All He Wanted for Christmas...

Two new updates for our little man. First of all, he has developed for himself a new nighttime routine. Noah and I had sat down and had a little man-to-man talk about his nighttime feedings, and I think we got that under control. The past three nights, he hasn't had more than one bottle overnight at all. He's gone as long as 12 hours without needing a bottle!

You're thinking, "Holy cow! He's so advanced! You're the luckiest parents in the history of mankind!" Well, I agree, but all is not as it seems.

Our sweet little guy... he couldn't cause any trouble, could he?

While he doesn't eat much at night these days, the past three nights have actually been more painful than any nights in a long time. He's developed this new habit of waking up, even more often than before, and crying more and more fervently until someone soothes him back to sleep. If I try to give him a bottle (because the only time that he ever used to wake up crying was when he was hungry), he forcefully turns his head away and refuses to drink. If I try to give him a pacifier, he ignores it and continues crying as if nothing has happened. If I make "Shhhhh" sounds (which used to soothe him a bit), it makes no difference.

He's got me wrapped around his little finger.

He knows that I will quickly cave in. I will pick him up, and walk with him, patting his back until he falls back asleep. Then, when I put him down, sometimes I'm unlucky, and he wakes up, and we start the cycle again. If I am lucky and he stays asleep, who knows for how long... Sometimes it's a couple hours... more often it's an hour... sometimes it's 15 minutes. PAINFUL.

Hopefully this is a short-lived phase. As I write this, I'm on-call, and Libby is also working, so Grandma and Grandpa Egle are gracious enough to watch him for the night. Maybe having a night away from home with be enough to snap that little habit. (If not, I'm really sorry Mom and Dad.)

And that brings us to update number two, which may or may not be related to update number one. Noah's competitive side has become evident. He heard that he wasn't the only one with a new tooth (his cousin Ellia got one on Superbowl Sunday), so he decided to one-up her. He realized he couldn't really do any damage with a single tooth, so out popped a second one, right nextdoor to the first.

Side-by-side, sharper than they look.

At this rate of about a tooth a week, I figure he should have a full set in time to chomp down a hotdog at his first baseball game. He's still very drooly and chews on everything (which, on a side note, seems to be his new designated purpose for his pacifier, rather than sucking it). I haven't felt any other new teeth coming in, but he sure does love biting things... and sometimes it seems like he's trying to chew with the back of his jaw, which makes me wonder.

(My mother just pointed out I was 8-9 months before I slept through the night. That's not hereditary, is it?)

AHHHH!!! LOOK OUT! THE TEETH ARE COMING!!!

Baby's First...

It's been awhile... I know, I'm a slacker. Noah has adoring fans all over the world, and I've been keeping him from them. So, I should start with the excuses, just to get them out of the way.

Libby went back to work January 3, so life has been different in the Egle household. Fortunately, her first month back was very flexible and allowed for lots of time working from home, and not necessarily during normal business hours. AND to make the deal even sweeter, Jonathan was on a rotation that was mostly clinic, so there were very few unpredictable late OR days. (Editor's note: Jonathan still thinks clinic is miserable and would rather be in the OR any day of the week, but he does recognize it's contribution to a sane, balanced schedule.) So, Libby was on baby duty during the day and Jonathan in the evenings. All was well with the world.

And then, there was February. It's only a few weeks old, but it feels like YEARS... It has definitely been the biggest test of our parenthood thus far. Libby went back to not just a more full-time hospital schedule, but a hectic half-nights half-days never consistent from day-to-day sort of schedule. Throw that on top of Jonathan's 80 hours a week back in the unpredicable world of operating most days, and you've got a little bit of a mess.

We'd matched with a Au Pair from Turkey, Esra. That was the good news. The bad news is that she didn't arrive for the first two weeks of February. We had no idea how that would work. Have you ever tried getting a babysitter for 5:30am? Or worse yet, from 5:30am until 7pm? That's what some of our days looked like in terms of child care needs.

I will take this opportunity to publically say that without the Egle grandparents, these past two weeks would have been either impossible or we would've gotten fired from our jobs... one of the two. Grandma Egle watched Noah all day with Donna at the day care, and sometimes before and after, for extra hours and hours. In the evenings, Grandpa Egle helped, too. They never complained about the loooonnnnggg hours or the crazy schedules that changed from day-to-day and were never finalized until the last second, and in fact, complained only on the few occasions when our schedules changed so that we didn't need their help a few days. "Aww! Grandpa Egle is going to miss him!" they would say...

So, in short, THANK YOU GRANDMA AND GRANDPA EGLE!!! (and Donna too!)

Not saying it was an easy two weeks for us, though... On a good day, each way driving was 35 minutes, and with the weather, the trip on more than one occasion took over two hours... so AT LEAST an extra 2 1/2 hours in the car every day (but usually more than that) was not fun. Not fun at all. It was hard on everyone involved.

But hopefully you will accept that excuse for why it's been awhile for a post. Esra has arrived now, and our schedule is a bit less hectic... that's the topic for a future post, I suppose, but now, let me share a few of the "first"s that have taken place recently...

Bowling Trip
Noah had his first bowling adventure. Jonathan started bowling at a young age... he was on his first league at three years old, so Noah wanted to see what this was all about. Granted, he's about the same size as a bowling ball, so he can't quite lift one yet, but he still needed to scope things out.

Our Sunday School class went for a trip to the bowling alley

Noah made the rounds, paying his social visits

Meanwhile, his dad was hard at work, racking up turkeys

It was a long morning, and everyone was tired...

But in the end, everyone was happy. There might just be something to this bowling thing.

Bath Time

Of course, this wasn't his first bath time, but he's still really cute, and he really likes his baths, so I had to include some cute baby pictures...

This time it's Mommy's turn to be photographer, and Daddy's job to do the hard work

He doesn't even mind when bath time is over!

Ain't nobody dope as him, he's just so fresh, so clean *So fresh and so clean, clean.*

Finally getting some routines down...

More Cute Baby Pictures

I know, I know... I'm wandering from my theme. I'll get back to it. I promise! But let's be honest, here. Cute baby picture are really the only reason anyone ever visits this blog anyway.

A man of many expressions... Shocked!

Happy!

Flirty!

Roll-Over?

Sometimes Noah has found himself on his stomach. Whether or not he realizes that it's because that's how we set him down, I'm not sure. But he tolerates it for a few minutes and then decides he's done. Usually, he lets us know, and we swoop to his rescue and cater to his every need, worrying if we've permanently damaged his psyche.

Lately, though, he's been working on figuring out this whole independence thing. If he just pushes hard enough with one arm, what might happen?

The world looks more sideways...

Balance feels a little funny...

And then...?

And then... well, Noah still hasn't figured that one out yet. the picture above is the closest he's gotten to rolling over. He's really close, but has't quite crossed the treshold, yet. So, keep posted on this one, and we'll let you know.

Day at Work

Libby went back to work at the beginning of the year, so Noah decided that was the thing to do. While Libby was working from home, Noah would often help her.

That's it, Mom! Push that button!

Blizzard

He'd seen snow before, but never quite like this... We had a few big storms in January. Noah was prepared, though, thanks to the snowsuit Grandma and Grandpa Asai gave him...

All bundled up and ready to go!

Lots of snow!

A SHORT walk on our street was all Noah experienced, first-hand, but he watched from the window, too.

Tooth!
Grandpa Asai is probably most excited about this one... Lately, Noah has been pretty much like a Saint Bernard. He chews on everything. And he drools... a LOT! That can only mean one thing to a baby: teeth are on their way.

Fortunately for us, he's been happy throughout the experience!

(Or is that just because he's wearing a Tiger's shirt?)

Do you see what I see? a TOOTH!

(It's just to the left of the finger... look closely, it's LITTLE)

Working on an even more beautiful smile!

Tooth number 1!

Baby's First Zoo Trip

One of my Christmas gifts this year was a membership to the Detroit Zoo... We've lived one mile away from the zoo for more than a year, but I think my last visit was in high school. So, we decided to take a family trip and show Noah all the exciting animals.

In case you didn't read the opening paragraph...

We got Noah all bundled up in his brand new snow suit. He stayed nice and toasty, and was extremely excited the whole time.

Noah wanted to stop to see the camels first

He really seemed to interact well with the animals. He didn't taunt them or try to feed them as other, naughty children might try to. He respected them, and really seemed interested in learning more about them.

Rawr!!!

Of course, as the good Detroit baby that he is, Noah was most interested in the tigers. You know what I realized yesterday? The first full season for which I was alive, the Detroit Tigers won the World Series... maybe we'll start a family tradition, here. Noah's very optimistic.

Another dedicated baseball fan with her favorite mascot

We saw many exciting animals. Well, my use of the word "we" is a bit generous... but it was certainly a fun trip, nevertheless. We avoided getting spit on by the camels... we saw the tigers... we made stops at lots of the indoor animals...

Tired baby...

Tired ape...

Noah was quite intrigued by the primates. He asked lots of really good questions about them, like, "Mmmmm...?" and "Aaaaaahhhhh?" He was so focused that he kept his eyes closed most of the time as he thought about them. In fact, his pensiveness inspired the animals to also contemplate their existance, as pictured below.

Our trip lasted a fairly long time, considering how we schedule our days, now. I mean, anything that takes longer than an hour is liable to interrupt a meal time or a nap time or some other critically important time of the day, so we really pushed our limits. All told, we were probably gone a couple hours... maybe close to three? Who knows? But we were living on the edge.

Our audience as we snacked on our food

Noah wasn't hungry, so he watched as we ate our cheese and crackers. He didn't mind, though, as he hung out with his new friends, the peacocks. He got along really well with the peacocks. We explained to him that the males were the ones that were really pretty and all decked out with the fancy feathers and that's how they attract the ladies, and he just smiled at us... I think in his cuteness, he could really relate to that, so they got along wonderfully.

Chick magnets...

After our snack, we ventured outside one last time to visit the arctic exhibit. We figured if we're visiting the zoo in the middle of winter, we might as well see the animals that actually like the weather.

Noah asked if this could be our new pet dog

Noah wasn't exactly impressed by the polar bears, though... that's when the trip could've started turning ugly. He didn't like posing for a picture with the bear. He's a professional, so he tolerated the photo shoot, but as soon as it ended, he made it known that he could not tolerate modeling under such frigid circumstances.

The last polar picture

Look at how unwilling the bear was to pose with our superstar! No wonder Noah got upset! So, our son's people got a hold of our people, and we arranged for one last indoor photo shoot before putting an end to the trip.

Noah found the seals much more pleasant to work with

Who doesn't like penguins, really? Noah certainly does!

Family photo... complete with our new pet

So, all in all, Noah did like his first trip to the zoo. He got a little fussy at the end, but really, I think polar bear is to blame. I mean, look at him. He really wasn't the best to work with. But our cute baby was on his A-game. Hope you enjoyed the pics. And stay tuned... Noah said that once it gets warm, he might try a new zoo pose: wakefulness!

Baby's First Christmas

Noah's first Christmas... I didn't know what to expect. I think a baby's first Christmas depends a lot on how old the baby is at Christmas time. Noah had a good Christmas, but I don't know if he realized it. In other words, for him, it was probably just like any other day - well, any other day with a lot of driving, and he's had a few of those already.

I think that his older cousin was slightly more aware of the holiday... but only slightly. She at least was able to grab onto the wrapping paper, and as Laura pulled Ellia away from the gift, the paper would tear away, as well. So, maybe Baby's First Christmas is super exciting for the January babies, but for the August and October babies... well, it was more about just watching their cuteness.

I mean, Santa didn't really have to come this year for Noah to be happy. And next Christmas, he's not going to compare it to how this Christmas was. But he did come out of the day with more outfits than when he started.

Noah with his first Christmas present, courtesy of Nina!

Christmas Eve, we went to a candle-light service at our church. Afterwards, we went home and had a late night wrapping presents. Noah apparently liked the late-night concept, because he didn't sleep a whole lot. So, Christmas morning, we didn't exactly wake up early.

The rest of the day ended up being a whirlwind. Woke up at 10am, had to be at my parents' by 11am... that didn't leave a lot of time for unwrapping gifts and getting ready for the day. So, Libby and I flew through our presents to each other, and the ones we had accumulated for Noah.

We had debated a few times whether or not to get Noah something for Christmas. "What?!?!" you're thinking. But really, other people were going to get him things, and he wouldn't remember, anyways. In the end, though, we did. We got him some very nice teething supplies (hopefully for quite a ways into the future).

At my parents, things were slightly more relaxed, which was nice. Noah and Ellia played for a little while and then began their day-long process of taking turns napping. I didn't really get any good pictures there, but I think my parents and Kevin did, so maybe they'll appear here some day, but not yet...

And then, off to Norwalk. Great Grandma Egle was right at home with little Noah again. Except, he wasn't as little this time as the last time she held him. Fortunately, her broken arm is healing nicely and she has more strength in it!

Noah certainly enjoyed his favorite spot in the cradle of Great Grandma Egle's arms!

It was fun hanging out with family, and for more people to get to meet Noah. But the next thing we knew, it was time to drive back to Michigan for the end of a really long day! And then, we got to have Christmas Day #2 on the 26th with the Withers clan.

Noah and Ellia played again!

Again, an early period of simultaneous alertness before alternating naps...

One of Noah's future babysitters getting some practice

I think I did learn one about the experience, though. Before it had always been a struggle throughout Christmas remembering why we're celebrating. Wait, is it because Aunt Elaine makes really delicious cookies or because the Savior of the World was born? With a kid, there are even more distractions. Don't get me wrong - he's super cute, and it makes us happy when other people think he's super cute, and want to buy him presents because he's so cute. It was just another observation of how things have changed.