Newstocks

The amazingly sleepy baby

On Saturday, Aidan had the opportunity to be the star of one of Rita and Liz’s Amazing Baby classes.

He was one of the demonstration babies used to show the expectant parents just how quickly a baby develops. As we’ve always been impressed with Aidan’s ability to lift his head during tummy time and track objects moved across his line of vision, Mandy and I had high hopes that he would wow everyone there.

Alas, we reckoned without the 25-minute car ride from St. George’s to the Mid Atlantic Wellness Institute, the location of the class. By the time we arrived, Aidan was fast asleep, and was unimpressed with our attempts to make him stir. We tried undressing him, changing his nappy, and tickling his feet, but nothing worked. When Liz took him to demonstrate his amazingness to the class, all Aidan could do was yawn. A couple of minutes later, she handed him back to us, defeated. “It would be child abuse to deprive him of his nap!” she said cheerily. We were bummed.

Just goes to show that you can’t make a baby do anything he doesn’t want to.

Aidan's first bug

Apologies for the lack of updates recently. It’s been a busy couple of weeks.

Aidan caught his first bug a couple of weeks ago. The first clue I had that something was wrong was when he wasn’t drinking his milk properly during one of his 10.30pm feeds and was making a lot of phlegmy noises in his throat. Frustrated by his fussiness, I got Mandy to take over to see if she could get him to take anything. But she didn’t have any more luck than me.

The next day Aidan was obviously still unhappy. When Mandy took his temperature later in the day, she found it was up to 99.6 F, and Aidan had become apathetic. This prompted Mandy to call the doctor. She was told that if his temperature didn’t come down within the next couple of hours, we were to take him to the hospital (at that point he was still only six weeks old). That certainly wasn’t how we wanted to spend our Friday evening!

Fortunately, Aidan’s temperature did gradually start to drop, and twenty-four hours later he was pretty much back to his normal self.

The day after that, however, I came down with a particularly nasty cold myself. I hope Aidan grows up to be as good at sharing his toys as he is at sharing his bugs!

Aidan and the cats

One of my concerns when Mandy discovered she was pregnant was how our cats would take to the new member of our family.

We have three cats. Two of them, Dark and Stormy, are brothers. We’ve had them for about three years. The third, Black, is a more recent arrival. All three have distinct personalities. Dark is the most balanced: friendly, yet independent. He’s also the best hunter, frequently leaving the disembowelled remains of rats and mice around our yard. Stormy is highly-strung, startling at the slightest thing; he also has a fetish for sucking earlobes. Black is fat and lethargic: the cat most likely to come and curl up on your lap while you’re watching TV.

All have reacted to Aidan differently. After some initial uncertainty, Dark has really taken to him. He’ll often come to sit on the couch next to me when I’m feeding Aidan and snuggle up against us, pushing his head under the baby’s hand or leg. In contrast, Stormy is still pretty freaked out by him, and usually runs a mile when he starts crying. Black could care less.

Despite their generally good relations with Aidan, we’re still wary when the cats are around him. Although I doubt they’d ever attack him, if Dark were to start kneading him with his claws, or Stormy were to start sucking his ear, I don’t think Aidan would be too impressed!