Rewind to: Cabo or Bust!

Dominic's Daddy, Eddie, is a studly ocean yacht racer.  He goes on these long races from Newport Beach to Ensenada and has even raced twice from LA to Hawaii in the Transpac.  This year, he wanted to try something different, so he formed a crew of 9 to sail from Corona del Mar to Cabo San Lucas, a total of about 800 miles as the crow flies.

Well, it's just about always nice in Huntington Beach; nevertheless, a trip closer to the equator sounded like a plan to this lover of warm weather, so I (and the cupcake of course), Eddie's parents, sister and brother-in-law, and my parents all decided to make a vacation of it.  So here's the beginning of the pictoral history of our trip to Cabo.

Daddy left March 28. Here he is getting some goodbye cuddles that are going to have to last maybe a whole week!  

The morning of the race, a bunch of us met the crew at our yacht club to see them off.  From Eddie's family, present were his mom and stepdad, Cleo and Jim, his sister, Maryke, and his niece and nephew, Danielle and Christian. My mom, Martie, really wanted to be there with my dad, Johnny (aka Granddaddy) and Dominic and me, but she had to work... (thank God someone is!) Thanks Mom!

Here is the crew getting ready to set sail.  Left to right is Ross Nemeroff, Bill Boyd, Scott Atwood, Bill Cuppy, Eddie (aka Daddy), Rob Rice, John Rossbach, Robert Rice, and Linus Ralls.

Granddaddy was very generous to take us out to the starting line to watch from his powerboat, Rapid Fire.  Joining us were Mareen and Elisabeth Rossbach (wife and daughter of crewmember John Rossbach) as well as Karen and Christine Rice (wife/mother and daughter/sister of crewmembers Rob and Robert Rice).  Jim Masingill, Eddie's stepdad, served as Firstmate.

*****

Blogger is giving me fits.  Uploading pictures is a bit of a tug of war.  So I think I will sign off for this entry and pick up again later with more pictures of the departure to Cabo.  Better to give you a taste for now rather than add more and end up crashing it and losing everything.  It's midnight anyway, so I'd better cash it in.  With Dominic's teething, I may be up with him shortly.  

Thank you to those of you who come by this blog to check us out.  I'd love to hear from you (so I know I'm not writing into a black hole) so leave a comment or send me an email: maggie@powerofE.com. 

Teeth = 2!!

Today, Dominic's second tooth broke through!  It is right next to the first one on the bottom, this new one being just right of center from D's perspective (left of center as we look at him).  I sort of got the feeling all day that he was... well... not even really "fussy" but I guess the phrase I would use is "needier than usual".  And sure enough, this afternoon I noticed a second little sharp edge popping through where there wasn't one yesterday.  Here are a couple of pictures.

Rewinding to: My First Foods

On March 22, I had left the plum pudding with Gram & Granddaddy (my parents) at their house while I went to pick up one of Eddie's sailing buddies in Corona del Mar (where they had moved the boat they were taking on the race to Cabo) and bring him back to his car in Long Beach. Due to what should have been a totally expected traffic jam on Belmont Shore's 2nd Street, I got stuck, and the babysitters called on the cell to report that the chubba wubba was ready for another meal. Uh oh, I was at least a half hour out... so here we were only 2 days before the magical 6-month milestone after which solid foods can be introduced... so what the heck? Give him a banana.

Needless to say, I missed the look on his face when he realized that there's more to these tastebuds than breastmilk and nasty cherry-flavored baby Tylenol. I got there about 1/2 hour after he devoured a tablespoon of banana (carefully scraped off the edge of the banana by his loving grandparents so as to avoid any of the tiny seeds in the center). As he sat in my lap for the ensuing nursing session, he looked up at me with a look I will never forget. Then he placed his hand on my shoulder in a way he never had before. It was as if to say, "Oh my gosh, Mom. You'll never believe the amazing thing that just happened!" as if he was in awe of the taste of banana and wondered if I, too, had ever known the thrill and joy of this Flavor of Heaven?

I think this must yet another benefit of parenting: the taste of banana in my mouth since that day is as if it is my first taste, too. I think I'm going to enjoy seeing the whole world as new again, to re-experience all the beauty and majesty and sweetness of God's creation through Dominic's innocent eyes.

Here are some pictures and video of Dominic checking out some different foods. So far he has had avocado, papaya, apple sauce, plain yoghurt, water (just enough to fill the lid of a water bottle), Cheerios, baby oatmeal, and banana, as well as prepared baby food of peaches and apple sauce. At his 6-month checkup on April 7, Dr. Pellman taught us that while Dominic is still nursing, we should concentrate on supplementing with iron-rich foods, which are the cereals and meats. Welcome welcome daily Cheerios! And Tia Nini (Eddie's sister Maryke) and Nana (Eddie's mom, Cleo) gave Dominic his first taste of meat in the form of baby food chicken on April 10.

March 26 - First food since the emergency banana: oatmeal (with added b-milk)

March 28 - Trying Avocado at the Market Broiler restaurant
Hmm. Not sure if that's a happy face or not...?

March 30 - First Cheerios along with banana and baby oatmeal

April 10 - First taste of meat: babyfood chicken at Nana's house

By Jove! It's a TOOTH!

OHMYGOODNESS! Where do I even start?

Sooo much has been going on since I last made an entry in this blog! I can’t even keep up with it all! Dominic has had his first real food, been on his first plane flight (and out of the country no less!), rolled over, made his first belly laugh, become ticklish, and now he has his first tooth! And there’s so much more than that.

I really don’t know where to start so I’m going to start at today and work backwards for a few days. Maybe tomorrow I’ll pick up with some more rewinding. But I promised myself I would make an entry tonight no matter what!

Ok, so the pictures I took today were of 7am this morning, Dominic gurgling his little lugie song on the video monitor. He woke up extra early today (5am, which he usually awakens between 6 and 6:30 and then entertains himself until about 6:45). I’m thinking it’s the new tooth that woke him so early, but he really wasn’t fussy; just up early. I fed him and because it is such a warm day today, when I put him back in his crib I left him in just a diaper. He started his little concert around 6:30 and by 7am I just had to get up and go get the camera. He turns on the mobile music himself and then sings to it and plays with the little pillow hanging on the outside of the crib bars. (Side note: today he has also figured out how to work the velcro fasteners on his diaper, so he was stark raving naked when I came to get him out of bed! You can kind of see at the beginning of the video Dominic playing with the dislodged diaper.)

After getting up for the day, we walked over to meet Daddy who was showing a house in our neighborhood to some prospective clients. They have a little boy named Dominic, too! Then we left with Daddy to go meet some friends who are considering a move to Belmont Shore, which is such a nice place to walk around, even on a super warm day like today. These friends (who I shan’t name in case they don’t want anyone to know they might move) have family in from out of town so we all went to lunch at Lucille’s on 2nd Street. Dominic ate Cheerios and enjoyed having his teething ring cooled in a big cup of ice water. I did manage to spill a small Tupperware full of Cheerios on the floor… good thing the hostess had strategically placed us by the kitchen entrance! (Although I did notice that there must have been at least 5 other strollers parked adjacent to tables as we passed to our booth, so I wasn’t the only one taking a little one for a little stroll on 2nd Street!)

While he was a perfect angel (like almost always, frankly), I must admit that by bedtime tonight Dominic had his first teething fussy episode. That is, I’m guessing it was from teething because normally he has no trouble going to sleep, and because I’ve never heard him make a “real” crying sound other than when he gets his shots. His tooth broke the skin 3 days ago (on the 9th) with exactly zero fanfare. I couldn’t believe it because I had heard I should expect fever, sleepless nights, lots of fussing and crying and drooling. Yet, there it was last Wednesday: a little sliver of rough edge poking out of his soft, pink gums. It’s the lower one just left of center (from his perspective). Here’s a picture of it, taken on the 9th. Boy, you can barely see it in this picture but I could definitely feel a little sharp edge with my finger. And no, it hasn't seemed to impact the breastfeeding, not yet at least. I don't feel anything different at all, so I'm guessing so far Dominic is not choosing to use my boob as a teething device.

Oh and here are another couple of pictures from the 9th. Super smilie despite the tooth showing up! What a love bug he is!!

So tonight about 6pm he started with a little whimpering. Now this, we have heard before and it usually means “I’m tired of ___ (doing whatever I’ve been doing for a half hour, such as lying down, playing in my activity dish, being on my tummy, etc.)” So I tried picking him up… then feeding him… then giving him to Daddy… then carrying him around. After each change of venue, he would quiet down and even smile, coo, or laugh, but just for a couple of minutes. Then the whimpering resumed. By 7pm, it was a bit more than a whimper.. more like a complaint. I handed him off to Daddy because his mattress cover was in the dryer so I knew I’d have to get his bed put back together before the 8:30 witching hour (bedtime, that is). As I was upstairs making the bed, Daddy brought the cupcake up, and he had on a full-fledged boo-boo face! Daddy’s and my hearts were both breaking to see that!

I figured he had got himself over tired, so I went through the bedtime routine a bit early. The routine is basically to change his diaper, cover his little dry/heat-rashed spots with hydrocortisone, then give him a rubdown with lavender lotion and put on some lightweight footie pajamas, feed him and put him to bed asleep. I figure the scent of lavender is some cue to his little mind that it’s time for that 10-hour stretch of sleep that he has made into a (wonderful) habit since December 21. He always smiles when the lavender smell hits him, like he is really happy the day has turned out so well and now he’s ready for a lovely rest. And tonight was no exception – Mr. D was smiling even though we later realized the teething was really bothering him! So I fed him and put him to bed. But he wasn’t down 5 minutes before he began with the whimper. A minute later it was a complaint. Then it was another boo-boo face which Daddy had to go rescue because I was in the ladies room.

Once out, I took him back to the feeding chair while Daddy broke open the as yet unopened box of baby remedies we got at Dominic’s shower. Hmm… little tummies, little fevers, little .. ah here it is! Baby Orajel (as well as some teething tablets and some other teething gel stuff). The Orajel box had both a daytime tube and a nighttime tube. And WOW that nighttime stuff must be some pretty strong stuff because Dominic was nursing and sort of squirming in a gripey uncomfortable way, and I put a dab of the pink, cherry-scented gel on my pinky finger and touch his gum with it (I think most of it got on his tongue, actually, but maybe a little came in contact with the actual tooth site), and PRESTO! Instant sleep. It was actually a little bit disconcerting.. like wow I must have just totally drugged my precious angel. I think I’m going to have to do some research on that stuff (great mom, check it out AFTER you give it to me!) But in the meanwhile, the suffering is over and the peanut blossom gets to rest. That was about 7:45 and I haven’t heard so much as a peep from him and it’s now 11:30.

Trust me, though, I can see him breathing in the monitor. ;-)