Pulling Up!

Yesterday we had a pretty low-key fathers day, spending most of the time helping entertain a Saudi Arabian student who was waiting for his host family to get back from Chicago. Michael in particular had fun (I was focused more on entertaining Liam), but it ended up taking up our whole evening. My gift for him is one that would be priceless to me: the gift of sleep. Liam had one of the worst nights in a long time, starting with going to bed at 6:30 only to wake up at 7 and fight sleep until 10. Then he got up at 1am, and was up every single hour and a half, until 5:30 when he was up even more frequently. I seriously was venting and grumbling aloud at 5:30, and resolved to try a real pain reliever to see if pain was our sleep stealer. I took Liam on a little walk jog and let Michael sleep in until 9am. I was shocked he was somehow obvious to all the night wakings.

Motrin (aka Ibuprofen) was my hero of the day. I gave Liam his first dose yesterday before his afternoon nap, just to make sure he had no rare reaction. For the first time in few days, he took a 1.75 hour nap. Last night, it was like I had a whole new baby. I woke him up at 11 to give him his next dose, and he had an excellent feed. I heard him make noises sometime in the middle of the night and on auto-pilot remember putting a pacifier in his mouth. But he didn't really wake up until 4am. After that, not until 6:30 (but then I kept him in bed until 7:30). I felt so much more rested too! I am just so relieved I helped him get some relief instead of just ignoring him or leaving him to cry in pain all night. I gave him one dose this morning, and he slept 2.25 hours for his first nap, and 2 for the second (with a brief awakening after 30 minutes...I nursed him a little to relax again, as it was clear he was not ready to get up). It's amazing, now rested he's so active and doing all kinds of new things (more details below).

In other news, I'm still looking for work. I had a very weird interview today, with a company that almost seemed to want to exploit graphic designers: work for free then only get paid for your designs that sell. Definitely not what I'm looking for! But I have another more promising interview for a part-time position with a local news station tomorrow at 11am.

The biggest excitement of today was watching Liam pull himself up to the standing position all by himself! I could barely believe my eyes. I was just sitting on the couch next to our cat Pumpkin, after my interview, when the next thing I know there is Liam looking right at us. Pumpkin fled, but Michael ran and got these pictures:
We have noticed lately Liam has been into crawling up and onto things more and more. Here is a video of him in action doing this to Michael's guitar case. Of course, he's always after shoes if they are around too, and he jibber-jabbers like crazy.


Liam also tried pears for the first time:

Grabbed a piece and just took a bite

Reaching for my camera I left on the table

Already trying to wrestle with Daddy. He was laying peacefully on the floor, when Michael laid next to him. Next thing we knew, he was attacking!
Here he is in action, making some of his interesting baby sounds.