4 month old baby

Today, I found my limitations.

Being a full-time student and a full-time mommy wasn’t working. I feel kind of sad as I admit this, being that I am supposed to be super-mom and all.

I am dropping down to half time with school, and crossing my fingers that it doesn’t mess up my financial aid eligibility. You see, last fall I found out I was pregnant 2 days after I started the semester. All was fine and dandy, until week 8 when I developed Hyperemesis Gravidarum – a debilitating and potentially life-threatening pregnancy disease marked by rapid weight loss, malnutrition, and dehydration due to unrelenting nausea and/or vomiting. So almost halfway through the semester, I had to drop my on campus classes and keep my online classes.

I did great in my online classes and passed them with flying colors. When my 3rd trimesters rolled around, and the winter semester was about to start, I decided to take a break and prepare for baby. Because I didn’t complete 67% of my attempted hours that year (I dropped my classes too late for them not be counted) I was placed on academic probation.

Now I am pretty much doing the same thing, except I am keeping one on campus class (to be able to converse with adults) and one online class. Next semester, I will try to schedule myself full time online to avoid this.

I talked this over with my husband, who supports me and was feeling my stress. Right now, isn’t about mommy going back to school. It’s about baby.

I wasn’t supposed to even be going this semester, but postpartum kicked in around registration time and that’s when I signed up. Ugh. The things your hormones make you do.

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Babies and TV consumption: An excuse to watch Super Hero cartoons


My 4 month old loves to watch television.

I’m not sure how I feel about this.

At first, it started with one of those baby Einstein DVD’s when he was 3 months old. I saw it at Baby’s R Us, and picked it up thinking there was no way he would have the attention span to watch something 25 minutes long. That night I sat him in his bouncy chair in front of the TV and watched it with him.

To my amazement, he sat through the whole thing, bouncing his chair to the music, giggling at the puppets and looking up at the TV without a blink. At first I thought: “Hey! I can put this on, and clean up around here! Yay for found time!” but then I started to get the pangs of guilt. Starting him on television at such a young age – what have I done?

After telling my husband about this, he got excited. I woke up one morning, thinking how nice it was that my husband let me sleep in, and walked into the family room where my 3 month old son was watching Spiderman with his Daddy. You should have seen the huge smile on my husband’s face as he proclaimed:

“He LOVES Spiderman!”

An excuse to watch Super Hero cartoons?! Excellent!

After talking about it for sometime, we have agreed that educational programming would be better at this age. I never thought I would be having that conversation so early, but Sesame Street is now on the TiVo, which he loves. We Netflix Pocoyo for him – as we have found out that he has a thing for English accents, and occasionally, he watches a bit of Star Trek with us in bed during family snuggling time.

I have made it a point not to use the TV as a babysitter, and we don’t keep it on all day long. He watches 20 minutes of a program, tops! It icks me a bit that he will stop breastfeeding to look at the television for a moment, then latch back on.

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4 month milestones!


So, if you have been reading along, I have been talking a lot about my newborn baby boy teething. Since he was about 2 months, he has been drooling and his gums have been inflamed, he’s been chewing on his fist and I have been giving him a lot of Tylenol. Well, after 2 months, they finally came! L is now the proud owner of 2 teeth! 4 months old, and already has two teeth – what in the world!!?

They are on the bottom, and started as two little sharp corners, but finally pushed through a few days later. He’s really not sure what to do with them, and keeps biting his tongue (the sudden screams of pain are an indicator!) and his little fist is a bit raw. Breastfeeding hasn’t been a problem, he hasn’t been a biter since about 1 month so that’s good.

Also, last week he perfected the roll over. He can now get to his tummy, no problem! It scared me at first, but if he rolls over in his sleep, he wakes up screaming so that’s good. I love the look on his face as he looks around after he rolls over. So sweet.

He is also giggling when I tickle him! He always smiled, but now this little “heeeeeee” comes out when I tickle, or even talk to him.

Let’s see…Oh yes, now he can hold on to things. Of course they all go straight into his mouth, but now I can hand him toys and he can be distracted. He has these two toys he really loves, a lion and a an elephant that rattle, and he chews and shakes them with big smile on his face!

I am so amazed at all he can do right now. It was like BAM!! Hey Mama! I’m growing up! I am trying to soak up as much as I can.

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Colds, School and Free HD with our HD Antenna


So L had his first cold this week.

Oh my gosh it was the most pitiful thing I have ever seen. And I am doing everything I can short of keeping this kid in a bubble, to keep every virus away from him…then we go to nanny’s and boom, the whole family is sick.

Yeah I was sick too. But, strangely, it didn’t matter. I just wanted him better. It was heart breaking. But after three days of constant breast feeding, snuggling, and the boogie sucker thingy, he is all better! He didn’t want to sleep in his bassinet or his crib, he had to be on my boob all night. And if I moved away from him, he would scoot scoot scoot until some part of his body was touching me.

…So cute. Of course that made the list of “things I am going to miss when he is older”

School also started this week, but that was the day we woke up sick. I missed the only day of school I had this week. Luckily I have instructors who understand. Not really the way I wanted to start out the semester though…ugh. I feel like I am behind already. Lame.

We did an experiment. We hooked up HD TiVo to an HD antenna, and unhooked the cable in the family room. Our series 3 can stream netflix and amazon video, and our antenna – all I can say is WOW. I can’t believe HD channels are freely* floating in the air like that. We are calling and shutting everything cable related off next week and saving $150 a month. (we have digital phone too…but why are we paying so much for cell phones when we are home all the time? Viola, celly’s are now our home numbers)

I am really digging it so far. But we aren’t really TV watchers. I mean we have our “shows” (Lost, Survivor, ANTM)but they are mostly on network telly anyway. We shall see where we are in 6 months. And yes we are keeping our cable internet. Until we can afford a T1 line (sigh someday) that is.

*An initial investment in the HD antenna is required – ours is the Terk and around $80, we also bought the HD TiVo for this experiment, $299.

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