Weekend in Denver

Dan had a library conference in Denver this past weekend so Beckett and I came along for fun. This was the first time we've been to Denver since Beckett was born. Beckett was able to meet some of his cousins for the first time. I was able to run errands and leave him with grandma!

Beckett with his cousin Emily and his new teether- which he loves to chew on.

Pumpkin (the dog) and Beckett trying to figure each other out.

Pumpkin, Dan, Beckett, and cousin Matthew- he loved messing with Beckett, trying to make him smile or something.

I got a haircut while grandma watched Beckett. I was trying of my blah hair. It's a little bit of layering and a half attempt at bangs. I can still push them to the side and look normal. Dan thinks I should have got shorter bangs- but I'm not that brave.

Beckett, Emily, and Aunt Andi.

Beckett with his cousins.

Lakewood, CO

My parents just bought a new house (pictured above). They are moving from Midland, Texas to Lakewood, Co. They were hoping to be able to move in by Christmas, but since the house isn't quite finished yet they'll have to wait until end of January/beginning February. My little sister will have to start in a new high school then instead of at semester. So now Beckett will have both grandparents within 3 hours from us. This will make family visits easier since we can do them both at the same time.

4 months old

4 month Stats:

weight: 12 pounds 10 ounces (10%)

length: 25 inches (50%)

head: 43.5 cm (90%)

Beckett is still growing at his slow and steady rate. I was disappointed that the length was not as long (percentile) as it has been- it may not have anything to do with his future height, but I hope he's tall. He still has a big head though- I'm sure it is because he has a big smart brain. And so he's still a bit of a bobble head and wobbly.

I'm going to now tell some of his changes/developments over the past month or two that only grandmas care about and that is about the same for every baby- but here they are anyways:

The best one is his smile. He smiles a lot and it is actually for us now. We're still trying to get him to laugh- he's come close. He's a bit shy and still slow to smile for other people.

Beckett is quite the drooler these days- here he sports his latest style the wet ring around the neck of his clothes. He usually has the matching rings around the cuffs of his sleeves.

He's discovered his hands and how tasty they are. He loves watching anybodies hands and puts everything in his mouth.

He's better at holding his head up- even though he still doesn't like to be on his tummy.

He's better at sitting but it still isn't too long before he topples over.

He loves to stand. He can go longer supporting his own weight. But as seen in the video- he topples over easily when we prop him up up by himself. Dan doesn't like the video- because Beckett is wearing "gay" pajamas and he thinks it's mean. I think it's funny watching him try to stand on his own.



He can rollover from tummy to back every now and then- on our slightly slanted sofa. I was recording this to show him sawing on his hands with his mouth (that is why we bought him teethers- to save his knuckles) and he rolled over- I had tried to video him rolling over only about 100 unsuccessful times before.

Still everyone always comments and how alert he is. He is always just watching and taking everything in.

We're so lucky to have such a happy baby- who will only fuss if he's tired or hungry (he's perfectly content sitting in a soiled diaper all day- potty training will be fun someday). He's starting to develop a temperament and will whine/cry if he doesn't like something.

Beckett's dislikes:

Naps- this is when you can really hear him cry- he'll go down easy sometimes- but recently he's been quite a pill. He still has to be swaddled to fall and stay asleep- but the act of swaddling him will now make him whine (because he knows what is coming next). We're better at getting his naps in- but he usually sleeps for 45 minutes max each nap.

Vitamins- I've given up on these nasty things since it takes two people to hold him down and he still spits it all out (hence why our curtains are polka-dotted). I know they say it has vitamins in it that he needs- but it has things listed in the ingredients that I think he shouldn't have.

Boogers being sucked or wiped- But he sounds like a pig so I have to- and usually afterwards he still snorts.

Beckett's likes:

He likes it when you shake your head yes. He is actually staring to like peek-a-boo. He likes to watch us drink from our bottles/cups and wants to do it too. He likes watching us eat and especially likes it if you smack or chew your food loudly. He loves being read to and his favorite books are "Green Eggs and Ham" and "Skippyjon Jones". He also likes it when you whisper.

First Halloween

This is a Tigger costume my mom gave us- it's a little big for him, but he seems to like it. These pictures were from a couple weeks ago. When Dan helps with Beckett in the mornings he always makes me choose the outfit he'll wear- but this time Dan actually chose his outfit- he put him in the Tigger suit.

One of Dan's coworkers, who has a boy a year older than Beckett, offered to let us use their frog costume from last Halloween. So we decided Beckett would wear the frog costume for Halloween.

Beckett in the car seat ready to go to our ward Halloween party. I had to help the young women with the cake walk. I also stayed up late for a couple nights decorating some cakes for it. My amateur attempts didn't turn out as well as I had envisioned, but I still had fun and won a prize for one of them. Beckett also went to the Halloween party at Dan's library. He's always just silent and stares at everything in these new settings. He doesn't smile or make noises much except at our house. Hopefully he's not super shy when he grows up.

Beckett with his friend Kieran (the one we borrow many things from)- trying on their Halloween costumes. Not sure what I'm doing- but I appear to be the only one enthused in this photo.

I was trying to get some pictures of Beckett in his costume- but I didn't realize I had the camera on the wrong ISO setting so the pictures are a little grainy.

3 months already

This past weekend for Dan's 31st birthday we decided to go on a short trip to Utah. This is the first time we've gone more than an hour away from our home with Beckett. He's 3 months today and weighs 11 pounds and 5 ounces. He's been doing better at gaining weight and he's a pro at taking the bottle. But now I think he now is becoming a little too impatient or lazy to eat from me. But this allowed for easy travel- since I could just feed him the bottle. Thankfully he did really good on our little getaway.

We also haven't seen blood in his diapers in a while- so that means I'll keep doing what I'm doing- avoiding milk, eggs, or soy. Which is incredibly hard to do on vacation. Friday night we stayed at Kim and Mark's beautiful new home- and they we nice enough to make dinner for us- minus the milk, eggs, and soy. Saturday Dan and Mark went on a bike ride in Park City while we had Kim's baby shower.

Natalie, Kim, Beckett, and me.

Natalie holding sleepy Beckett- all these activities threw off our routine. He loved playing with Natalie.

Trying to get a good picture of Beckett and me... maybe someday.

Beckett hanging out with Kim and his soon to be friend, Ty.

Saturday evening we headed over to my Aunt Jane's house to watch the BYU game and visit some family. We were excited to introduce him to Great Grandpa and Grandma Hill. Notice Grandma unknowingly wore the wrong color (San Diego's color)- she thought it was safe since we weren't playing Utah.

Beckett was enthralled with the TV- he couldn't keep his eyes off the football game.

A couple of weeks ago Dan's parents came and stayed with us for the weekend and watched General Conference with us.

This is what Beckett thought of conference- he did have a lot of fun playing with grandpa.

Our little family- notice Beckett was the only that got ready on conference Sunday.

Beckett at 11 weeks.

Beckett and Grandma Mickelson.

September 25, 2009 Stats

9/25/09- 2 month checkup Stats:

Weight: 10 lbs 5.5 oz (10-20%) at birth he was 75%

Length: 23.5 inches (75%) at birth he was 90%

Head: 41 cm (75%) at birth he was 75%

So he is long and skinny with a big bobble head. We're still working on his weight gain- which he is slowly gaining again. I think it's because of the progress we've made with the bottle. He'll take it most of the time after a little bit of persistence. He's also napping better. However we jinxed the sleeping 9 hours at night-he hasn't done that since the doctor told me that I didn't have to wake him up. He now typically goes 5 hours- which I guess is good because he needs to eat. The lactation consultant thinks that he wouldn't wake up because he didn't have the energy from not much food in his system. Yesterday we did a weight check before and after a feed and with almost an hour of feeding he barely got an ounce. The lactation consultant said he should get that in less than 15 minutes. I'm not sure if that is how much he gets every time- because he was crying a lot during that feed which he doesn't normally do- but that would explain the poor weight gain. We just don't think he's very efficient at eating- not sucking right or something. But now I get to pump after every feed and try to make him take a couple ounces from the bottle as well to try to get him the amount he needs. We'll see if that helps.

I'm still avoiding all milk, eggs and soy- which is hard to do. I'm not sure if we're making progress or not. He still loves smiling and talking to his imaginary friends and not really for us. But at least I'm finding out that he has a fun time by himself so I can put him down and prepare dinner or something.

2 month update

Like father like son. Beckett loves to read and ride bikes (well, he will- right, Dan?).

You can't really see it but Beckett is wearing a library badge like Dan but his says "in training". We took these pictures for a spotlight on Dan in the library newsletter.

Beckett is two months old now. He's such a good active baby. There are two things everyone always comments on about him.

1. that he has such long fingers- I hope that means he'll be tall.

2. how wide-eyed alert he is- which is too true because I can't get him to sleep much during the day. That is something we are working on.

He still has had a few little problems.

1. At 3 weeks old a blocked tear duct surfaced. The doctor got us these eye drops that we were supposed to use for 5 days to fix it. Well it got better but Beckett's eye was still a little gunky so I continued using the drops and then it got worse again where his eye was sealed shut with gunk every few hours. I should have taken a picture when he'd try to open his eye- it was creepy. Anyways after a month of the drops and no progress someone in my ward told me to massage it- and within a day it got better- I kept doing it for a week and I haven't seen any gunk since. So in case any of you need to know, massage is very successful at clearing a blocked tear duct.

2. We started finding blood in his diaper- so we found out he has allergies to something I'm eating- not really a surprise there. So currently I am not supposed to eat soy, milk, cheese, or eggs- We will see if dairy is the culprit. We already are pretty good about no dairy because Dan is mildly allergic. But I have dairy every so often and now I'm going to have to be extra anal and looking at labels for hidden dairy.

3. Beckett has not gained any weight in over 2 weeks. He used be in the 75 percentile and now he's in the 10-20 percentile. Since he was 2 weeks we've been trying to get him to gain some good pounds- and we've still tried many ways to figure out how to do that, including me taking Goat's Rue (if you don't know what that is you should taste it). When he lost weight at 2 weeks they told me I needed to pump and find him from the bottle after he eats. But he refuses the bottle. So I just started freezing the milk. But now that he hasn't gained any weight in awhile- they want me to be more aggressive in getting him to take the bottle and try after every feed. So our feeding routine is 20 minutes on each side and then 20 minutes or so trying to force him the poison in the bottle (that's at least what he makes it seem like we're doing). And he eats every two hours so that plus burping and changing his diaper and frequently his outfit leaves a little over a half hour in between to play, nap (so he won't sleep when he eats), and get things I want done, like eat. And not to mention I also have to pump- thankfully not after every feed.

I can get him to nap but his feeds will be longer than 2 hours apart- which they don't really want. I'm trying to put him down for a nap when he's awake so he learns how to sleep on his own- that's the real challenge. Beckett's a good sleeper at night though- recently he's been going 9 hours (feed to feed during the night) I was afraid the doctor was going to tell me I needed to wake him up to eat since he wasn't gaining- but she said I didn't need to- that he should be make to make up for it during the day. My mom says I never really gained weight as a baby either- but I don't want Beckett to be my size!

Beckett has been talking and smiling recently. He still hasn't really smiled for us. For some reason staring at the plain white ceiling when he's on the changing table makes him happy. So we tried to record him entertaining himself- but didn't get a very good video- he always stopped when he saw the camera. Here's 2 of our attempts.