We are studying the nervous system now in
my A&P; class and tonight we watched a video on teenage
addiction. It was very scary. Then all of the women in my class
started sharing stories of kids doing all sorts of weird stuff
(huffing and asphyxiation are apparently the popular ones these
days) and it just made me scared for the future. What’s wrong
with people these days??

The weather has been so nice
lately, so today we decided to go to the playground. I have
been looking forward to it for a long time now :) Lex laughed
in the baby swing, but held on pretty tight. Then we sent him
down all of the slides they had there – the baby slide, the big
slide, the corkscrew slide, and the bumpy slide. He liked the
bumpy one the best. :) We didn’t make it to the playground
until 4:30pm so it was starting to get chilly, but we had fun
anyway.

Lex is starting to pick up on
the baby signs. :) It’s pretty cool. He can do “big” pretty
well, and we’re working on “all gone”, “drink”, and “mommy”.
“Mommy” is open hand with thumb to cheek. He was doing it this
morning, but each time his had got to his face it started
opening and closing. I think he was confusing himself. He’s
cute when he looks at his hand like it’s doing something
completely out of his control. Then he laughs and claps. We
have fun :)

He has also started sleeping
with his butt in the air. It’s adorable. I want to get a
picture, but he doesn’t sleep as rock hard as he used to so
it’s harder to get pictures. If I turn on the light, he sits
right up and looks around.

Lex has been waking up more and more often
at night the past few weeks. We are up to 3 times a night
again. So Alan and I decided we need to get tough again. Last
night I put a heavy dark curtain over his window (thinking
maybe the cars or lights or earlier sunrise is waking him) and
I changed his diaper during the night (lately he’s been waking
up with a very wet diaper – time to buy the overnight variety).
Soo… we put him to bed at 8pm last night. His first wake-up
was 4:30 (lately it’s been 12:30 so we’re off to a good start
already!). I changed his diaper and put him back down. He
fussed a bit (11 minutes) but then fell asleep. He woke up
again at 5:30 acting very hungry so I brought him into the bed
to nurse. He nursed very well and we both fell asleep again. At
7:05am Alan says to me “Did you shut off the alarm?” which is
normally set for 6:30am. I say “no”… hmmm…. Lex, meanwhile,
continues to sleep in my arm. We checked the alarm and found
that it’s actually set for 6:30pm! I found that hysterical
because it hightlights how long its been since we actually woke
up to the alarm! Normally we set it at night and shut it off at
5:30 or 6:00am when we get up with Lex. So we overslept this
morning and I was late(ish) for work – but it was
fabulous!

I worked from home today. Yay! Lex is
cutting two more teeth so he was a bit fussy today and because
of that he kept falling over or pulling things down on top of
him. It was sad, but funny. :) He got all excited about a cord
dangling from the desk and so he scooted right over to it, gave
it a good tug, and the phone came tumbling down (headset cord
connecting headset to phone). Earlier in the day he somehow hit
his head on the wall (neither of us actually saw what happened)
and left a little bruise on his head. Poor baby. Hopefully
these teeth come in quickly. On the bright side, he is extra
cuddly when he’s fussy. He gives great hugs and just wants to
be held all the time. He’s such a sweetie.

We’ve been singing finger songs and practicing baby signs
a lot lately. He doesn’t do the signs yet, but his fingers move
a lot, like he’s trying. When I sing Itsy Bitsy Spider his
hands open and close and wiggle, but can’t quite make the
motions. I sing a few times while I make the signs, then I sing
a few times and help him make them. He laughs. I laugh. Life is
good.

I miss my boy. It’s so hard going to work
every day and leaving him. When I get home I only see him for
an hour or so before it’s bedtime. I feel like all of my time
with him lately is spent getting him up or putting him down. I
wanna play!

I can’t wait until Spring. Lex is so
wiggly now that it takes forever to get him dressed. We
normally put him in two layers because it’s cold (winter
finally hit!) and he seems to get bored after about 1/2 layer.
I used to think it would be tough to have a newborn in winter,
but now I’m thinking that might be easier. At least a newborn
will lay there and let you dress him. Lex is off and squirming
with just a diaper and one arm in his shirt and nothing
more.

My friend Emma is over in Ethiopia working
at the Selamta Children’s Compound, a program of the Human
Capital Foundation, owned and run by my boss. I added
a link to Emma’s new
blog and I’d encourage you all to read it. She’s a
great writer and I’m sure it will be a fun read, and very, very
different from the life of Lex.

3/2/06 – UPDATE – Apparently the blog came down
for awhile. Hopefully she’s able to put it back up
again.

Lex started arm waving this weekend. We
were at my grandparents having lunch and Grandpa started waving
to Lex (who was on the other side of the table in his
exersaucer). Lex watched him for a minute then raised his arm
and waved it back and forth at Grandpa. Grandpa said “wow,
that’s pretty good,” and Alan and I said “wow, look at that!”
:)

Lex has been working on the hand
waving lately too. When I wave my hand (open/close sort of
wave) he will watch very closely, looking back and forth from
my hand to my face, and after a few seconds his hand will start
mimicing. I’m not sure he even knows he’s doing it. Sometimes
his hand will go a few times and it will catch his attention
and he’ll start watching his own hand instead of mine. It’s
amazing to see the learning going on every day.

So now he has been out of my
belly for as long as he was in my belly (plus or minus a few
days, of course). He’s growing up so fast :)

We took Lex to the Montshire Museaum today to play. He had
fun, I think. :) We had fun anyway. I tried to show him the
exhibits, but he was much more interested in all of the kids
running around. I said, “Look Lex, a solar system” and he
cranked his neck around to see a small child run by. I’d put
him down to crawl in a wide open space and he’d make a bee line
for some child’s shoes. :) Needless to say, the small childern
enjoyed him as well. A good time was had by all.

I love the third picture down because they
both look so happy and because you can see Lex’s top teeth. His
bottom ones took forever to grow in, but these top ones are
coming in like freight trains. They cut just last week and they
look so big already. I hope he’s not going to have enormous
front teeth :)

We have a really great
snowstorm going on today too. I wasn’t aware it was coming
(I’ve become weather-ignorant lately, I can guess at what’s
going to happen in about 5 minutes, but that’s as far into the
future as I have any weather knowledge). So it was snowing
lightly when we left for the museaum, and coming down like mad
when were done. Luckily Lex fell asleep in the car because we
ended up in traffic for a long time due to a big accident on
the highway. We both agreed that it’s better to be stuck in
traffic than wherever the drivers of the mashed up cars
were.