13 weeks and the international traveler

13 weeks old, how can that be?

The Sprout can now:

• Look and follow things
• Smile on demand
• Hold his head up for long periods of time
• Make the cutest little cooing noises
• Be “wiggy” on his back all by himself and be entertained
• Seems entertained by my reading to him and the pictures in his books
• Has moved on to size 2 diapers because he is a whopping 11 lbs (which is killing my back).

Some things that aren’t so great are:

• Wanting to be held when he is done being “wiggy”.
• It is getting almost impossible to sneakily put him down when he has fallen asleep.
• His tummy is still in an awful state of constipation and gas.

Some of his favourite things:

• Being walked and rocked
• “Wiggy” time
• The mobile his Grammy got him
• The shadows the cat watches on the wall
• This picture I have on the wall

Walk through the Cemetery by Jasmine Becket-Griffith

After we recovered from our jet lag which left the Sprout crying all night and sleeping all day, he has now settled into a somewhat “big boy” routine of being awake all day, with a short nap or two, and sleeping in 4 hour intervals at night starting from 6 pm to 5 am.

The trip to the US

The trip to the US went by too fast.  It had been a year since I had been home.  It must have been weird to meet my Sprout and have never even seen me pregnant.

The airport and ride on the plane went by easy peasy.  I was so worried, but I now have a new respect for what stewards actually do on the plane.  They don’t just give you food and drinks, they are there to help you and make sure you don’t freak out.  It is hard to remember that there can be a couple of hundred people on a plane and the stewards are there to make sure everyone gets along and enjoys the flight, they are at the forefront of customer service.  The stewards on the American bound KLM/Delta flight from Amsterdam were really great.

Things that made my plane trip better:

• A bulkhead seat with a bassinette.  I can’t imagine having a child bigger than the Sprout on my lap all by myself for 10 hrs.  I was pretty insistent on having a bassinette and then we didn’t use it much, but it was nice to have.
• A sling.  I didn’t even use the stroller except as a trolley for my bags.

Baba sling

• A bottle with formula.  Even though security was extremely tight at Amsterdam, they are really friendly about baby stuff.
• A manual breast pump.  Something happens to your breasts at 30,000 ft.  The pressure seems to make all the milk want to come out.

Avent manual breast pump

• A hooter hider.  I had never had to hide my chest when breast feeding and in such small spaces, using a blanket was really hard, so the hooter hider was really excellent even though the Sprout really didn’t like it.

Bought from Joanna Design on Etsy.com

• And just having a baby.  You get pushed to the front of the line for everything and if you don’t MEN complain, it is so sweet.

The Sprout was an excellent flyer.  He kept to his regular schedule of awake and sleep times with only a few fussy times in between, but he hardly ever cried.

When we got to customs, I had to fill out a visitor form for Sprout because of his British passport, but other than that the transition was smooth.

Being at home was so nice.  I didn’t care that it rained for the majority of the time or that I didn’t spend much time driving, I enjoyed visiting with my family and was glad that they all got to see Sprout for the first time.  It was the perfect way to spend the New Year.