My kid loves Dora the Explorer

Oliver woke up in a better mood this morning, thank God! He still seemed a bit uncomfortable but was smiling and kicking as I changed his diaper.

Smiling, but looks kinda pale, no?

I put him in the saucer and he seemed very excited to play with his toys. I wanted to make myself a good breakfast for myself since I don't seem to have a ton of time for other meals with a sick baby. I flipped on the TV to keep him company, thinking he would ignore it like he usually does. Sometimes when we're watching, the magical moving pictures catch his eye but not for long. This time I thought, Hey maybe I'll try some cartoons. The only thing on was Dora the Explorer (which I find totally annoying, but whatever). Immediately Oliver stopped what he was doing, and was GLUED to the TV.

He sat there in his saucer, hands on the apple, in awe of this magical Spanish-speaking cartoon character. My first thought was, "Oh, shit." My kid likes TV! This can't be good for him, right?? First of all, look how close he is! So I moved him back a few feet. While I moved him, his eyes remained on Dora. So there you have it. He likes cartoons, and I let him watch them. I felt like a bad mommy for about .02 seconds. It's probably not GREAT for a 6 month old to watch TV, but if it allows me to make scrambled eggs interrupted then why not? I don't plan to do this all day every day. And look how happy he is! After the crappy days he's had, why not let him veg out and watch some Dora? At least it's not Barney or Hannah Montana... Ugh.

(Password is: Zogas)

Oliver loves Dora from Lindsay Zogas on Vimeo.

Oh, teething. I hate you.

I jinxed myself this morning. Oliver woke up around 6:30am, smiling and happy as could be. I picked him up from his crib and said, "There's the Oliver I know! I'm so glad you're feeling better!" I went on to tell John, my parents, a few friends, the world, that Oliver was back to his old self. He still seemed a bit pale, but I hadn't seen him smile like that since the other day, so I figured (well, HOPED) the worst was over. Whatever this was– a cold, or teething pain, he seemed to be much better.

A couple hours later after another nap, he woke up crying. He looked exhausted and was whimpering a lot. We played with a few toys, hung out with a girlfriend of mine who came by, and he went down for another nap. This time he was out for 2 hours, and my parent's came over after he woke up. Again, he whimpered a lot and just couldn't settle down, but still seemed better than yesterday. One more nap later (after it took an hour to get him to calm down and fall asleep), Oliver woke up SCREAMING. Like the scream he gives when he's hurt. I rocked him, distracted him with videos of Yo Gabba Gabba online (so annoying but he loves the bright colors), gave him every teething toy we had, and nothing soothed him. John came home, and there was more crying. Not just Oliver, but me! It was so incredibly hard to see my normally happy baby in so much pain, as I watched helplessly. I burst into tears and cried along with him as I tried to rock him to sleep. After that didn't work, I gave him a bath and he finally calmed down. He happily kicked the water and sucked on a washcloth, and seemed ok. I pulled him out of the water and the second he felt the towel, he started freaking out. Huge tears, big screams, the works! He calmed down a little bit for a bottle and book with John, and is now currently in his room with Daddy crying harder than I have ever heard. My heart is breaking... What the HELL do you do when you've tried E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G?! I feel like I did when we first brought Oliver home. Trying everything and anything to soothe him, having no idea what will work, just hoping something will end the crying for HIS sake. I'm fine and don't feel frustrated like I thought I would– I just feel BAD. I can deal with this and do everything over and over again until he's calm, but I realllllly hope these stupid teeth break through soon!

Oliver's first fever

Oliver woke up around 7:30 this morning, and seemed happy. I fed him, changed his diaper, and put him in the saucer. He was very smiley and in a good mood, although he was quieter than usual. And his head felt warm, but I took his temp and it was 99. Nothing to freak out over, right?


Fast forward one hour and one nap later, Oliver woke up crying. This is never a good sign. He always wakes up happy, unless something is wrong. I changed his diaper, and he quietly laid on the changing pad. He usually grabs the toys on the mobile above his head, or scratches the walls with his hands (he LOVES that sound!), but he did nothing. I took his temp again, this time it was 100. We laid down on the couch, and for 2 hours he looked like this:


In and out of sleep, and just cuddly as can be. It breaks my heart seeing him like this! He is obviously in pain– it's either a cold, or he's teething. I gave him some Tylenol (the Target-brand, since the real stuff is still out of stock due to that horrible recall) so hopefully that helps break the fever (which just read 101– but then it was 100 again a minute later... I think I need an old-fashioned thermometer, these digital ones are confusing). I feel so helpless but know all I can do is just snuggle him and watch his temp. Does this happen EVERY time a new tooth comes in?! Man...

Rice cereal!

I REALLLLY wanted to wait until Oliver was exactly 6 months old before introducing any kind of food. Dr. B told us to start with rice cereal around 5 1/2 months, and at our 6 month check up we'd talk about other foods. Even with his orders, I still wanted to wait. What's another 2 weeks, right? Oliver doesn't NEED solid food so I figured holding out would be just fine.

Well, I have changed my mind and today I made my first batch of homemade rice cereal. Why, you ask? The past 2 nights Oliver has woken up every 2-3 hours. It is slowly killing me. We've stuck to our bath-book-bottle-bed routine for weeks now, and even moved our start time to 7:30 which is usually when he starts to meltdown in the evening. Several people and websites have said a solid routine is the key to a good night's sleep. HA! Obviously my child marches the beat of his own drum, because he does not care what a routine should do for him. Before these last 2 awful nights, he was still waking up once or twice, so it's been going on for awhile. Like 2 months... Mama's had enough.

So today is day 1 of solid food. We'll just start with tastes of it and see how it goes, and hopefully in the next couple of weeks we'll all get some good sleep around here.

Not sure about this...

Why are you trying to kill me?

Rice Cereal from Lindsay Zogas on Vimeo.

Baby sign language class

A couple weeks ago, a friend of ours from childbirth class sent me information on a baby sign language class she had signed up for. I've seen friends sign with their babies and have always been interested in it, so John and I decided to take the class. Yesterday was the first session, and we were both very impressed! Our teacher, Shannon, is very sweet and has lots of experience working with both deaf and hearing babies and kids. We learned a few songs and about 20 signs (what, where, mom, dad, bubbles, bear, more, all done, silly...) Here's a picture of my boys enjoying the Bear song!

Baby talk!

Bath time!

This little butt makes me smile.