Documentation of fatherhood insanity: Weeks 36-37: Careful What You Wish For

Things I have learned:

Sammy seems to really like swimming, for two reasons. 1) I think it’s fun to be in the water and he was having fun splashing and kicking, etc… 2) He was attempting to drink up (maybe “lap up” is the better expression) the entire pool

How to deal with an anti-napper? Let him swim for an hour. Sammy slept for 3, yes that’s 3 (!) hours after swimming

Someone needs to explain this to me. Danielle and I have a system – we alternate days when one of us has to get up to feed Sammy. Last week, on Danielle’s days Sammy got up at 7am consistently. On my days, He likes to wake up at 5:30-6:30!!!! What gives? I suppose I could hang my hat on the fact that he’s eager to see me?

It’s official. And I can admit when I was wrong. Sammy does not hate vegetables. He just truly hates anything that he cannot feed to himself. Crap.

If you put 2 kids in a bath together, does that make them more like brother and sister? Or are they likely to look back at that awkward moment in their early twenties, feel mild embarrassment but then realize the love each other and go get married. Just asking…

Sammy has been going through a bit of a dad phase. This means that he only wanted to be held by me, yada, yada….While this may have been frustrating for mom, at some point this turned into “dad week gone bad”. One minute it was all hugs and smiles, the next it was “I’m going to scream every time you leave the room” or “no way in hell are you going to pass me off to someone else I’m only going to tolerate being held by you”. You know it got bad when Danielle went from being annoyed to sympathetic.

There are some tricks that we have picked up with this newfound love of feeding himself. Our trick goes something like this: “yell.yell.yell.yell. yell.yell.yell.yell.cheerios. cheerios. cheerios. cheerios. cheerios. cheerios. cheerios. yell.yell.yell.yell. yell.yell.yell.yell.” – So how many cheerios can a child eat?

I ask you: Is there any greater fear for a parent than taking there child into the pool, and thinking they might poop? Didn’t think so….

We should buy a water diaper. Stat. I really do not want to deal with the above.

Ps. Not having a water diaper added about 10 lbs to Sammy when he got out of the water. Talk about a workout! Photographic evidence below….

After some brief conversation in the pool, I was convinced that babies will intuitively hold their breath when dunked under water – and that I should dunk Sammy to get him used to it. This worked reasonably well the first time. The second time, when Sammy clearly opened his mouth because we were under for about a second too long, was less fun. All are well after a little coughing – don’t worry (and he only was only under for a second or 2 at most)

How do you get a child to eat his food from a spoon when he refuses? I like to call it “the teaching of bribery”. This may not be good but I feel like it may come in handy later in life. Sammy will eat his food if you bribe him with puffs.

In the careful what you wish for category:

So for the past few weeks I’ve been stressing. The doctor told us that by 9 months Sammy should be able to get himself sitting up from his tummy.

Note 1: I now think this is a bogus timeframe, and why I ever stressed about the happiest, friendliest baby I’ll never know, but I digress.

Note 2: Tell your wife not to look things like this up on the internet.

Back to the story. So we started doing some exercises with Sammy to get him to extend his arms and push up(Thanks to our Physio friend/guru Ilana!). After 1 week, nothing but him letting us know how annoyed he was. But by week 2….Now he was able to support himself on all fours! All of a sudden midway through the week he could push himself up onto all fours (which is a lot when you are 30 lbs!). Then all of a sudden last Sunday, while trying to get him to nap, I walk in to find him sitting up in his pack and play! And then it donned on us: He never needs to nap again! He figured out that he can just sit up in protest and give us a mischievous look/smile. Now when we (and Kenia) put him down to nap he just looks at us, giggles , waits for us to leave and sits up. The moral: Careful what you wish for….. but we are psyched that he figured it out!

The funny thing about Sammy’s newfound skills is that he chooses not to exhibit them outside of his crib (at least until yesterday) – We are such suckers – he knows that if he waits long enough someone will help him out!

When Sammy is showing us he has unwavering will in not propping himself up when outside of his crib, he is busy demonstrating his version of “Feats of Strength” – He is showing off his ability to stand up for 3-4 minutes at a time and most recently, “planking” (see below).

Having Sammy feed himself his bottle is great, as mentioned before. But as he gets to the faster nipples, a new trend has developed. I think Sammy likes to celebrate his bottles like Champagne – by this I mean that every time he’s eating, when he gets to about 6 ounces, he holds the bottle over his head and flails it so milk sprays everywhere, all over him. PARTY!!!

You know I’m getting older when the Giants shut out the Atlanta Falcons and I was 10 times more excited by Sammy sitting up on his own (note: Giants win was pretty good too).

Important Statistics we are keeping track of:

- Number of music classes attended: 1

- Number of hours spent in pool: 2

- Minutes spent in car waiting while Sammy naps: about 90 between Danielle and I. Thank the lord for Smart phones

- Liters of drool that poured oiut of Sammy’s mouth: at least 2 (can we get a tooth please!?!)

- First time Sammy sat up on his own: 1pm on Sunday at our friends Ilana/Richards apartment

Things we Googled:

- "Babies sitting up on their own at 8 months" (why, Danielle, why????)

- "Effects of baby drinking too much pool water" (yikes)

Pictures for your amusement: