All alone with Nate

Recent events have been testing my skills as a parent. My wife went back to work recently and as part of that she was away from Nate and I for a while. I've taken some time off from my job to take care of Nate until we get a few details under control. So as part of the transition it was just Nate and I for almost 48 hours. My wife had never spent a night away from Nate since he was born and this week she spent two away and me with no backup. I'll give my wife (and mothers everywhere) a lot of credit. Between some of my other tasks and taking care of Nate I worked harder than I have in quite a while. It can be exhausting and I couldn't wait for nap times as I needed them as well.

So the next couple weeks should be interesting as I'll continue to be Nate's primary caregiver. I don't expect to be a long-term stay-at-home dad, but this initial experience has been interesting. I will say that in those two days time I was able to get much better anticipating what will be next. You start to see patterns in behavior.

I should be a little more regular posting going forward. More on the changes in our household coming soon.

Crawling forward

So we believe Nate has figured out how to get out of reverse. He has been crawling for a little while now, but he couldn't seem to figure out how to get it in first gear and move forward. Over the last couple days he seems to have pretty much figured out how to move forward and is getting better at moving forward. There is definitely some technique that can be honed. Actually this may be good for us, as when he gets the crawling down better we'll have to chase Nate a lot more. His crawling forward actually closer resembles a bear crawl at this point. It is like he doesn't want to put his knees on the ground when going forward.

Nate is now one day shy of 7 months. It has been a great ride and the next few months should be pretty exciting as Nate continues to grow.

Bumbo no more

One of the items that Nate has used a lot of late has been a bumbo baby seat. He would happily sit in the bumbo and play with his toys. I use play lightly as he was really taking all of them and trying to put them in his mouth. We've been putting Nate in a bumbo since he could support holding his head up on his own. As Nate was learning to sit up on his own the bumbo was great at supporting him. It also served as a portable chair that we used for feeding him while traveling over last two months. Nate can now sit up on his own just fine. This is good as now we'll have to put the bumbo away. Nate has got out of the bumbo two days in a row. He has managed to slip out. At least he didn't somehow figure out how to fall out and hurt himself.

The bumbo was a gift from friends (Thanks Trey & Julie) and it has worked out very well and we are a little sad to have to put it away.

There are some upcoming changes to our household. Nothing bad, actually rather exciting in many ways. Let's just say we are looking at a change of scenery. I may be a little erratic on writing over next month as we deal with some of these possible changes.

Nate Jumping Around

Over the Christmas holidays we were given a slightly used Johnny Jump Up. It is an infant exerciser / jumper that allows babies to jump up and down. Knowing Nate's desire to be moving I figured he would like this. It would keep him upright without us having to hold on to him all the time. We got the jumper because my wife's cousins daughter who is a few months older than Nate just hates the thing. The description we got was she cried when she got near the thing. So the best thing for them was to get it out of their house.

It does go to show you that all babies are different. What one may like, another may despise. I like the Johnny Jump Up as does Nate. It easily attaches to a door frame. It is also easy to take it down. My wife may disagree with me on it being easy. I will say that getting Nate in and out of the Johnny Jump Up is not as easy as I would like. I think some of it is he gets excited and wants to kick. This makes it difficult to maneuver around the straps and get his legs through the holes especially for just one person.


Nate in his Johnny Jump Up

My final thoughts on the Johnny Jump Up. I can see some definite pros: Nate likes being able to jump up and down, it keeps Nate in one place (but still needs to be watched), and helps with balance and leg strength. However, like anything I can see where too much of anything could be negative. Also, a baby in the jumper needs to be watched as it would be possible to bump their head on the door frame.

Nate likes going backward

So little Nate wants to move around. He has become pretty good as scooting backwards. So he can't really move forward, but he is cruising around backwards pretty well. He is also getting pretty good at turning around. So I believe he is figuring out that he can get places by turning around and backing up. I guess this works, but in theory you could drive in reverse everywhere. Not very effective, but at slow speeds it could be done.

Sometimes all this backing up does tend to get Nate in a little trouble. And he gets a little frustrated when he can't go backwards any more. This was this week. Nate was moving around his crib after waking up from a nap.


So no real crawling yet, but at some point we'll be chasing him around the house.

No More College Football

So Nate wouldn't qualify as a college football fan (at least not yet), but Saturday's will be different for the next few months. I am a big college football fan and with Texas losing to Alabama on Thursday night the season is now really over. Nate slept through the Championship game this week. He went to sleep before the game started and did wake up crying after the game was over - he was hungry. But just maybe he was sympathizing with his mom and all the other Longhorn fans.

This weekend Austin was seeing record cold temps so I wasn't going to partake in many outside activities. I figured I could get in a couple good English Premier League games. However, the weather there was really not cooperating. Most of the games were postponed this weekend.

So I spent Saturday watching Nate move backwards and did a few projects around the house.