Bracket Challenge

Sorry for slacking on the blog updates. With the NCAA tournament this is one of the least efficient times of the year and we aren't an exception. So far Josh is beating Margaret and I but we have hope that we can turn it around.

Anyway here is the proof of Josh's tournament brilliance and some other pictures of Josh (since that is what you really are here for).

Josh working on his bracket

Yes Josh is currently winning

First Big Family Party

On Sunday we had a Brannigan family St. Patricks day party. This was also the first opportunity for many of them to meet Josh.  Overall he was well behaved and was very popular :-)

Josh in the pot of gold

 Rachel holding Josh in a vintage Brannigan shirt

Josh happy to meet Megan

Ari can come over anytime to get Josh to sleep

Maeve getting ready for her future job in baby sitting

Uncle Mark and Josh recovering from the party

Movies

Josh is starting to move around a bit more now, although not crawling or anything yet.  We've started to take a few videos of him (yes we are obsessed).

Here is a video of Josh playing in the pack and play.

In looking through pictures for the last two months we've noticed Josh is already changing a lot.  Here is a movie I created of Josh through his first two months.

Stay tuned, as Josh becomes more mobile I'm sure we will be posting lots of videos!

First Fever

The day I have been dreading finally happened Friday night, Josh had a fever.  I warned Margaret I would not handle this particularly well and I wasn't looking forward to it.

Fortunately Josh's fever was not unexpected because Josh got a few shots at the doctors Friday morning and the pediatrician warned us a low grade fever was a possibility.  Unfortunately we didn't ask what a low grade fever was and 101.4 didn't seem low grade to me.  When we first took Josh to the pediatrician they said a fever over 100.3 was serious and cause take him to the emergency room.  When he was well over that temperature I began to freak out.

Ruth was helping to take care of Josh when he started to act very upset and would not calm down.  This was my first sign that something might be wrong and the thermometer confirmed his fever.  Ruth and Margaret helped to calm Josh down as I freaked out.

Margaret suggested we call the pediatrician before rushing to the hospital.  I left a message on the after hours voicemail and we got a call back in 5 minutes.  The doctor we had seen that day was the one on call and he said everything was fine.  Since we knew the cause of the fever and it is actually a good reaction to the medication he was not concerned.  He reminded us to try giving Josh and bath and if he wasn't too uncomfortable to try to avoid treating the fever with Tylenol.

I felt much better after the phone call and Josh began to relax a bit after being fed.  He was acting more normal which made me feel a lot better.  We then gave him a bath and he seemed to enjoy it and was very calm afterwards.  We put him to bed and he slept 7 straight hours!  In the morning we measured his temperature again and he was back to normal.

In the two months we have been parents, Margaret and I seem to react to things differently.  Often times one of us is very worried and usually the other is able to calm them down.  In this case Margaret was right and her calmness and suggestion to call the doctor before doing anything was the right thing to do.

On the way to the doctors office

Josh feeling better after his bath

Two Month Checkup!

Josh had his 2 month checkup today. He charmed the doctor again with lots of smiling and being cute and well behaved. He is now 10lb 3oz!! Which is still the 10th percentile for weight. He is in the 46th percentile for height. He had to get some shots today, but he was a very good boy! He screamed right after them, but then calmed down after I held him for a minute and slept in the car on the way home. Overall the appointment went really well and Josh is very healthy!

Baby Calming

It is no secret that Josh is a pretty fussy baby. About two weeks ago he spent most of the time screaming over the weekend and Julian and I really didn't know what to do. Nothing seemed to calm him down when he was crying, and it was starting to wear on both of us. My Cousin Angela gave us a few tips which we have been trying out since then, and they seem to be helping! She recommended we watch the Happiest Baby on the Block, which we got from Netflix however had not watched yet. She also recommended sitting on an exercise ball to calm him down. I tried the ball as soon as I got off the phone with her, and it worked! Over the past 2 weeks I have spent more time sitting on an exercise ball than ever before. (I generally avoid them after an embarrassing gym mishap in college....). I have recently been putting Josh in our front carrier and then bouncing with him for 1 hr or more. At least this way I'm not worried about dropping him, and I have both hands. I can type at my computer this way...although reading or eating is pretty difficult with the bouncing.

We also finally watched Happiest Baby on the Block which goes over the five "S's" of baby calming. Swaddling, Shushing, Swinging, Sucking and Side laying. Swaddling hadn't been working for us, however the video showed us a new style of swaddling and instructed us to make sure the baby's arms were down. Putting Josh's arms down definitely improved the effectiveness of swaddling for us, because it is harder for him to get his arms back out (although not impossible). The shushing or white noise technique has been working really well. We have a white noise giraffe on his crib which he hasn't been responding to, so we didn't think it would work. I downloaded "Baby Sleep" white noise from iTunes and that has been working pretty well! We now leave it on for him all night, and it certainly makes it easier to put him down at night. Swinging we already had been doing, his infant swing had been the only thing we could get him to take naps in. He still likes the swing, although seems to get bored if there isn't enough activity and fun things to look at. Sucking generally works if there is food involved, however he isn't good at keeping a pacifier in his mouth so it is a pretty high maintenance technique. We haven't encouraged a pacifier because of breast feeding, but we might try and do it more now that it is "well established." Side lying was short lived...it seemed to help at first, but was very difficult to maintain or keep him calm. In the video it works instantly....so either we never found the "sweet spot", or the video just shows one take out of 50 :-)

Overall, we have been doing MUCH better! At least now, as long as we are actively doing something with him he will quiet down. Either Josh is outgrowing some of his cranky tendencies  or we are getting to be better at this whole parenting thing!

Any other tips from new (or old) parents are always appreciated!

Not shown: Exercise Ball

Swaddled and Side Lying

Swinging!

Mmmm

All Smiles

In the last week or so Josh has started to smile and much more frequently. Often times in reaction to one of us smiling.  It has certainly been very fun for us to make him smile :-)