The Seversons

They tell you that babies grow up fast and I don’t think anyone can really argue with that common knowledge.  In the last couple of weeks Graham has suddenly made some huge advances and it’s kind of hard to realize he’s the same baby he was not so long ago.

Perhaps the biggest change is that he can now play.  This was particularly lovely because a baby who cannot amuse himself is a baby who must be constantly held and walked around because this is the only form of amusement available.  It gets a little old.  For a while he’d been able to grab toys and then he started to be able to occasionally get them into his mouth.  But most of the time when we’d put him in his little yellow chair and put a toy on the tray in front of him he would try desperately to eat it only to have one hand try to pull it one direction while the other hand pulled it the other direction and in a moment it would be on the floor.  It also got him frustrated very quickly.  I didn’t realize that frustration was something babies could feel, but Graham feels it regularly.

Now he can not only grab a toy and pull it into his mouth, but continue to play with it and put it back in his mouth over and over again.  That means he can now play with a toy for more than five seconds.  In a matter of days he went from spending 2 minutes in the exersaucer to more than 10.  He can now sit there and amuse himself for a surprisingly long time.  (And when guests are in town, he quite enjoys showing off just how impressive he is.)

The other significant change is that Graham has “Ferberized” himself.  In layman’s terms, he has learned to put himself to sleep.  November was insane.  Eric was constantly traveling for interviews and I was often left alone with the baby for days on end.  Managing a baby for a few hours is fine as long as you know your relief is coming.  When no relief is coming, it can be exhausting, especially with the constant battles we had over every single nap.  When you’ve spent 45 minutes trying to get a baby to nap, only to have the baby wake up from that nap 20 minutes later, you start to go a little bit crazy.  We decided to save the sleep training for December, when Eric would be in town every night and we could both manage the potentially sleepless nights while we went in to check on him every few minutes.

Every now and then, I started attempting to lay Graham down in his crib without all the effort.  I figured out that if he went down without much of a fight and lay there relatively contented, I could leave and he would eventually fall asleep, even if he cried some.  Soon I started trying it even when he wasn’t particularly happy and most of the time it worked, too.  Now we do it for every nap and when he goes down for the night, and that’s it.  Every once in a while he will need to be held for just a minute or two, but it has been shockingly easy.

Now that Graham has passed the 4-month mark (and the 5-month mark is fast approaching…) we have been given the okay from the pediatrician to start him on solid foods.  We were planning to wait a while, it isn’t really necessary and it may be both difficult and messy.  But it looks like we may start him pretty soon.  He stares open-mouthed whenever one of us eats or drinks something and I feel bad.  So we may ease into it since we’re both around this month.

We just hosted our first Thanksgiving and I have to say it went off swimmingly.  I made my own batch of our family’s Wild Rice Dressing, I made the most beautiful turkey every pulled out of the oven (though it was a smidge dry because someone wouldn’t let me brine it), and we were all surprised by the incredibly tasty sweet potato and butternut squash gratin that I tried for the first time.  I must say, though, these big affairs would be much easier if you actually have a little bit of room.  With the tiny kitchen and table that technically only seated 6 when we had 8, everyone had to serve themselves from the dishes set out on the coffee table.  Ah, apartment life.

(Here you can see Julie setting the table and Elycia and Graham checking out the spread)

Since Eric’s family was here, we were able to take a 4-generation picture (4 of the 4 are firstborn sons).

We also got to celebrate a new milestone: Graham’s first tummy-to-back roll.  The second one is caught on tape here.  I think he did it mostly because he hates tummy time so much.  He probably would have done it a month ago if I ever actually gave him any tummy time.

Graham also got a new toy and promptly freaked out.  He’s really mastered the exersaucer, but give him a cute elephant that has all these things to pull and cram in your mouth and he doesn’t know what to do, so he ends up flailing his limbs around aimlessly.  But it is cute.

This week I learned that if you take a baby on a plane and he sleeps for the entire trip, everyone will comment on how cute he is as they walk past.  If you take a baby on a plane and he screams for the entire trip, no one will say a word as they walk past and pretend you do not exist.

I stressed about taking Graham on a plane for a long time.  I have flown a lot.  Odds are, if you aren’t my dad, I have flown more than you.  At one point I was on a plane 5 days a week.  I can get through security in the blink of an eye.  I laugh at the people who wear shoes with laces and have earrings and a belt and coins in their pockets and accidentally sent their boarding pass through the baggage x-ray machine.  Going through the airport with Eric there have been several incidents where he’s broken a cardinal rule and brought illegal stuff in his carry-on and had to turn back and throw it away or mail it home.  I have learned to be patient with him.  Being slow at security is not a dealbreaker, fortunately.

But none of that prepared me for flying with a baby.  I wouldn’t be able to breeze into the airport just in time to walk on to my flight the minute I got to the gate.  I would have to check a bag.  I can’t remember the last time I checked a bag.  There would be a stroller and a car seat and diaper changes and feedings.  And then, of course, there was the baby himself.  If you missed the shrieking velociraptor from my last entry, you may want to check it out, albeit with the volume turned down on your speakers.  When he is happy, he is loud.  When he is angry, he is louder.  And he does not like sitting.

We were kind of lucky on the flight out.  We got to the airport with plenty of time, nice TSA people helped us with the stroller and carseat at security.  I was able to get him fed and changed and even grab a sandwich for myself on the plane.  Even better, we snagged one of the few seats on the plane that had an empty seat next to it so I could bring the car seat with me.  We had a little row to ourselves and I planned everything so I could feed Graham at takeoff to help with the pressure adjustment.  He fell asleep a little bit later and I thought maybe I’d lucked out.  I read my book and relaxed for a while.  I was able to snag some cookies and a drink.  Then the beast awoke.

The flight landed half an hour early, probably because someone told the pilot that if he didn’t land soon there would be mutiny.  I have flown a lot.  I have heard a lot of crying and screaming babies.  Graham easily ranks among the Top 5 worst I’ve ever experienced on a plane.  The aisles were pretty clear and there wasn’t any turbulence, so I was able to stand up with him for about half the flight.  That helped some, but like I said, being happy doesn’t necessarily fix the problem.

The flight back started badly.  It was completely full and I didn’t have time to change the baby or get any food before getting on board.  I had to hold Graham for the entire flight, but I think it actually ended up being a good thing.  When he’s held, apparently my 20-minute-nap baby is capable of 2-hour naps.  He slept the entire flight, which was lovely.  And he slept again a while later when we were in the parking lot trying to find the car.  (Eric had parked it a few days before, I couldn’t remember which row, and he was unreachable by phone.  It was awesome.)

You may notice there are no pictures to document these flights.  It is not easy to take pictures while your baby is screaming, nor is it easy to take pictures while your baby is sprawled out across your chest asleep.  Thus you’ll have to wait until next time.

Fortunately we have no plans in the foreseeable future to take the baby on a plane.  For Christmas we are driving to my parents house.  2 days, 14 hours of driving, and a baby.  Should be great, right?  For Thanksgiving the Severson clan is coming to us, and can I just tell them how very very very thankful I am for that?

As for his little visit to Austin, for a while he was a remarkably well-behaved little guy.  I swear they didn’t believe me when I told tales of him screaming before every single nap.  In Texas he developed this new thing where he’d suddenly fall asleep while you were in the middle of something.  I was having a long and loud phone conversation while Graham was in his carrier and he fell asleep. I didn’t even notice until I hung up.  Eventually he got back to himself a little bit and by the time I left, I think they had a little bit of an idea of what those poor people on the plane with us experienced.

I think they chuckled at my complaints about his twenty-minute naps.  But by the end of our stay, when we’d hear his little baby cries on the monitor, I know I wasn’t the only one thinking that this was surely a world record for shortest nap ever.  It’s unclear if Graham will stick to his new habits or go back to the old ones.  So far it’s a little bit of both.  But at least this weekend I will have one baby-free morning while Eric takes baby duty.  Which probably means that Graham will sleep extra late that day.  He always does.