Things have gotten pretty busy around here since Shawn and I are both back to work full time. With that comes business trips for Shawn and daycare for Sam.
Daycare has been quite the adventure so far. When he's not with Grandma Ewen two days a week, Sam spends three days each week at the YMCA Family Center at the Walt Disney World Resort. Pretty cool, eh?? Sounds like Mickey Mouse swings through once a while for a meet n' greet. That's not really the case, but it is fun to have Sam right there on the Disney property, just minutes away from our offices. The women who care for Sam are super nice and they have all taken an instant liking to him. They say that Sam is one of the quieter babies in his room - appropriately named the "Cuddlers" room - and that he is very sweet. He is also quite the flirt with his caregivers, as we've witnessed. Maybe that's his strategy to make sure he's first in line for a bottle!
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| Who could resist this charm? |
Shawn and I have been so impressed with how well Sam has adjusted to being in a bright, noisy environment all day at daycare. We were worried that napping might be a challenge, since there's so much stimuli. But he generally takes three 45-minute naps each day, thank goodness! And he comes home completely wiped out from the activity of the day. Most days, after dinner and his bedtime routine, we are just getting Sam into the crib as he completely passes out! That part has been a difficult adjustment for Shawn and I. Since it's sometimes a mad dash to get him home, fed and settled for the night, we really don't get to spend a lot of time with him in the evenings...so we really miss him. We often say to each other, "I miss Sam," after he's gone to bed for the night!
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| Sleeping so peacefully in a baby burrito |
A few days after starting daycare (and no surprise to us), for the first time since he was born, Sam woke up with a fever. Of course we were quite worried about him, but he handled it like a champ! He didn't cry or fuss too much, even as his fever climbed close to 103 degrees. It took about a day and a half for the fever to subside and then Sam was back on his feet, so to speak. Soon after, he developed a raspy voice which the pediatrician says is just a little upper respiratory irritation, probably the low point of all of this. It doesn't seem to bother Sam at all, but he sounds just terrible when he cries or tries to babble.
This is just the beginning of building Sam's immunity and we know it won't always be this easy for him to power through illness. But we're so relieved that his first bout wasn't a total whopper. We can say that this time, as new parents, Sam being sick was definitely more troublesome for us than for him.
In other exciting news, Sam started eating solid foods this week. So far, we have only offered him rice cereal with apples, and he seems to be okay with it. At first, he looked pretty disgusted when we put the cereal in his mouth, but eventually he figured out that he might want a little more of that stuff! He's still not super excited about it - it is rice cereal, after all - but he's getting the hang of eating from a spoon and figuring out what to do with the mush on his tongue. Sometimes he even wants to feed himself, but we have to be careful not to let him gag himself with the spoon! We're excited to introduce Sam to more yummy tasting foods very soon. Bananas are next on the list. If he's anything like his daddy, he's really going to enjoy that! Does the Baby Bullet make banana pudding?
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| "What is this???" |
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| "I can do it!" |
