Hmmm, been a while, huh?

Things have been extremely busy here, hope you won't hold it against us for not posting the last week or so.

RE: Easter Weekend...

The drive there (late Thursday evening) was quite brutal, even by Keith's standards. Blowing snow and dumb drivers (throughout the Catskills and areas south of Syracuse) made the customary 4 hour drive an interesting and stressful 5 hour drive instead. That landed us in Hannibal, NY just shy of 3:00 am.

Friday was a pleasant day, spent with Grandma and Grandpa primarily...just playing and having fun mostly.


Because we were scheduled to drive back to NJ on Easter Sunday, Grandma arranged for Easter dinner to be served on Saturday. Great Grandma and Great Grandpa came over to play, feed Austin his bottle, and enjoy Grandma's home cooking! One of the highlights of the day was Uncle Kevin and Aunt Peggy's unexpected arrival to join us for the day for our family meal.



After dinner was finished and company returned home, Keith and Christine went to visit the Somers family and see how Jess was holding up (being pregnant with twins and scheduled to deliver in 2 weeks time). Everyone was really excited for the upcoming arrivals, James (the eldest son) was especially excited for the Easter Bunny the following morning. Jess seemed even more excited to give birth, claiming that it felt like, "one is trying to escape at this very moment." Despite how she may have felt, she looked great and we can't wait to meet "Hall and Oates".



Sunday was very laid back. Everyone just sorta hung out and chilled. After a nice lunch, Austin was packed up into his seat and we made our best efforts to get back to the tri-state area before he needed to feed again. Surprisingly, in contrast to the horrendous drive North on Thursday, the drive South on Sunday was a breeze, and we made record time....making it all the way back to the apartment in 3 hours and 55 minutes, before Austin even needed to eat. It was perfect!

RE: Last Week



Things were extremely busy, mostly at Achieve. Rich and Carla took the boys to Florida for the week, which left us short staffed at Achieve. Keith spent Wednesday and Friday mornings (when he is usually blogging) at the office tending to much needed clerical work in addition to interviewing new candidates for job openings. Tuesday and Thursday mornings were consumed by bills and fantasy baseball preparation (hey, I need a few hours to myself once in a while too, ok?)

How was Austin throughout the week? Mostly good and occasionally fussy. He ran an occasional mild fever, which seemed to dampen his spirits on an off throughout the week- but we are growing accustomed to his "teething" moodiness. He is beginning to more actively reach for objects (we will try to post a video later in the week) and he is nearly rolling from his back to his stomach (we did try to record his initial roll this morning, but he has difficulty moving his arm out of the way, so he is going about 75-80% over prior to flopping backward onto his back again). Lastly, he is now eating either rice cereal, oatmeal, or barley in the mornings with few complaints (outside of being restrained and bored)...but he continues to eat very well so long as we keep the cereals a more thick consistency (he doesn't like it too "soupy").



Socially, Aunt Katie came over to watch Austin on Tuesday night, and he visited Joelle and Katie D. on Thursday and Friday respectively. On Thursday he was crying quite a bit with Joelle, but he was on his best behavior when he went to the Dunne home. Then there was Saturday....Dave Hammerle celebrated his infamous 40th birthday!! Again, Austin was on his best behavior and did his best to be the life of the party while he was awake.



RE: Anything new?



Well, we have decided to stop with the whole "letting him cry himself to sleep"- thing. We tried it for a week consistently, but he was simply unable to calm himself at night...sometimes screaming to the point of making himself hoarse for durations of greater than 90 minutes. Apparently, he simply isn't ready to sleep through the night again.



The other change is his new evening eating habits. Previously, he would always eat at 7:30 pm and fall asleep for the night. The reason that he gave Joelle such a hard time at her house (Thursday) was that she tried to feed him. In the past, if he started to get tired, it meant we would feed him and he would fall asleep immediately after feeding. Now, when he is getting tired/fussy...he wants to be left alone and allowed to sleep. Unfortunately for Joelle, she was trying to be good to us (as the parents) by feeding him as we had requested, but he was having none of it and screamed until she would just cuddle with him, at which point he fell asleep.

So...that is his new pattern. He eats around 4-5 pm, then falls asleep around 7 pm....he wakes up later to eat when he wants to (usually between 11 pm and 2 am), and we accommodate him to preserve our own fragile sanity.

Closing...



Well...that pretty much encapsulates the last week or so in a neat little storyline. Thanks for your patience in waiting for me to get up this update (and thanks for calling/writing to be sure that everything was alright when the postings weren't as frequent as you may have grown accustomed to). As always, efforts will continue to be made to keep up with the blog as much as possible to allow for those who love Austin to share in his growth and development.