Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Elijah got hammered by some kind of bug about a week and a half ago and a few days later, I got what appeared to be the same thing. Thankfully Tyla has somehow managed to stay healthy throughout this and she’s been an enormous help. Our nights have been long (Tyla’s have been longer than mine!) trying to keep our coughing, sneezing, snotting boy asleep and content. Throw in a time change and it really has made for some interesting nights.

So that’s why you haven’t seen as many pictures of Elijah lately if you’re friends with him on Facebook. While we do post lots of photos of him, we are trying to make some judgment calls about what we post since it will all still be alive on the Interwebz when he’s older. We’ve decided no bath photos, no sick photos, and no status messages about major diagnoses.

Every parent should draw their own line, but it’s an important decision to make. This is the first generation of kids that is going to grow up with every day of their lives documented. It’s hard to predict how that will play out, but we’ll make our best guesses. I just try to picture 15 year old Elijah standing in a group of friends when they find the mother lode of pictures, or an employer who has the ability to datamine old status messages and find out if there are any major mental or physical weaknesses in this employee he is about to hire. It’s impossible to predict perfectly because everyone grows up with their own ideas of humor, but hopefully we’re making good choices.

Enough of all that, let’s see a picture already! Here’s Elijah wearing his first Halloween costume!

Mom is scanning in the slides from our childhood years so I now have access to a lot of my childhood photos. Want to see my first Halloween costume?

It’s October 1, and that means I’m heading back to work. The last time I walked in the door there or even checked my email was August 31. My month of parental leave is over.

When I filled out the application for parental leave, I had to select a reason for the leave. The one that dads pick is called “bonding.” I thought it was odd at the time, but I totally get it now. This past month has been an incredible time to bond as a family. He grew up so much in that one month and I was there every day to watch the changes happen instead of just hearing about it when I got home from work.

Co-workers said that after 4 weeks at home with a baby, I’d be itching to go back to work. Umm… nope. I’m thankful to have such a wonderful job, but if I could afford to stay home, that’s where I would be.

In addition to taking countless naps with Elijah, I did get quite a few house projects knocked off the list and also gave Tyla a break so she could shorten her todo list too. While I didn’t get nearly as much done as I thought I would, I will always look back on September 2013 fondly. Thank you to my company for giving me this opportunity!

I’ve hesitated to write this post because I know it will change, but for the past ~2 weeks, Elijah has been going to sleep amazingly easy. Or maybe we’re just getting better at learning his queues. When 7 or 7:30 rolls around, we go through a ~20 minute routine and the last step is actually putting him to bed. Lately that has only taken 2-3 minutes. We can lay him down even if he’s awake and just walk away. He falls asleep on his own!

There are so many opinions and books out there about how to teach your child to fall asleep on his own and go back to sleep when he wakes up at night. I picked one and read through it to make sure we weren’t starting with any bad habits. The book implied that up until 4 months old, it’s a crapshoot. At that point they start to have the biological capability to make it through a night without feeding but their circadian rhythm doesn’t develop until somewhere between 7 and 10 months. If that’s all true then I’m taking this as a complete bonus and expecting to return to the tough bedtimes and difficult returns to sleep after night feedings. But for now, it’s awesome!

On a typical night he goes to bed at 7:15 and then wakes up around 1 and 4 for feedings. We haven’t slept through a night since June 15, but we’re thankful for how much easier it has gotten in that time frame. Now we’re looking forward to his little tummy getting big enough to hold enough food to get him through the night. We probably have a ways to go yet.

I’m a bit late posting these, but here are a few photos of Elijah from the past month.

After months of research, Tyla settled on the BOB stroller for jogging. I wasn’t thrilled with the price (we traded in Tyla’s first car for less than the cost of the stroller!) but after checking it out, I was impressed with the build quality. Even the 20% off coupon at Babies R Us wasn’t enough to match the screaming deal on Amazon. We ended up with the slightly more expensive Stroller Strides version because it comes with a free week of Stroller Strides classes which she is already planning to do anyway.

Unboxing was very simple. I just had to pump up the tires and attach them to the stroller. One tricky bit was that we have a Graco Click Connect 35 car seat. BOB isn’t making a car seat adapter for these new Graco seats but they say the Chicco adapter will work. I picked up a used adapter from a friend at work and it works great. While Elijah isn’t quite old enough to go jogging with Tyla yet, the car seat adapter will be handy to use for more casual walks.

We’ve heard lots of people who love these strollers and keep them for a long time so hopefully we get our money’s worth! I’m already thinking about how I can modify it a bit to add some LED lights for visibility while she’s jogging.

Happy two month birthday, Elijah! It’s hard for me to leave the house each morning* and know that I won’t see you again until the evening. In these past few weeks you’ve started to smile a lot and you’re beginning to have some control over your crazy arms that swing everywhere. It’s exciting to watch you discover your world! I look at you and think how tiny you are, but then when I look back at your first photos, I’m reminded how much you’ve grown. There are already big stacks of clothes that are too small for you.

Your mom and I haven’t slept through an entire night since June 14. I think we’re starting to adjust to the lack of sleep, or at least we are smarter about going to bed early with you to piece together enough sleep to get through the next day. For now you’re sleeping in a rocking bassinet in our bedroom so we have easy access to feed you as soon as you start waking up. On a good night you’ll go 3 hours between the start of each feeding session and then you fall back to sleep pretty easily. Other nights you need to eat a lot more and/or you have a hard time going back to sleep.

Tyla and I are both looking forward to the month of September when I will be on paternity leave and won’t have to work for the entire month. We’ve started giving you bottles every once in a while which let’s Tyla get out of the house for a bit. We’re so thankful that you are completely content taking room temperature milk from a bottle. I’m guessing that Tyla has a lot of ideas for things she wants to do in September while I’m at home and feeding you with a bottle!

We don’t have much personal experience to compare to, but I think you’re a pretty good baby… for now!

*Ok, that’s not completely true. On those days when you have a huge diaper blowout, I don’t mind missing the cleanup. I think you poop above your weight class.

Our little man is now seven and a half weeks old and he’s not so little anymore! He’s gaining wait at a good rate and seems to be very healthy. He can hold up his head while laying on his stomach and is just starting to give us some of his first intentional smiles. When we’re out and about, we keep him in the Moby wrap most of the time because it both keeps him really calm and quiet (or sleeping), and it helps us avoid passing him around a lot. Pertussis (whooping cough) is still at crazy levels, and I just heard that there are a disturbing number of cases of measles appearing in the area and he won’t get that vaccine for quite a while. So we’ll be the over protective first time parents and keep him in the wrap.

Nights vary widely from feeding every 60-90 minutes to feeding every 3 hours. The latter is obviously a lot easier to deal with! We’ve gotten in the habit of going to bed around 8:30 which usually gives us enough sleep throughout the night. The other night I had to chuckle as I wished the 5 year old kids outside would be quiet so I could go to bed.

Tyla is doing a fantastic job staying at home with him. She has a good schedule set up to get out of the house and meet with other moms. It’s a ton of work for her, but she’s a great mom!

We’re experimenting with pumping and bottles so that Tyla can get a few hours out of the house. So far that’s going pretty well but we haven’t pushed it very far yet.

Parenting is an unbelievable amount of work but it’s so rewarding to look down at this little guy. We love you Elijah!

I was told many times, “You can’t prepare for fatherhood” and my joking reply would be, “Great, then I’m not even going to try.” That was sort of true, but even though I don’t think we went nuts planning for parenthood, I did have some expectations. And they were wrong.

The biggest one is probably how often a baby eats. I had heard that 2-3 hours between feedings was normal. Ehh that’s not so bad, right? Well, what I didn’t know was that the clock starts as soon as they start eating. So out of that 2-3 hours, take out 20-30 minutes for the actual feeding, some more time for changing a diaper, and then more time for trying to get him to fall asleep again.

Lots of people told us to “sleep when he sleeps.” Sure, that’s a good idea, but the flip side is that we’re awake when he’s awake, even if it’s 2am. And we’re so used to sleeping once per day for 7-8 hours that sleeping in 1-2 hour segments for weeks on end is really draining! Thankfully Tyla has usually been able to take an afternoon nap with Elijah and I’ve been known to stumble down to my car for a quick 15-20 minute nap in the parking garage at work. I’ve resisted adding up how much sleep I’m getting each night because I think that would make me even more tired.

There have been many times since Elijah’s birth that I’ve thought about the Mark Lowry comedy skit “it came to pass.” He says his favorite Bible passage is “And it came to pass…” When Elijah is screaming in the middle of the night for an hour straight and we can’t figure out what’s wrong, I remember that it’s going to pass. When we’re trying to drive him somewhere and he’s so unhappy in the backseat, I know it will pass. And when he’s snuggled up to me sleeping peacefully, I enjoy it because it’s going to pass!

Today is Elijah’s one month birthday which means that Tyla and I have successfully kept another human alive for one month. (That reminds me of another great comedy skit, this time from Kermit Apio.) The last month has had it’s hard times, but overall I feel like we’ve had it pretty good. Elijah is generally well-tempered and we can usually figure out why he’s crying to get him happy quickly. He’s eating well and gaining weight at a great pace. Every time I look at him, I’m filled with immense pride and excitement for the adventures we’ll have together in the years to come. I love you little man!

By far the most common comment Elijah receives is about his hair. We were curious where it came from, but when Mom arrived she cleared it up. Apparently I had a full head of hair when I was born too. I don’t know if a full head of hair is hereditary, but if it is, this explains where it came from. Here’s a side by side of Elijah and me: