct a few times a day.  For his baby acne, she said it was most likely due to the oils from his hair and we should wash his face with Dove soap twice a day and start bathing him every day.  We started doing that and it’s already looking much better.  Other than that he has a perfect bill of health.  We were one day early to get his vaccinations so we’ll get them at his next appointment in a month.

Expressive

Garrett has developed a little baby acne.  They say it typically shows up at about 3 to 4 weeks of age and is caused by the mother’s hormones leaving his body.  It should go away soon and he’s still the cutest baby ever.  These pictures were taken in about a 10 minute time frame.  Has this boy got some cute facial expressions or what?

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4th of July

Garrett had his first sleep-over at Grandma Peggy’s on Saturday night while Kelly & I went to eat and watch fireworks.  We got in late and slept for about 11 hours straight.  What an excellent way to celebrate freedom and liberty.

Kelly’s 32nd Birthday

Tuesday was Kelly's 32nd birthday.  After being pregnant, Kelly wasn’t feeling too pretty.  Even though I think she’s beautiful, I got her a facial, manicure and pedicure. 

One of her favorite places she’s been wanted to for a while is Benihana.  They have an all you can eat special for $25. You can eat as much as you want from their entire menu.  The grandparents came over to our house to babysit Garrett and Roman & Jennifer, Robyn, Airen, & Stephanie went with out with us.   We had salad, onion soup, chicken fried rice, edamame, crunchy rolls (or as the waitress calls them cwonchy wolls), dragon rolls, denny’s roll, vegetable tempura, teriyaki beef & chicken, ebi (shrimp) , ikura (salmon), maguro (tuna), anago (eel), more cwonchy rolls, more soup, more salad, and for desert we had strawberry ice cream.  We had a really good time and Kelly had her first beer and sake in over 9 months. I’d say we got our moneys worth.

Wrinkled Forehead

I like to take pictures of Garrett when we are burping him. That's when he has the funniest expressions. He's got this thing he does where he raises his eyebrows (or raises the area where his eyebrows would be if he had any) and wrinkles up his forehead like a little old man. It cracks me up.

Back to Work

I went back to work last Thursday. Everyone asked how Garrett and Kelly were doing. The most popular question was, "Are you getting any sleep?" The first person I told "no" said, "yeah, the first three months are brutal." The next person I told "no" said, "yeah, the first six months are the worst." I expected the next person I told "no" to say, "yeah, they are pretty much a nightmare the first 12 years and then the next 12 years are pretty bad too." One guy said, "Actually the first few months are pretty easy, but then... just wait... you're going to ask yourself, 'what the hell was I thinking?'" Thanks for all the uplifting thoughts.

Kidding aside, I'm really lucky to work for a good company that values family so much. They are very lenient when it comes to leaving work for family stuff. I've been able to go with Kelly to every doctor appointment, and when I took off when Garrett was born my boss said, "take as much time as you need, because this only happens once per kid." Its made things much less stressful not having to worry about work this whole time.

But now I'm back to it, and we're starting to settle into a routine. These first couple of weeks at home have been amazing. We're exhausted, but its worth it.