When you are sliding into first....

And your pants begin to burst...DIARRHEA!

Rohan had his first bout with diarrhea!  I'm not sure if it was forunate or unfortunate that he was at daycare when this happened. It came with a low temperature of 99.4.   He had immunizations on Wednesday and the nurse said one of the shots he got can give infants diarrhea.  Or.... it could be the oatmeal he started last week that he eats twice a day.  Who knows.  What I do know is he continues to smile through it all like it didn't phase him and it hasn't happened since (knocking on wood).  We gave him tylenol and he has been fine. I know there is only more to come!  He did sleep for 5 hours straight last night (which hasn't happened in quite a while due to his cough waking him up in the middle of the night) and that was great!

Little man weighed in at 18lbs 5 oz, 27.5 inches long! He is in the 90th percentile.  As the Pediatrician calls him "solid".  Speaking of this doctors appointment on Wednesday.  I realized I have become one with spit up when Rohan is standing on the table (with support from me) and the doctor is talking to us.  Rohan gets so excited when he's on his feet so drool just pours out.  All of a sudden I feel my tank top was wet and the doctor goes "uh oh there he goes" - spit up all over the my tanktop.  I wiped it off and kept talking like "no big deal" right? HA!  I will have to admit, mucus -sputum- puke are my downfalls as a nurse.  In the beginning spitup was with Rohan, and I became frustrated having to change all the time, now it's just second nature.  Who would have thought? 

Our game plan for Rohan's shots this time was that I would be up at the table with Rohan and Aaron would be secondary support.  Rohan didn't like his shots, but only let out a little squeal and then I picked him up and he stood up on table and smiled like nothing had even happened.  The nurse, Aaron and I looked at each other in disbelief.  We were ready to comfort and console Rohan and he showed us. We were proud of him.  He has two strikes against him with his parents being so sensitive.  (I will admit Aaron still had tears twinkling in his eyes).  My thought was that it didn't help Rohan last time seeing his Dad crying with him.  ha!  On to the next immunizations at 6 months which is right around the corner.  His 4 month shots were delayed due to coughing/wheezing.  He is 23 weeks on Wednesday!

Little Sioux Fan

It does not happen often that my Alma mater and Aaron's Alma mater play each other in sports.  Once in a while the hockey teams play each other, and this year they were up against each other in the Frozen Four! We were blessed with a little Sioux jersey from Aaron's friend Jason.  I think the size is 12-24 months, and it almost fit Rohan perfectly! 

The Michigan Wolverines won the game and disappointed Sioux fans around the world.

Rice for Rohan

Has it really been 2 weeks since I posted!  Eeek! It has been a little crazy around here.  Aaron's been working his days off, and we've been passing ships.  More on that later. 

A couple weeks ago, I got a call from daycare that Rohan wasn't going 4 hours between bottles and that we should start cereal with him.  At this point he was 4.5 months old.  I had talked to Aaron about starting cereal at 4 months because he was such a big boy and we had family recommend it to help him sleep through the night  Aaron didn't feel comfortable doing that based on other family experience and wanted to wait to talk to the Pediatrician.  Ok, that made sense we will wait for the checkup appointment.  (FYI - the 4 month appointment was at the end of Rohan's 4 months).  So I felt like this was a go ahead moment. Daycare knows more about kids than we do at this point, right?  The next day we tried rice cereal at home with Rohan, he was very confused. 

Since then he's had a week of rice cereal once a day at daycare, and a week of twice a day at daycare.  This week we start oatmeal cereal.  Oh sorry, we have seen the Pediatrician and she recommended oatmeal cereal one week, then multi grain cereal one week, then he will be close to 6 months and we can start veggies.  I am looking forward to veggies and fruit (hope I'm not going to eat my words), they just seem more fun to feed him. ha!

Needless to say we have a big 5 month old on our hands who is 18 lbs, 27.5 inches long - in the 90th percentile.  He has arm and leg rolls, but his belly is not pudgy when he is all stretched out.  He seems to just keep on going when you look at him.  Aaron is thrilled with his stats by the way - he wished that Rohan got the MacKenzie genes (Sorry Sustads).  We will see if it pans out that way. :)

We bought a highchair that was on clearance!!! Score!  And it happened to be the one on our registry!

Rohan is Rolling!

I'm sure worrying is my new hobby being a mom, but I constantly worry "what if he doesn't roll over, what if he doesn't pick his head up when he's on his tummy, what if what if??".  And then it happens and a sigh of relief comes over.  Other parents are constantly asking "has he rolled over? no, oh my son did that at 3 months"... it makes you worry even more!  I try to remind myself, self talk we can call it, that every baby develops at different times. 

I tried "tummy time" with Rohan as much as I could.  He would get frustrated very fast, as I was warned by the Pediatrician, and then I would try again the next day.  I hoped that each time he would get stronger and stronger. Then he started lifting his legs up towards his chest and move his but around a little but he did not go anywhere.  This move turned into rolling on his side!  That was an exciting day.  My mom was here visiting.  I put him on the floor to hang out, my mom was in the  kitchen and I ran into the bedroom.  My mom called in asking if I put him on his side.  No I didn't, he did it on his own! Yeah for Rohan! 

Rolling on his side was short lived.  It's like he tries something once and he knows we get excited about it so he does not want to do it again for a little while. He's playing hard to get with us. A couple days later he started rolling on his side again and this became more consistent.  Last week I put him on his tummy and he pushed his arms right up and his head and he was pretty far off the ground, and a second later he had rolled himself onto his back! 

He has now moved onto rolling from his back to his tummy!  It's really cute.  But he is still getting frustrated on his tummy.  He worked so hard today that he put his head to the side and fell asleep! It is times like this when I think back to the days when he would just lay on his back and gurgle.  Now his hands are grabbing and he is rolling.  I need to just let Rohan pave his own course of developments and let him show us what tricks he has up his sleeve (a drooly one at that). 

Yeah for Reading!

We hope this picture represents things to come for Rohan and Reading.  Aaron is reading a book Grandma Karen sent Rohan for St. Patricks Day.  He cannot sit through story time while in your lap very long, but he seems more interested when he can lay on the ground and wiggle while he listens to the story. 

Accidental Parenting?

Accidental parenting is a term I have recently learned about after reading one of the many "expert" books about teaching parents how to teach their baby to sleep.  I always fall back on, "did our parents have these books as a guide", probably not and we turned out OK.  I have to admit it is nice to have a "guide" to parenthood.  If that is what you want to call it.  According to the baby whisperer we have done accidental parenting on Rohan.  We use props to help him sleep (rocking, walking, etc.) and this does not help Rohan teach himself how to fall asleep.  She does not believe in letting him cry it out, and has different techniques to calm Rohan when he does not fall asleep on his own.  She admits it can be tedious, and I assure you it is.  My best advice - don't try this after a 12 hour shift, your patience will be wearing thin, fast. 

Rohan has had moments where we lay him down in his pack n play (still in our room) and he falls asleep (like tonight after his bath) but these are more like experimental parenting for us.  We look at each other and agree to "see how it goes", and then go from there.  We realized after 15 minutes of sorting bills and having an adult conversation that Rohan was not crying or fussing.  A glance at the video monitor made us proud parents - Rohan fell asleep on his own.  HE CAN DO IT!  I don't want to hope this is a trend because since November 30th when we brought Rohan home from the NICU, anytime I "hoped this was a trend" it quickly went downhill and was never seen again. 

Each night we take cues from Rohan.  We probably should have started when he was younger like the baby whisperer says, but we didn't.  Sometimes we find ourselves pushing the stroller around in our house with Rohan snoozing as the only way to calm him.  Should we let him cry it out? Should we find what makes him calm? There are many who would disagree with both of those ideas.  We do what we decide is right at that moment.  I can say Rohan is sleeping longer at night and going longer between feedings at night.  He occasionally wakes up in the middle of the night to eat, but that is seldom (once again I am jinxing myself and he will most likely wake up tonight).  We need to work on going to sleep soon after he does, but that is not the easiest thing to do.  Although it is easier now than when he was sleeping every 2-3 hours.  Trust me I do remember those early weeks and because of that we will be waiting a long while to have another baby. 

Really though, who does not participate in accidental parenting?  I don't think we have harmed Rohan yet based on all his smiles he sends our way. 

La Boca

Rohan has been learning English, Spanish and French when he watches Baby Einstein.  He loves the hand puppets and when they draw the different body parts.  I thought it was cute that Rohan had his hand in his mouth (90% of the time) with Baby Einstein teaching us "mouth" in the background.  Rohan is wearing an outfit from his cousin Jasper and this baby Einstein DVD is from his Aunt Amber.  He no longer fits in this outfit.  He is now wearing 9 months to 12 month size clothes. I think Rohan is going to surpass Jasper, who is 6 months older than him, in sizes.  It will be fun to see them grow up being close in age. 

This is a picture of Jasper (7 months) and Rohan (6 weeks) when the Arnseths visited in January 2011.

First Dip in the Pool

Rohan had his first dip in the swimming pool on Monday! We had a nice breakfast (bottle) on the lanai and then got ready to head to the pool.  This being our first time taking a baby to the pool I was fearing we would forget something, what is new though.  Rohan had his Finding Nemo swim diaper on, swim trunks, swim shirt that covers his arms and body, his hat, and sunscreen applied to all the parts of his body that were peaking out.  Except his hands of course, we were told by our pediatrician absolutely no sunscreen on his hands, why you ask, in case he puts them in his mouth.  More like because he WILL put them in his mouth.  Aaron blew up his covered swim float, diaper bag has towel, diaper, wipes, and toys.  Almost forgot the camera.  We left with the feeling of excitement and fear.  This could go really well or really bad. 

We show up to the pool and we find a place were we can be half in shade and half in sun (for Aaron & Mike).  I sat on the pool steps with Rohan to get his skin used to the cooler water (cooler than his bath water, but not cold) and he didn't even flinch.  I had Uncle Mike help me pull his legs through the float. Aaron gets the camera and it doesn't turn on. Battery died.  Thank goodness for camera phones.  We were able to catch a couple shots.  I had a moment of mom-failure.  But figured we would have more times to take pictures in coming pool trips.

Rohan was cool and calm as he stared at the reflecting water and we floated him around.  The only issues we had were that both of Rohan's legs were pulled through one leg hole in the float.  I was holding his legs and I could feel his butt coming down.  We quickly fixed the situation and his legs were in the appropriate places.  (Thanks Uncle Mike)  During this exciting pool time with Rodawg, we had a woman who was apparently shaking her head at us the whole time.  I personally did not see it, but Mike and Aaron did. I wish I had seen her because I would like to ask her why she was shaking her head at us enjoying a beautiful day at the pool with our 19 week old son. Is it because we have a baby in the pool?  Is she a parent?  I hope when I'm here age (over 50 years old), that I don't forget how it feels to be a new parent and still have empathy for others.  Plus, what is wrong with him in the pool?  eeek!  Leave us alone lady.  

Our pool trip was the shortest trip to the pool we have made.  But it was time for a nap and by the time we strolled into the house Rohan was fast asleep.  We can say we had a great trip to the pool with Rohan.  We experienced no crying! Great teamwork.   I think we deserve a standing ovation.  :)



Infectious Giggling

Check out this video.  It won't load on here for some reason. Here is the link.  Stay with it and he will giggle for you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B81DTa4G_BI

This was one of his fussy times, so I put him the stroller and he calmed right down.  Our best investment!

The best part was showing Aaron this video and Rohan was giggling even harder after hearing himself giggle on the video.

Juggling Act

I knew going into this that it would be a small circus and juggling would be the main act.  But what I did not know was that I would not be able to juggle all the bean bags (I like to use bean bags because bean bags change while thrown in the air where other objects like apples and oranges do not. Throughout this juggling act that is what happens to the parts of my life, they change with their flexibility) in my life.  Some bean bags are juggled less like communicating with friends and family (hence the blog that can reach everyone, although it does seem like I am writing to myself sometimes - anyone out there??? I know people have something to say.), pampering myself (sounds so selfish), date night, R&R and taking care of myself.  The main bean bags in the juggling act include Rohan (of course!), work, school (I will finish my Masters even if I take all the breaks I am allowed between classes!), laundry (it's never ending!), cleaning (OK clean has a new definition these days), sleep and cooking (I should have taken advantage of the lazy days pre-Rohan).

Rohan is juggling act with in the juggling act.  Giving him love and care is the easiest job ever! Don't be fooled, keeping up with his needs and wants (I should say guessing what he needs or wants), capturing moments on camera, trying not to miss out on his firsts (which I am sure we will now that he's in daycare), feeding him the proper amount (when to start food etc! a whole other post), teaching him to sleep, keeping up with his ever growing body that flew through 3-6 month clothes (we are wearing 9 month clothes these days!!!!) and making sure he is at the correct developmental stage in his life. I am sure I am forgetting many other facets of his life, but the main thing is that I am now not only thinking for myself and Aaron (it's inevitable), but also a precious little boy who cannot think for himself right now and that takes a lot of energy.  Most days I don't know if I have any energy left. 

How do you balance? That was my question before Rohan was born and after he was born prior to going back to work.  The most common answer to that question is, you don't balance.  That is why I think juggle is a better word.  You cannot give 100% to everything in your life.  It is not possible.  So each day you have a different plan for what that day entails and where or what your focus will be on.  Sunday/Tuesday/Thursday my focus is on work until I get home and it changes to being with my family.  Wednesdays Rohan goes to daycare and I focus on school, so I can get 80% of it done.  Wednesdays also allow for a little clean up (more like pick up pacifiers, bibs, blankets and toys off the floor and wash some bottles) and laundry and hopefully soon I will add a workout in.  Mondays are family days when Aaron and I are both off of work.  We try to use these days to get little projects done around the house. We keep trying to take Rohan swimming, but something always comes up - stay tuned we are hoping for this Monday to take a dip in the pool.  Fridays and Saturdays I focus on the little man and try to run errands with him and catch up with friends.  I do admit some days I just want to lay low.  But it seems like the weeks are over in a blink of an eye!

Most mornings start around 5am.  If I am working, I shower and then feed Rohan and get him dressed for daycare so he can leave with Aaron around 6am.  Once they leave I get ready for work and leave around 635am.  We have started a routine with Rohan at night where we bath him, feed him and then we hope that he falls asleep! (ha!) Sometimes he will fall asleep himself, sometimes he needs a little rocking.  The last couple nights he has started to eat before bedtime and then again around 430-5am.  This is great! Although, Aaron says that he wakes up a few times at night but the pacifier does the trick most of the time.  Yes you heard it, Aaron wakes up with him.  I guess we have switched roles.  I hardly hear Rohan at night and Aaron does so he is my superman and gets up with him.

I am trying to come to grips with our house constantly being a mess.  We did hire a cleaning lady for every other week, but it never seems soon enough.  At least we know we get a deep clean twice a month and that's more than we would do ourselves.  So pathetic.   I try to chant "it's OK to be messy all the time".  It's not sticking. 

All those other mamas out there.  God bless you.  I don't know how you do it.  I just try to take one day at a time. I try.  Because I am constantly preparing for the next day to help save time and nerves.