Category Archives: First Year

An UPdate

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I have not been keeping up! I have been absent from the web for two weeks. That is 10% of Paul’s life (he’s about 20 weeks old now). Here is an update.

Up in the Atmosphere

Paul has spent 46 hours up in the air in the past three weeks. Here’s the rundown of where he flew and how long it took:

  • Melbourne to Sydney: 1.5 hours
  • Sydney to San Francisco: 12 hours
  • San Francisco to Chicago: 5 hours
  • Chicago to Dallas: 2 hours
  • Dallas to Denver: 1.5 hours
  • Denver to Salt Lake City: 1 hour
  • Salt Lake City to Chicago: 3.5 hours
  • Chicago to San Francisco: 5 hours
  • San Francisco to Sydney: 13 hours
  • Sydney to Melbourne: 1.5 hours

    • Total: 46 hours in the air

Note: These totals do not include the time spent sitting in airplanes waiting to take off or waiting to disembark; they only include the flight times between the destinations. These totals also do not include the time spent sitting in airports, driving to airports, and packing to go to the airport (although Paul didn’t do much in the way of helping pack). All in all, we spent a lot of time travelling lately! I am so grateful that Paul was such a good sport.

Family Roundup

Paul has met all 5 of his grandparents/great-grandparents, 10 of 11 aunts and uncles (although some were only briefly met so there was no time to spit up on them), and all 8 of his cousins. (Uncle Carl, we missed you!)

Upset

Today I took Paul in for his next round of immunizations. I decided to have it done today rather than Friday (the next available day) because his schedule is already off; why not? He screamed while he got the shots, but he calmed down relatively well. He seems extra tired and a little sore. I think his extra chubbiness might help him not hurt as much as he did last time. I am glad it didn’t appear to be as bad as last time: I felt so mean!

Up Next

I have about 30 pictures to post.

For some reason, I thought I’d have time to post pictures while I was on my trip. I didn’t. In the coming days, I’ll be processing pictures of Paul with his Grandpa Sorenson, his cousins Daniel and Jessica, his Papa Paul and Grandma Peggy, his four Reid cousins, and his cousins Leah and Samuel. I also have a new family picture. Unfortunately, I only caught a few of the aunts and uncles on camera.

Check back often—and scroll down to make sure you didn’t miss a post. I’ll post the pictures as I get to them. (Each picture takes 10-30 minutes to process and it’s a matter of finding time amid all the other errands I need to do this week and next.)

Airplane!

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Paul did not cry or fuss very much during his first 24 hours of airplane travel, much to his parents’ delight. He slept a lot. A fellow traveler congratulated us on having such a “good baby.” Does that mean that he would have been a “bad” baby had he cried? Would that have meant that we are “bad” parents?

After day one in his home country, Paul has met 2 of 5 grandparents/great-grandparents, 2 of 11 aunts/uncles, and 2 of 8 cousins.

We’ll make sure to take pictures (I haven’t really done so yet). I’ll post them when I get a chance to do so!

Four-Month Checkup

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Since we’ll be gone next week, we had Paul’s four-month update yesterday. It’s only been three weeks since the last one, but here are his stats:

  • Weight: 5860 grams (gain of 640 grams; 15th percentile)
  • Length: 61 cm (25th percentile)
  • Head circumference: 41 cm (25th percentile)

Here’s what he can do (taken from his four-month “gross motor development” page in his Child Health Record):

Supine (on his back)

  • Head in midline
  • Waves arms and legs symmetrically
  • Hands open loosely
  • Pulled to sit, no head lag
  • Head held erect and steady for many seconds
  • Ventral suspension, head about body

Prone (on his belly)

  • Lifts head and chest well up
  • Standing, will take some weight (he’s really good at this!)

Vision and fine motor

  • Visually very alert
  • Follows adult’s movement within visual field
  • Follows dangling ball horizontally side to side and vertically from chest to brow
  • Converges eyes as dangling ball moves up to face
  • Defensive blink shown
  • Holds ratter for a few moments with meaningful grasp
  • Watches own hand movements in midline

Language, Speech and Hearing

  • Responds to sounds
  • Turns eyes and head toward sound
  • Eye contact and turn talking with carer
  • Vocalizes using single vowel sounds
  • 2 or more different sounds

Social behavior and play

  • Reacts to familiar situations—coos, smiles, excited movements

He “failed” the rolling prone to supine milestone, but he’s not yet four months. Maybe he’ll make it in the next few weeks. (He rolled over a few weeks ago, but he’s acting like he’s forgotten now, so I don’t think it counts…)

Dreaming and Singing

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Some times when Paul is asleep, his mouth opens in a wide smile and he giggles to himself. He stays asleep.

Some times when Paul is sad, I sing him a song. The other day he was wearing a Noah’s ark outfit, with animals on it. As I was changing his diaper, he was very cranky. I began to sing “Rise and Shine”.

Paul stopped crying and smiled at me. I sang it to him a number of times through the day and he always seemed happy to hear it.

Ever since he was born, I’ve developed the habit of singing him “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam” and “Jesus Said Love Everyone” and “I am a Child of God” at least once a day. Even though I don’t have an incredibly beautiful voice and I’m probably off key, he usually calms down when I begin to sing.

Ryan thinks babies dream in colors and faces. They don’t have words, but they have colors. I like to think that Paul dreams in song as well. He may not have the words, but the sounds and the love behind them are pleasant to him. I like to think that he smiles in his sleep because he’s thinking of music.

How do you think a baby dreams?

Little Rookie

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Paul will always be a rookie in baseball. Why? Because neither of his parents care for the sport and will therefore never nurture his baseball playing nor his baseball game attendance. We will never take him to a ball game (that’s for the grandparents to do, I guess, if they really feel strongly about the matter). But Paul has a cute baseball outfit so I couldn’t resist taking pictures.

I guess the song for our family should be “Take me out to the photography studio.”

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