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Maternity & Parenting Center

Whirlwind – Crawling, Standing, Walking and Infections

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Another crazy week – and very few posts. So much has been going on that I can barely keep up with it all! Perhaps the best thing to do is pick up where I left off – last Saturday. My intention was to scan and post Micah’s 7 month photos (I will get to that shortly) and to post some adorable Micah video (also on deck).

Saturday was a fun day. I met my friend Heather for lunch at Organic to Go, a new restaurant in Bethesda. The food was good and Micah had a wonderful time flirting with everyone there. We went to a pool party in the afternoon at our community pool. We invited a bunch of the babies and parents from our playgroup, and we had tons of fun! The babies swam, tugged at each other, shared food and showed off their talents. One of the babies, Juliet, can crawl and pull up to a stand, and she is putting the rest of our babies to shame with her precocious physicality. Actually, Juliet was quite impressive at the pool – she was sitting in front of a pool chair, grabbed on with both hands, and did a massive pull-up to a stand. I swear I could see her back muscles flexing around her baby bikini! I had an image of one of those female bodybuilders flash through my head when I saw her pull-up!

Saturday night, we had our babysitter, Christin, come back to take care of Micah while we went out to dinner with our friends Heather and Brad. We decided on Chinese food, and it was delicious! I had forgotten about City Lights, so it will now be added to our delivery list for future ordering. We initially planned on attending a movie, but bailed when we all realized how tired we were. Instead, we came back to the house and watched a movie on demand.

On Sunday, I went over to my parents’ house to help my Dad set up his new computer – just the basics, like connecting the computer to the internet, transferring files from his old computer, making sure all the software and drivers he needed were installed. It was quite a job! I had a raging migraine that day, and Micah was being a bit of a grump, and I had a huge knot in my back – it was one of those days I should have just never gotten up in the morning.

Monday marked one week on South Beach diet. I am proud to say that I lost 5 lbs. I know that average and healthy weight loss is 1-2 lbs per week, but I hate that weight loss is such a slow process. Somehow, it never seems like I will be able to realize my goal. I guess 5 lbs off is better than 5 lbs on, right? I spent all day working my tail off – we had Christin here for the day, so I was able to accomplish a fair amount of work. We spent some of the time showing off our standing skills to Christin. While we were showing off, we decided to get really crazy…and took a step while holding on to the couch one-handed! I was stunned – he isn’t crawling, but he is already trying to cruise. I am SOOO not ready for any of this. Don’t forget to press the triangle on the bottom left corner to play the video!

Our other big event of the day? Jumping. In the jumperoo, to be more precise. Micah has been in the jumperoo many times over the past few months, but jumping has not been his thing. Until Monday. Christin helped Micah discover the joys of jumping, and he has been a jumping maniac every time we put him in the jumperoo now.

Monday evening was mah jong – another fun evening! However, Monday night is where my week took a bit of a “left turn” shall we say. While I was there, I received a call from Elliot asking whether I had heard if my brother Jeremy was okay. Apparently, Jeremy had posted on Facebook that he was at a clinic for an infection. After checking in with him, we learned that he went to a clinic because of an infection in his arm, and he thought it was no big deal.

Bright and early Tuesday morning, Christin arrived to babysit Micah and my friend Kate from playgroup and her daughter Emily. My friend had an appointment, so she asked if she could share our babysitter for the morning. Micah and Emily were adorable playing together! They had such a good time, and I got several hours of work accomplished. While Emily and Micah were playing, I learned that Jeremy woke up and could not move his arm – the infection was worse. Stubborn idiot that he is, he refused to miss work and go to the hospital. We spent the entire day trying to convince him to seek help. In the afternoon, I went to my condo to finish emptying everything out while the babysitter watched Micah. We are hoping to have it fully emptied and cleaned and on the market by next month.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, it became clear that Micah is a crazy, clapping machine. He LOVES to clap. He claps when he is happy, he claps to hear the sound – he claps and claps and claps. Except when I turn on the video camera. I’m still working on clapping footage. He is so cute – he claps with his palms facing outwards, and he claps the palm of one hand on the back of the other hand. I still say that counts! In the meantime, here is some video of Micah (and the dog) playing together (press the triangle on the bottom left corner):

But wait, there’s more! Micah waved at Emily on Tuesday morning while she was here. At least, I thought it was waving. He took his ENTIRE arm and waved it at her. He kept repeating it every time I said “wave, hello.” He was very cute, but who knows if it was intended, right?

Tuesday night, my mom called, informing me that Jeremy was off to the hospital – and ANGRY about it. Apparently he was mad that we made him crazy so he was going to the hospital. It is a good thing we made him crazy – they admitted him to the hospital and put him on IV antibiotics. Turns out, he had septic bursitis and cellulitis, and it was a pretty nasty infection.

On Wednesday, Micah and I went to playgroup.


After playgroup, I headed up to Baltimore to visit my brother in the hospital. I stayed with him for a few hours, and Jeremy reported that the doctors confirmed his diagnosis, and it appeared that the IV antibiotics were starting to work. Around 6:00. I went to their house to babysit my nieces Paige and Peyton while Jen went to the hospital. I played with them, made them dinner and put them to bed. It was a long day, but it was fun getting some quality time in with the girls. While I was up there, my mom and dad were watching Micah because Elliot had a work meeting. It was a big game of musical parenting/babysitting! Nevertheless, the orthopedic surgeon scheduled surgery to drain and clean the infection the following day, just in case things did not turn the corner.

Thursday morning started off with good news – luckily, the antibiotics worked, and we found out today that Jeremy is able to avoid surgery. My father was on his way up to help watch my nieces and bring them to the hospital to visit Jeremy, and then he was driving them back down here to spend a few nights with my parents. Micah and I spent our morning in Singalong with Karen again. Micah LOVES the class – he laughs, he smiles, and he seems to recognize the songs. He likes when he gets dipped, and he loves to play the instruments at the end. Much to my surprise, when he saw Emily in music class, he started waving again! He kept on waving when we sang a song about waving. In the afternoon, he waved when his good friend Micah (yes, another Micah) came over to play, too. Not only does he clap, he WAVES!! Even better? I captured it on video . . . sort of. Press the triangle on the bottom left corner to play video.

One more thing to mention – Micah crawled a bit in class today, too. For the past few days, he has been leaning forward from a sit and trying to move, but he never quite gets anywhere or makes it onto all fours. Each time he tries, he seems to get a bit closer. This morning, he saw a blanket he wanted, he leaned forward, landed on hands and knees, took one crawl forward, grabbed the blanket and flopped on his belly and rolled over. I think I’m on the verge of having a heart attack! We’ve got clapping, waving, standing, a step and crawling all in one week?!? I’m not ready for him to be this mobile yet. He has repeated this almost crawl two other times today, so I’m now suspecting that “real” crawling is just around the corner. Perhaps I’ll get lucky and it will take another month or two. It could happen!

We are now awaiting Jeremy’s release from the hospital. Tomorrow is another busy day with work (I have to catch up on everything I did not accomplish Wednesday) and we are supposed to finish emptying my condo and moving some more things into storage. Will this process ever end? My nieces are here for the next two days, and on Sunday my cousin Trenna and her son Zander are coming for a week-long visit. I’ll try to stay on top of posting!

By the way – I should digress a second. I would like to take a moment to evangelize the values of the Flip camera – it is little pocket sized video camera that has a built-in USB port. We have been using it to record all those special moments in Micah’s life. It is all digital, and it transfers to the hard drive in seconds – just plug into the USB drive and transfer. It simplifies sharing video of all those special moments.

Since I missed posting the video from the beach, I thought I’d tack it on here for good measure.


Video Wednesday

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I thought it was time for more Micah video! Hope you enjoy. Just press the triangle on the lower left corner to play.

Father’s Day… bittersweet

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Happy Father’s Day! This year, we celebrated Elliot’s first Father’s Day. In honor of the big day, I bought Elliot a bike trailer so he can take Micah on his bike with him to daycare or on errands. He tried it out last week, and both of them seemed to love it.


Just a little video of the first ride in the trailer:


Before I get into the details of our celebration, I do want to take the time to say what an incredible father Elliot is. He is such a loving man – he is so gentle with Micah, changes his diapers (whenever possible, I let him change ALL the dirty ones), feeds him – whatever Micah needs. He has been doing Micah’s laundry most of the time the past 6 months. They take naps together, and he makes time to play with him. Elliot takes him to daycare, shares in the feeding, and they go to synagogue together every Friday night and Saturday morning – their weekly Daddy/son outing. Micah plays “secretary” for Daddy sometimes when he is working. Elliot takes the time to talk to him, and he is very willing to do whatever is needed to care for him. Elliot comes to every doctor’s appointment, too – he doesn’t miss out on anything! Elliot makes up songs all the time so he can sing to Micah (his favorite seems to be “What’s the matter baby boy?”), and Micah just lights up whenever he sees his Daddy. Elliot helps put him to bed every night (he takes him upstairs, dresses him for bed, reads him a book, gives him his medicine and then I go upstairs to nurse Micah), and he isn’t afraid to be alone with Micah, give him a bath by himself, or put him to bed alone when I go out. It is apparent to anyone who sees the two of them together how much they adore each other. Happy Father’s Day, Elliot – we love you!
We decided to celebrate Father’s Day with both of our families this year. We drove up to New Jersey to visit Elliot’s family on Friday. Our oldest niece, Melissa, was home from college, and she had not seen Micah since he was 8 days old! We arrived on Friday afternoon, and hung out with Brian and Stephanie and Aunt Jodi (Melissa was out and about, and Uncle Steven was still at work). Micah was showing off – he rolled over from front to back AND back to front over and over again, and then he sat and played with his gumball machine without falling over! Unfortunately, Micah was not cooperative at bedtime. He cried and cried for almost 1 hour, but I finally got him asleep in the pack-n-play in Brian’s room around 8:30. We had chinese food for dinner, and then the fun began. Brian has discovered baking, so the two of us decided to run to the store (with Stephanie) to get a few supplies to make strawberry pie. We whipped up two of those and then called it a night. Here is some video of Micah showing off (and you’ll hear the conversation we had planning the trip to the grocery store to buy the ingredients to make a strawberry pie):

The next morning, Micah woke up at 7 am, but fell back asleep after nursing until 9:30 am. He ate his breakfast, played with his cousins, and then we waited for his other Aunt Jody, Uncle Dan cousin Ethan, Poppy Ira and Grandma Roberta to arrive. When everyone arrived, Micah showed off all of his tricks and we gave his Poppy Ira his Father’s Day gift…a framed photo of Micah. We all headed out to the mall to have a “cousins” photo taken for Father’s Day. The photo was really cute! We went to an Italian restaurant for dinner, then back to the house for cake and pie.



Here is some video for good measure:
Micah had another rough night falling asleep, but he slept until 8:30 Sunday morning. We were out the door by 9:30, and arrived at Jen and Jeremy’s house for brunch around 12:15. We had blintzes, quiche and strawberry pie for dessert. Micah played with his cousins Paige and Peyton and showed off his tricks again. We also gave my parents a framed photo of Micah – a trilogy of close-up shots of his face. After spending a few hours together, we headed home around 3:00. What a long (but fun) weekend!
I thought I would also take this time to thank my own father for being a wonderful Daddy. You were always there for me, without hesitation. When I waited until the last minute and you had to run all over creation picking things up and turning things in for me so I didn’t miss an important deadline, you did it, without grumbling. You came to my swim meets and dance recitals and gymnastics events. You even came to a mother/daughter even with me once when mom couldn’t be there. You took me to see shows and spent time with me. You made me go shopping with you sometimes – I still can’t forgive you for that, but I’ll let it slide. You drove my carpool, embarassed me in front of my friends, but most importantly, you’ve always been there to love and support me, without hesitation. I may not tell you often enough, but I love you, and I appreciate the person you are – there are few men in this world who are as good as you are, and you taught me to set the bar high and expect more from men. Thank you, Dad, for all you do for our family!
Despite all the wonderful things we have to celebrate, Father’s Day is also bittersweet – one year ago on Father’s Day, I entered my 2nd trimester and we sent out a note announcing my pregnancy. The next morning, I sent out a second note to family and friends announcing the death of my grandmother. What a crazy year…we miss you, Grandma “Cookie,” and we think of you often. I’m sorry you never had the chance to meet Micah – I know how time with your family and all the little babies brought you such joy.

Sing, sing a song!

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Lately, whenever I sing to Micah, he has been joining in and singing, too. Unfortunately, he does not yet get any of the words right, but he is definitely singing with me. It just makes my heart swell with love. He ooohs and aahs and pauses around the right times, but unfortunately, I think he is unable to carry a tune (just like his mommy).

The past two nights, he has been a bit “clingy” at bed time. I take him upstairs, nurse him, and while he is extra sleepy, I plop him in the crib and leave as is our routine. Normally, he drifts right off to sleep, but the past few nights, he woke up and started shrieking. I tried waiting a few minutes to see if it would pass, but no such luck – the noises kept escalating. Immediately, when I walked in his room, he gave me his big, giant, winning grin, as if to say “Mommy, I missed you!” He wanted to hold my hand and look at me, and he definitely wanted me to sing. At bedtime, I usually sing You are My Sunshine or The Rose. Saturday night, I started with You are My Sunshine two times, then went into The Rose three times. He started to cry and fuss whenever I stopped singing. The first few times through the songs, he sang along, too, before he finally dropped off to sleep. Again, Sunday night, he woke up when I tried leaving the room. I went back in to be greeted by his charming squeal, and he asked me to sing (well, he started to make the “singing” sounds) and it was clear he wanted his songs. I sang a few renditions of The Rose and as I began the verses, he smiled ever so sweetly at me, sang a bit more, then rolled over to his side, stuck his thumb in his mouth, and started to drift off to never-never-land. If I tried to stop, he took the thumb out and rolled over to give me a dirty look. Never mind that I had a CD playing in the background – he only had ears for Mommy’s horrible voice.

Oh, and did I mention that he and Nugget are having a love fest? She comes up every night to help put him to bed. He, in turn, cannot get enough of her. He squeals with joy every time he sees her, he rolls over to be close to her on the play mat, and when he SHOULD be eating dinner, he is busy looking through my glass table to locate Nugget underneath and smile at her. Did I mention yet how many times I’ve regretted purchasing that glass table over the past 10 years? Yeah – it is just as bad when Nugget sits underneath the table and longing looks up at us while we eat dinner.

Here is some adorable video of Micah screeching with delight on his playmat:

Six Months

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Micah turned six months old today!! Can you believe how the time is flying? Micah decided to sleep in until 9 in honor of his half birthday. We had a leisurely morning, and he did get to listen to a nice rendition of “Happy Half Birthday” from his Grammy and Goppy. We spent the afternoon lounging at the pool with Daddy. It was such a pleasant day – the weather was perfect, the sky was clear, and there was a nice breeze blowing. The pool was nice and warm, and Micah was all smiles.

While Mommy took some time to swim laps (FINALLY getting my act together and exercising again!!), Micah took a trip with Daddy to the store, and napped the entire time. We arrived home around 4:30 or so. We gave Micah a bath (this is the 2nd night we bathed Micah as he SAT in the bath tub!!) and I fed him some dinner (a little milk, some green beans, rice cereal and avocado). Daddy left for work, and Micah and I played for a few more hours before bedtime. Here are some pictures from Micah’s first time sitting in the bathtub (can you tell he likes to eat duck?):




This post seems like a good opportunity to review some of his recent milestones. Let’s start with food. Micah is eating really well – we have now tried peas, green beans, avocado, bananas, squash, sweet potatoes, and carrots. We added a second meal in the past few days because he was getting hungry in the evenings.

He is also sitting really well – still not reliable enough for me to walk away and leave him when he is sitting, but he is fairly sturdy – he can definitely chew on the hooves of his toy giraffe while he is sitting! He is still teething – those bottom two teeth are just dying to break through. After much waiting, he is rolling from back to front with some frequency – in his crib, on the floor, on the grass at a friend’s birthday bbq on Saturday, at playgroup, when he sees a toy he wants… I think he just likes to do things on his terms and in his own way. He is definitely passing objects from hand to hand, and he seems to be exploring the idea of crawling.

So, with that, happy half birthday, baby boy! I’d like to end with a few fun videos of Micah with his duck (press the triangle on the lower left corner to play!):

Busy Busy

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“Busy busy” applies both to my life and to Micah’s personality. I have been running at mach 5 for the past few weeks. I’ve been swamped conducting interview surveys for a project at work, and there have been so events happening in my personal life. This weekend, I had the Komen walk, my cousin Jodi’s wedding (which was BEAUTIFUL) and we went to a baseball game. Additionally, my niece has been in town since Saturday, and I’ve been trying to spend time with her while getting work done and breaking in a new babysitter.

The babysitter situation is going really well – Christin is so sweet with Micah, and it really frees me up to get my work done and even run the occasional errand. We also got a call that our first choice daycare has a full-time slot available for us as of August 31. Right after that, we found another daycare (recommended by a friend) that has a slot available mid-August, so we have to figure out if that is the right option for us. I love having Micah at home with me so I can see him on my breaks, but I have a feeling that as he gets older, he won’t let me get my work done once he realizes I’m in the other room. We are thinking of paying for the 5 days, and putting him there most days from 9 or 10 until 4. I will probably keep him home at least 1 day every week for mommy time, and we have a Thursday class together this Fall. I think I’d prefer to enroll him in a part-time 3 day a week daycare, but right now we don’t seem to have that option. We may try enrolling full-time and see if they will work with us to drop down to part-time.

Micah is also quite busy these days… he likes to be doing something all the time. He is very busy when he plays with his toys, or rolls on the floor. He is constantly grabbing and doing. He actually started using the jumperoo this week – we finally figured out how to lower it, and he is now fitting in it quite nicely. I thought I’d round off this post with some recent pictures of Micah busily playing in his exersaucer.




Here is a video for good measure (naturally, he stopped playing and demonstrating how busy he can be and started mugging for the video instead, but hey, he is just too cute I had to post it anyway) – press the triangle on the lower left to see the video!

Take me out to the ball game

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On Sunday, we took the Micahs to their first baseball game. Yes, I said “the Micahs.” We went with our friends and THEIR son Micah, too. Our Micah seemed to enjoy himself . . . he got to ride a train, and he had a great view of the field, he got to hold his friend Micah’s hand, and he tried to eat pizza – he got both hands in it and mushed t
he pizza really well! He cried when we pulled him away and wiped off his hands.
He looked quite dapper in his Mets jersey, and he enjoyed himself rolling around on the floor in our seats behind home plate. He seemed to smile a lot and enjoy himself, although I’m not sure he had any clue he was at a baseball game.
The other Micah tried to suck our Micah’s toes.

Here is some video of the boys holding hands – press the triangle in the lower left corner to view!
And some video of Micah having floor time at National Stadium:

Swimming, swimming, in the swimming pool!

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On Saturday, we took Micah swimming for the first time! He LOVED it. We just took him into the baby pool. It was a bit cold, and Micah really does not like cold water. I initially held him on my lap for a few minutes to get used to the water, and then I transferred him into his own personal flotation station. He cried when he first got wet, but about 10 seconds later, he was happy and relaxing. We had him in a cute little bathing suit with a matching shirt. Unfortunately, we forgot his sunglasses, pool shoes and hat . . . better organization next time! Here are a few photos for you to enjoy:




Naturally, we took video, too:

On Sunday, we hung out at the park with his cousins Paige and Peyton. They had a great time – Micah even got to share a swing with Peyton!





Sitting and Playing

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Can you believe it?? Micah is big enough to be sitting on his own AND playing with toys at the same time!! I’m amazed each and every day how much he is growing. He loves to sit and chat, too. He has the most wonderful laugh and smile, and I just love listening to him. I think Micah laughs might be the most beautiful sound in the world. Here – listen for yourself! (Don’t forget to push the triangle on the bottom left to play the video!)

Micah sitting and playing:

Micah talking (we think he speaks Wookie):

Micah laughing (the first one is a voice recording and I just added some photos of Micah to make it a video):

Micah likes it!

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That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, on Sunday we fed Micah rice cereal for the very first time! My little boy is growing up and eating solid foods. We started with organic brown rice cereal with DHA. The instructions we had told us to make it very thin, almost like soup, for the very first feeding. So, as instructed, we mixed 1 tbs of cereal with 4 tbs of breast milk. The biggest problem we had was that it kept dripping everywhere. We will gradually make it thicker over time as Micah becomes accustomed to eating. We think we managed to use about 1/2 of the mixture . . . probably 1/2 of that dripped on the table or on Micah, but hey, it was a good start! (UGH – I just imagined Elliot telling a bad joke in my head . . . he would have said “Not Good Start, it was Gerber.”)

Naturally, we decided to videotape and photograph this momentous event! Here are the photographs:

If you prefer the live-action version, press the triangle in the lower left corner of the videos. I hope you enjoy these shots as much as we do!