We took our little guy on his first real outing yesterday. He’s been out on walks with us every day for the last week, but yesterday we went to a BBQ with him. We walked to get there, with him riding in his sling, which he loves. He was a hit – new babies usually are – and he was very well behaved, sleeping most of the time. When he got hungry, I just went and sat under a tree and nursed him inside his sling. I can’t imagine how inconvenient bottle feeding would be, compared with breast feeding. Breast feeding was much more painful than I had expected it to be, for about a week. But once we got through the first week, it’s been much easier – and now we have a portable, free, always-sterile, always ready food supply for him.
The BBQ was a SIDS benefit organized by a friend of ours who lost a baby 13 years ago to SIDS. It’s an annual event, but having a baby of my own made the whole thing much more emotional for me. I think I slept with one eye open all night last night, and my hand on his chest the whole time. Since babies have to sleep on their backs now to help prevent SIDS, they don’t spend nearly as much time on their tummies as babies did in the past. So we’re supposed to get in plenty of supervised “tummy time” while the baby is awake, in order to help with motor skills like crawling and holding up his head. I read that the earlier you start tummy time, the less the baby will protest it as he gets older, so we started hanging out with him on his belly last week. An added benefit is that we have tummy time on the floor on a towel, so we take his diaper off while he’s on his belly. We’re hoping to ward off diaper rash by giving him plenty of time each day with no diaper on, letting everything dry out all the way. Our cloth diapers are great, but when they’re wet they feel wet, so we figure that getting them off him for a while each day is a good thing. He probably prefers the dry air too – although he’s not a big fan of tummy time yet.
A neighbor gave us a bike trailer today, so that we can pull our little guy behind us when we go on bike rides. That was the last thing we needed as far as baby gear, and they came over last week and offered us the one that their son had outgrown. It’s amazing how many great things people have given us for our baby. The great thing about baby stuff is that a lot of it doesn’t get used that much before the baby outgrows it, so it’s easy to pass on multiple times. We’ll be on the lookout for friends and family having babies next year, so that we can pass on our baby’s stuff.
I finally went shopping yesterday, spending money for the first time since the baby was born. I went to Costco and got some groceries, and I got my mother in law’s birthday present. I got two 8 x 10 pictures of our baby printed while I was at Costco – for $1.39 apiece. Then I went to TJ Maxx and got two frames for $8 each. They turned out so cute, and she was thrilled with her present. Of course now I want to go back and get more copies for us… We’ve taken 170 pictures on our digital camera since the baby was born. Good thing we’re not still using film. Our digital camera has definitely paid for itself in what we would have spent on film over the last few years. And now that we have a baby, the picture taking will only increase. I love being able to print and scrapbook only the best shots, and have everything else just stored on the computer (with several backups!)
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