Henry Healthwatch: Four-Month Edition

Henry had his four-month checkup at the doctor this week. He is doing quite well! He now weighs almost 14 pounds (just an ounce shy!) and is 24 inches long. This puts him at just about the same height as Molly was at the same age, but he is about 1.5 pounds heavier than she was. Other than the normal skin rashes and blocked tear ducts, he is a very healthy kid.

He has now been in daycare for almost a month while I am doing my temp job. There's no doubt that it has been a rough adjustment for the family, but we hope that he'll get more and more used to it. We're trying to stay firm and not always go right to his room whenever he cries. We've fallen into that habit and it's not doing any of us much good in the sleep department. So, we're trying to let him cry a bit and learn to settle himself down. We'll have to report back later as to how that is working out.

Part of his bedtime routine is his nightly bath; both he and Mommy love to have that brief time to settle down and play a bit in the water. Here's a cute video of our little sweetie in the tub!

The Grind

I'm going to blame the lull in postings on this site on our new family schedule since the new year (rather than blaming it on, say, my innate laziness). I'm working a two-month temp job at Daddy's office. One would think that that would be very convenient. However, the reality is more complicated. I actually can't commute in the morning with him (long story). So I have to get up at 5:45, leave at 6:45 (often without seeing the kids at all), walk to the bus stop, bus it to the train, train it to another train, then into the city. Hubby has to wrangle the kids in the morning by himself, and get them to daycare before catching his later train. Needless to say, it's wearing on both of us and leaving little energy in the evenings for doing much of anything, including posting on this site.

Henry is doing OK in daycare, though he doesn't take kindly to having to take bottles. He is very needy every evening, wanting to nurse right away. He's also been processing through all the various daycare germs, and has been sick both weekends since he started there (and getting us sick this past weekend too). Hopefully he'll get better at both his bottles and his germiness.

Once my temp gig is up, if I still don't have a job (which I doubt I will), we will pull Henry back out of daycare and I'll be home with him again. Molly is staying in daycare, as she has since I was laid off. She loves going there each day and has many good friends. Pulling her out would be very disruptive to her life, so we make it a priority to keep her in. Here's hoping I can find some full-time work soon enough (and more locally than this temp job) so that our lives can resume some sort of normal livable schedule.

Santa's Last Visit

Santa made one last visit to our neck of the woods, to help us celebrate Christmas with Molly's other set of grandparents, plus her uncle and aunt. Molly enjoyed her gifts, including a computerized book system, some actual books from the "Mr." series (Mr. Messy, Mr. Sneeze, etc.) and some fancy purple corduroy pants and a pink hoodie. There were many other gifts, but I think the part of the day she enjoyed the most was feeding the fish with Uncle Jared.




Henry received a ridiculously adorable outfit, complete with adorable buckskin hat (Grandma, send a photo!) He also got a cute little sign for his doorknob to alert us when he's sleeping. He tried it out at the get-together.


We also all enjoyed a terrific meal prepared by Uncle Jared and Tia Evelyn. Santa will have to work hard to top this Christmas season!

New Year's Thoughts

We said goodbye to 2009 last night and welcomed 2010 with a sprinkling of snow. We had a quiet evening at home with a special dinner of cheese fondue, which was a fun novelty for Molly, plus a chocolate cake. Definitely a treat for a home meal. We got the kids in bed and the adults watched some TV, and even managed to stay up until midnight.

2009 was a mixed bag in our household. Ten months after losing my job, I am still mourning that loss and finding it hard to move on and find a new job. It was all bound up with the pregnancy, of course; I found out I was pregnant only four days before losing my job. I was lucky to temp for several months, and did score a handful of interviews, but no job materialized and eventually I became too obviously pregnant to be hired, so I stopped looking and settled into waiting for the baby. The high point of the year was, of course, Henry being born (a month early). Adding a new baby is always bumpy, and we're still finding our way and only now starting to try to establish some routines. We've finally moved him out of the sleeper in our room and into his own crib in his own room. It has felt really nice to clean out the last of the clutter in Henry's room and finally make it his room. It now feels like he's a real member of the family. We added the finishing touch to his room: a beautiful hand-painted letter "H" to his door, which was a gift from Grandma T. Despite the emotional and financial hardships of the year, which will continue into this new year, 2009 definitely fell into the "good year" category. How could it not? Henry has completed our family, and in 2010 we look forward to watching our two beautiful children grow and thrive even more.