4+ months

At four months and a week, Augie is:

:: growing fatter and fatter. He topped the scales at nearly 17lbs on Thursday. But he's still short, of course. 

:: all head. That noggin is so big (this he must get from my side) that is seems to impede his ability to roll over, which he does not do.

:: growing out of his nystagmus! Our second opinion in Michigan suggested that his nystagmus was an anomalous tick of his development and we think he might be right. I haven't seen it in over a week. 

:: laughing like and with his dad. Josh gets him cracking up (video to come) and it's the best thing in the world. 

:: still sleeping through the night, but now in a big playpen next to our bed because he grew out of the cradle and I'm too nervous to have him sleep in a crib in his room. 

:: recovering from his first real cold (that I gave him in the midst of dental hell). He was a total trooper. 

:: getting ready to start daycare on Aug. 12. I'm dreading it. Josh can't wait. And Augie has no idea. I know it will feel good on some level to get back to work, but I'd really rather stay home and hang with the little mister. But alas, it's off to daycare he'll go. 

:: skipping the 4-month rice cereal thing. We'll exclusively breastfeed for 2 more months before we introduce some veggies. 

Trials and Travels

It's been one of those weeks, the kind that you'd rather forget. Just when we were enjoying a lovely visit with Josh's college pal and his parents, I accidentally mowed over a yellow jacket hive in the back yard. At first I didn't know what was happening. My legs started to sting and I looked down to a patch of yellow creatures swarming my shins. I sprinted, leaving the mower to sputter out on its own. Fortunately, I got ice on them right away and the actual stinging lasted just an hour or so. But then the itch-to-end-all-itches set in and I was miserable for the next 72 hours. I was so drugged on Benadryl that I can't really remember what happened. Somehow I kept feeding Augie, and fortunately, he wasn't mowing with me.

But unfortunately this horror overlapped with some shoddy Kentucky dental work and I ended up with a bad crown that has now morphed into head/jaw/neck pain (e.g. the give-me-the-root-canal-now pain). This particular pain recalls another dental misstep in my past: the elective "operative procedure" that I allowed a UNC dental student to perform on the same bad tooth so that she could graduate. That was a pity filling. This is a crap crown. Tooth #29 has always been my Achilles' heal.

With my itching legs and a throbbing face, we drove to Michigan yesterday. Our usual trip took just an extra hour or so. Augie was a great traveler and he slept most of the way. We pulled up at dinner time and immediately breathed deeply and started to relax. I'm hopped up on Advil, and I may need to find an emergency dentist tomorrow or Monday, but at least it's not 90 degrees and humid. Instead, it's 64 and I'm sitting on a porch looking out over the lake. I have a couple dogs asleep at my feet and two yellow finches at the feeder. I'll watch fireworks over the bay tonight and introduce Augie to his youngest aunt.

It's good to be home.