July 27 - July 29

We took William to North Alabama to see Mayme & Gramps and to meet his aunts, uncles, cousins and great-grandparents. On Saturday afternoon, Sandra hosted a meet-and-greet for William at their house. Present were: Mayme & Gramps, Aunt Susan & Uncle Tommy, Drew, Chris, Uncle Allen, Emma, Anna Grace, Ethan, Great-Aunt Rhonda & Great-Uncle James, Matt & Julie, Lucy, Silas (we hadn’t seen Matt & Julie for several years, not since Lucy was about 6 months old or so!), Mike & Carey, Matthew (who had grown so much over the last 2 months since we’d last seen him; what a happy baby, and such chubby little arms and legs!), Brad, Fred & Elaine, Mickey & Sally.

William was being, in general, a bit fussy and wanted mostly to sleep or eat. So not many people held him. I don’t know if they wanted to; not many people asked. But it was really nice to see everyone again, and for Darryl’s relatives to finally meet our cute little son. We were given some nice gifts for William: a monogrammed blanket and burp cloths from Brad; two books from Tommy & Susan, two large-sized Osh-Kosh outfits from Fred & Elaine; a Target gift card from Mickey & Sally (Sally had also brought a cake); a portable high chair/booster seat and a baptismal-type gown from Mike & Carey; frog toys and bath accessories from Matt & Julie; two long-sleeved, larger size outfits from Sandra & Jerry;….? Thanks to everyone for the gifts and moreso for the company!

Later that evening, we ordered pizza and had a low-key, belated birthday ‘celebration’ for Sandra. The kids watched a movie, Emma held William for a bit, several of the kids enjoyed stroking William’s head or touching his feet and hands, and William seemed especially taken with Anna Grace. Unfortunately, all the excitement seemed to have overstimulated William and Darryl had to take him into the bedroom, swaddle him up and rock him in the dimmed room.

On Sunday, we visited Mawmaw & Pawpaw Hadder with the added bonus that Uncle Dale was there. And then we visited Miss Della, who held William for a while. Darryl noticed that William’s tongue is more white than usual (it had been white towards the back for a while; I thought it was formula and that he had a ‘fuzzy’ tongue like I do), and white even towards the front. He asked Sandra about it and she thought it might be thrush, which made perfect sense to me once I heard that. I don’t know why I didn’t consider it and I felt badly for not having thought about it before. It also makes sense because near the end of our stay in Canada, I had these sort of raised lighter-coloured areas on my lips, more on the inside of my mouth. And I had some white spots on the inside of my mouth, and my right tonsil got swollen. So I think that either I gave the thrush to William or vice versa (Darryl & I often do a quick ‘clean’ of William’s pacifier by sticking it in our mouths). Fortunately we take William to the pediatrician on Thursday; thrush shouldn’t pose any problems for William, but I will do a search online later to see what I can find out.

Some things about William:

It seems like he might be getting more influence now from my toes… his second toe is starting to curve outwards and his fourth toe is starting to curve quite a bit inwards (like me!). Hopefully, though, the genetic influence of Darryl’s long, lovely toes will mitigate this and William’s toes will at least be nicer-looking than mine.

William’s eyelashes are getting long. When he was born, you couldn’t really see any eyelashes on his eyes, and he had his eyes tightly shut. Since then, his upper eyelashes have been growing out and are now getting quite long, and over the past 3 weeks or so I’ve noticed that he ‘sprouted’ lower eyelashes, which are now growing out as well. His eyebrows are also now more noticeable, and the hair on the top and sides of his head is getting longer and is very soft. The longer ‘baby hair’ on the back of his head still hasn’t really fallen out. Sometimes I think William’s hair and eyebrows look reddish, but it’s hard to know if that’s just a trick of the light.

When William gives us a really big smile, that’s the best thing in the world!!!!

Last week sometime, when I was changing William on the Pack & Play changing pad, he was looking at the mobile and it looked like he was trying to reach out for it with his right hand. He really likes that Winnie the Pooh mobile a lot. He hasn’t seemed to notice the farm mobile in his crib yet. Maybe the plastic animals are too small?

I think William is starting to learn that he can punch things with his hands. I had the twirly-whirly toy that Kate gave us on the Pack & Play, with the stuffed animals dangling from the changing pad, and he seemed to enjoy hitting them with his fists. He also enjoyed putting the cow stuffed animal in his mouth! William does well now spending “alert & awake” times in his Pack & Play, just looking at everything (mobile, blinds, twirly-whirly toy). I think the crib and all its toys and paraphernalia is maybe just a bit overstimulative at this point: he gets fussy if I have him in there for more than about 10 min.

Sometime just before going to Canada, we learned that William will have a spot at St. Bede’s Child Development Center daycare in Montgomery. This is the daycare we’d hoped to get William into because it is church-run, it’s in Montgomery (vs. Auburn, so more convenient when I get a different job and if we both work in Montgomery it’ll give us more leeway for choosing where to live if we wish to move), and it seems to be of a good quality. They also have webcams which will allow us (and curious grandparents!) to check in on William during the day. I was very excited to find out William will be going to St. Bede’s!

A cute thing about William closing his fingers into a fist: nowadays, when he does that, he doesn’t keep his thumb under his fingers; rather, his thumb is tucked only under his index finger and so rests above his middle finger. This is interesting because often when I close my own fingers into a fist, I have my thumb tucked under my index and middle fingers.

William has recently become a lot more expressive with his hands. He has not really seemed to just look at his hands, the way many babies do, but it seems he knows that he can control them, or at least he uses them to express himself. He will bring his hands (whether in fists or not) up to his mouth and face when he is hungry (often he’ll sort of jab his face or eyes in the process). He definitely tries to “hold” his bottle more now, or “hold up” your fingers while you’re holding his bottle. He will use his hands to try and get a pacifier or bottle away from his mouth. He’s starting to seem like he’s trying to reach for things, but it’s hard to know whether that is an accurate observation at this point. And when he’s resting, William will move his hands and flex his fingers, make little gestures with his hands and just shape his fingers into different configurations (e.g. “hang ten”). I noticed that when he is unsure of his surroundings, like when we were at Mayme & Gramps’ and there were tons of people around and tons of noises, he will keep his hands in fists (even while sleeping) instead of having his hands open.