Axel is 4 months old!!!

Yesterday, Friday, Axel officially turned 4 months. It is amazing how much our lives have changed, yet it seems hard to remember life without the little guy. As Keith said last night while Axel and I were watching him water the garden, "You do know that this was my dream. All I wanted was a wife, children, a dog or two and house with a garden." It is funny how simple my husband is. I have always thought of myself as a simple, low maintenance kind of gal, but I always dreamed of travelling and seeing the world. Keith is right though, my family makes me complete. People make me complete. As much as the world has to offer, it would really be nothing without the people we love along the way.

Ok, enough with the sentimental thoughts. On Wednesday I forgot to mention that Axel's high chair came in. It took me a few weeks of research to decide on what I thought would be best for him and most economincal. I am pleased to say that so far I absolutely love the Anka by Svan High Chair. It grows with the child and is the exact height of our table which will allow us to use it as a booster chair until Axel is 50 lbs. It is the cutest high chair I have ever seen. We tried it out as soon as it arrived. I think Axel liked it. I have yet to use it again, because the Dr. said that I should wait to feed Axel solids. I don't want him to get confused with playing in the high chair. I want him to know that being in the high chair means meal time, which excludes eating toys :)


I put on another outfit that I thought worth mentioning. I find it funny how they design onesies that are short and wide but pants that are super long. How can a baby be fat and have long legs? the great thing about this outfit is it has a matching bib and a little doggie tail on the butt :) It also reminded me of the 80's with the little built in leg warmers.



Axel has also been spontaneously holding his bottle a couple of times per day. He doesn't seem strong enough when the bottle is full but by the time the bottle only has an ounce or two he happily takes over.

Axel is also exploring objects more and more. He loves to see how things work. For example, any ceiling fan or chandelier really grabs his attention. You can see from the picture below how he loves exploring the details of his car seat :)

The Dr. suggested that we treat Axel's ichthyosis on his scalp like cradle cap. So every day for the past three days I have been applying mineral oil for one hour and then washing it off with Cetaphil and a baby brush. I do believe it is working to get the current dry skin off, but I am not sure if it will help new scales from drying up and flaking off. The difficult part about treating his scalp with the mineral oil is preventing him from touching it and then putting his hands in his mouth. Mineral oil is used for bedridden older adults as a laxative. Oral use of mineral oil is strongly discouraged in infants. Shouldn't they put two and two together and realize that the chances of an infant ingesting mineral oil goes up a thousand times by prescribing it for topical use? Anyways, the picture below shows the only thing that I could think of to prevent him from touching the oil. I think it reminds me of the old Aunt Jemima commercials.

I have been looking at this little cow outfit for a couple of months hoping Axel would have the opportunity to wear it. Unfortunately, the weather has been a little too hot. I finally decided we better try it on because it is a 0-3 month old outfit that he will likely grow out of in the next couple of weeks. This is the downfall about prewashing baby clothes before they wear it....they may never get the opportunity to actually wear it.


I have also been eyeing this little Calvin Klein overall outfit that I thought was too big for him. It is a 3-6 month outfit. Luckily after washing it shrunk to the perfect size. I am hoping Axel will get to wear this outfit a few more times before the weather cools down. I think he looks abslutely adorable in it. You can see Axel giving the "Texas Longhorn sign" in the picture below. He is already too "cool", but we're not sure how he chose his team.


Alrightly, time to get this posted before the little guy wakes up. After two days of sleeping well and only waking 4 times per night he is back to having a lot of trouble sleeping. He was up until 12:30 in the morning trying to fall asleep last night (Saturday). He also spit up a ton this morning. So much for his belly getting better. I am going to give the medication one more week and then email the Dr. on what we can do next. I only have two weeks until I go back to work so I would really like him to be getting up 2-3 times a night and not having these long 1-2 hours of wakefulness/fussiness that he is currently having.

Grammy Goodrow Comes to Town

We were very happy to have Grammy Goodrow (Keith's mother) visiting us for one week. It was the first time for her to meet Axel and the first time for Axel to meet anybody from Keith's side of the family. Grammy Goodrow got to spend time with her happy, cute, and talkative little (almost) 4-month-old grandson. Keith was really excited to spend some time with his mother who was traveling all the way from his hometown in Massachusetts to spend time with her boys. Grammy Goodrow brought with her years of childrens' educating experience and her buttermilk pancake and peach pie recipes that we got to enjoy throughout the week. We always love our family time, especially when they come to visit us.

Lets start where we left off. Tues. afternoon Axel and I picked up Grammy from the airport. We had fun circling SFO for about 30 minutes before hunger and sleepiness set in for both of us. I was headed towards the cell phone parking lot when Grammy called to let us know that she had just arrived (30 min late). I thought it shouldn't be too much longer until she gets her luggage so I decided to continue driving rather than park. Unfortunately, I then had to become super mom and feed Axel while circling SFO. I developed quite the "kink" in my neck for the next couple of days because of the contorted way I had to sit in order to feed him and still drive at the same time. It was the longest 15 minutes and Axel, Grammy and I were all ecstatic when Grammy was safe in the car and feeding Axel the rest of his bottle. Grammy was amazed at how easy going and happy Axel was. She was shocked that he was smiling at her and that he let her feed him. Little did she know that I have been working hard at having him around as many people as possible and having anyone and everyone hold him and feed him. No one wants a fussy baby :) The rest of the day was pretty mellow. Axel and I hung out while Grammy went for a run and got settled in.

Wed. was pretty low key as well. Keith took the day off of work so we were both able to get out on separate rides and Grammy went for her run and Axel had fun playing with who ever was around. Axel, Grammy and I also went on a nice 5.5 mile hike through the hills of Los Altos. Thursday Grammy had plans to meet up with her best friend from 7th grade!!! It had been over 40 years since the two of them had seen each other. They had a great time at lunch and catching up.

Friday Grammy and I took Axel to his 4 month wellness check. Axel weighed in at 12 lbs 12 oz and 2' 1/4". Unfortunately, the Dr. agreed with me that Axel likely had a little stomach bug that caused the low grade fever and loose stools. She thought his poor sleeping was due to his stomach bothering him. Axel has also developed quite severe acid reflex that causes him to spit up all day long. The Dr. put him on some medication to help decrease the acid in his stomach, but Axel doesn't really like the mint flavor and spits most of it out so I am not sure how much he is actually taking in. The good thing is after implementing the medication and raising the head of his bed he is finally sleeping 7pm to 10:30 or 11pm and then again until 2am and then again until about 4:30 or 5am. It is funny that he is eating 3-4 times a night, but the Dr. also thinks that he is in a growth spurt and that I should continue to feed on demand and worry about his sleep schedule after a few more weeks. Saturday Grammy watched Axel all by herself while Keith and I got out for a nice ride in the not so nice cold, wet fog. We quickly climbed out of the fog as we left Half Moon Bay, but it stayed cool the entire ride. It was so cool that the top of the dirt trail Keith took me on was wet/muddy which made for some nervous riding on my part. The Purissima trail was definitely as beautiful as Keith said it was. It was really hard to stay seated over some very steep sections and it was mentally challenging for me to get through the muddy sections. I am glad that I finally rode it and I am sure that I will ride it many more times in the future.

Saturday evening we hosted a little get together and had Keith's MIT buddies over to celebrate Mark's birthday. Eileen bought Keith and Mark the same birthday present in hopes to provide entertainment for the rest of us. It was a bit of an inside joke. All of you who attended our wedding will "get it". For those of you who weren't there lets just say that we didn't have typical wedding music :) You can see from the picture below how much fun we had. Now we were unable to have a true light saber dual because batteries were not included. I forgot to mention that Grammy and Keith made a homemade peach pie for Saturday evening as well. You can see from the picture below how gifted Keith is at baking. This is his very first home made crust and pie and it was the best peach pie I have ever eaten and one of the prettiest pies I have ever seen :) Sunday Grammy watched Axel again while Keith and I went for another ride together. Grammy continued to brag about how good Axel was and how she couldn't believe what an angel he was. The 4 of us went out for dinner on Sunday night which was our first time out as a family. Axel and I went out to eat way back when Grandma and Grandpa Burgess came out to visit, but Keith was still on his commute home from work. You can see from the pictures below how much fun Axel had looking at the trees, cars and flowers around our table. I also included a close up picture of Grammy and Axel. We are beginning to think that Axel's eye are not going to change color. We think that Axel may have inherited his blue eyes from Grammy Goodrow :) This past week has been the most drastic changes in Axel's behavior and fine motor skills. It is amazing to see him fine tune his ability to reach for objects and manipulate his hands. His attention span has also increased drastically. He absolutely loves the alphabet, numbers and reading. Vocally he is even more talkative than he was before he came down with his stomach bug. Here is a video of him rambling on. We are not quite sure what he was talking about, but we do know that he is always very convincing :)

Axel will be 4 months on Friday. I hope to take his photos and do another short post so check back soon. For now I leave you with my precious sleeping baby......oh, how I wish he would sleep more :)

Mr. Cutie vs. Mr. Fussy

Well, yet again, it is Wednesday and I am just getting to this because Axel and I are just so very busy. We are so busy that I can't seem to remember what we did last Thursday and Friday. Obviously, it must not have been very important.

This past weekend,though, was all about remembering Mr. Hippstar. Keith went on a >100 mile memorial ride on Saturday through all of Chris's favorite climbs and dirt trails. (Yes, he loved to take the road bike off road. Keith is going to take me up one of the dirt trails this coming Saturday. I am a little nervous because I am not too keen on taking the road bike off road, but from what I hear the Purissma trail is a must with all of its beauty.) On Sunday I went on Chris's big memorial ride which stopped by the tree where he was found after collapsing. It was very sad, but I was glad to be able to give my support. In the afternoon, his girlfriend of 14 years had an open house at their home. We stopped by and were pleased to see everyone enjoying each others company, while sharing their memories of Hipp. Lorraine had pictures up of the past 4 decades of him racing his bike (both cycling and motor cross). It was very cool to see the "younger" Chris before any of us knew him.

Monday Axel and I went out to lunch with Gwen. Of course we went to my favorite bagel shop for a bagel sandwich. Yesterday Axel and I picked up Grammy (Carol) Goodrow from the airport and we have been extremely busy ever since. I will write more on how our visit goes with her next Tuesday after she leaves. For now I would like to high light some of Axel's new milestones.

The big milestone in my mind is that Axel is now wearing the next size clothing. Yep, he is wearing 3-6 month clothing. He can still fit in a lot of his 0-3 month clothing, but I decided to pack them away so that he would get a chance to wear the 3-6 month clothing before he grows out of them. It is funny because the clothes looked much too big, but by the time I washed and dried them they seemed to shrink up to just the right size. Here is my favorite PJ's that one of my co worker's bought him. I never thought my child would be wearing "designer" clothes, but I do have to say if I saw this in the store I just might have been tempted to purchase it!

Now a funny observation I noticed in many of his 3-6 month clothing and onesies is that they seem to be the same size in length but just wider. Here is an outfit where the onesie is barely long enough, but definitely too wide. What makes this outfit more confusing is if the kid is suppose to be short and fat, why are the pants so long? Or, does Axel have a super long torso and midget legs?


You can also see from this next picture that the onesie is not only wide, but the child is also suppose to have a huge head and neck :) If Axel had chest hair he would be accused of trying to show it off!

Now to return to that very touchy subject of sleep(hence the name of the post). Axel seems to becoming more and more himself over the past couple of days. His temperature has been normal for the past two days and he is definitely crying much less than he has been over the past two weeks. I was at my wits end on Sunday night completely frustrated as he was not only up every 1-2 hours but was competely up from 1-3am straight. I could tell that he was a bit sleep deprived himself because he napped for almost 5 hours on Monday (over 4 naps). The past two nights he has still been getting up every 2 hours, but I only fed him at 11pm and 3am. He went to bed at 7:30 and slept straight until 11pm without waking (too bad we were all watching a movie). He then slept until 1am where I gave him his Binky and he went back to sleep until 3am. After feeding him he then slept soundly until 5am. He fussed until 5:45am when I finally decided to pick him up and bring him into bed with us, but overall it was a huge success. I was able to get him to wait until 8am before eating. This is huge because Axel REALLY likes to eat every 2 hours, but mommy REALLY wants him to eat every 3-4 hours. All in all it is getting better and he is doing a better job of eating 5 oz at a time during the day instead of 3-4oz that he had been eating. I think he is down to 7-8 feedings a day which is wonderful for me.

I am praying that Axel will be in a steady routine by the time I return to work in 3 weeks. It is hard for me to believe that I have to return to work. It kind of seems like time has stood still and I am living in a a world between worlds where work is a foreign word that only describes what other humans do to fill their day. Here is a picture where Keith and Axel's expressions sum up my thoughts exactly......granted they are both looking worked from the heat :)

On another note, Axel's hair looks like it is finally starting to come in. I even saw hair toe on him for the first time the other day. Who knew that infants have toe hair? You can kind of see his blonde fuss in the picture below.

Oh, I do want to mention that in retrospect I decided that Axel must have had a virus of some sort over the past two weeks which caused his low grade fever and loose stools. I am still going to ask the Dr. about the teething thing and see what she thinks. For now we will sign out until next week. Hope you all have a great end of the week and weekend!!!

The Good, The Bad and The Sad

Well, it is already Wednesday and each day some new obstacle has gotten in the way of me writing this blog. Therefore, I will make this short and try to sum up in a nut shell all of the events since Friday.

Lets start with the good because it is always nice to hear good news first.
1. Saturday I was able to enjoy a nice ride in the morning, while Keith enjoyed his morning with the little guy.
2. Keith had a good time racing on Saturday night.
3. Keith and I both got to race on Sunday and we both had a ton of fun in the scorching heat. We came home with lots of prizes and a good chunk of cash :)


4. Axel continues to get cuter by the day.


5. Axel is on day 3 of his new routine of bedtime at 7:30pm and nap at 9am and 1pm. He is becoming a better sleeper again and every day we practice the sleeping thing (at night and during the day) he becomes more and more like his old happy self.
6. Axel is 3.5 months old!


The Bad is only relative and is always short lived, but definitely worthy of mentioning.
1. I became very ill after the race on Sunday with a severe migraine and nausea that turned into solid and liquids coming out both ends by the time we got home from the race. After talking with a teammate I think it was a combination of bad turkey in a sandwich I consumed after the race along with the wonderful heat...
2. Axel had terrible sleeping over the weekend and was up almost every hour again on Friday night and every two hours on Saturday night.
3. Axel has been running a 99 degree temperature off and on for 3 days now with very loose stools.
4. Work is ever frustrating and I am still not sure how many hours and what days I will be returning to work.
5. Keith rode so hard on Saturday night that he developed hematuria from poor hydration before the race. Luckily it resolved by the next day with large amounts of water consumption.
6. Our house has been between 80 and 90 degrees for a few days,which is hard on the little guy. He is either naked or has a damp wash cloth on some part of his body.



And last the Sad.......
Another good acquaintance of ours passed away. He was a wonderful person who was very well liked in the cycling community. He was a good friend to many of my friends and Keith's and my heart goes out to all who were close to Chris Hipp. He will be greatly missed.

Trouble Maker

Daddy had a great birthday. Unfortunately, I totally forgot to take pictures so you will have to trust that the chili dogs were awesome and Keith completely enjoyed them :) I wanted to write a quick post on my new found trouble maker. Lately, Axel has been using his hands more and more. He will grab onto objects and entertain himself with anything he can get his hands on. The first time that I noticed this was last week when I was in the spare bedroom. I put Axel in the center of the bed next to tissue paper and a gift bag. I heard him laughing and cooing and when I turned around Axel's face was covered by the tissue paper. It was the cutest thing. We played, "where did Axel go" for about 10 minutes. I eventually had to take the tissue paper away because he started putting it into his mouth which is his second favorite thing to do. I didn't have the camera around to take a photo, but I did take a photo of a similar situation that happened yesterday. I put Axel down to take a nap in his pack n play because he was falling asleep. Of course, after I put him down I started hearing laughing and cooing again. I went over to check on him to find his face covered by his diapers. Unfortunately, I had to remove them while I got the camera because I was afraid of him suffocating, but I did catch him having fun playing with his diapers. I am a little bummed I need to find a new home for all of his cloth diapers, but know it is best to not take anymore chances now that he wants to grab everything. Axel was even being sneaky while we folded clothes yesterday. I put him in his usual place in the center of the bed and then started folding. We had quite a few towels that were next to him. Every time I looked over he kept sliding his hand in between the bottom two towels. As the pile became quite high I had to save him from being covered and buried by the stack of towels. He thought it was extremely funny and was laughing the loudest I have ever heard. The funny thing is I know that he has no idea what he is doing, but it sure seemed like he liked me moving his hand away from between the towels. Here is a picture of Axel, "double fisting". As I keep saying in each post that he is putting everything in his mouth. I placed two of his toys in his lap and within seconds he was trying to get both of them in his mouth. Since he couldn't fit both of them you can see from the picture below that he settled on his fist, which is pretty typical. Finally I have a short video clip of him talking to one of his favorite friends, Snuffy. I am sorry the quality of the film is pretty bad, but if I get too close to him he stops talking so I had to sneak the video in from the kitchen.

Oh, I forgot. I do want to mention that Axel is back to sleeping fairly well. Not as good as he used to, but much better than he has been. I think he just started another growth spurt, hence the screaming when he is overly hungry and the increased waking at night for extra feedings. I decided this as his napping has greatly increased over the past couple of days. Today he has already napped for 3 hours and before a few days ago he was barely napping an hour all day. Well, that is all for now. Have a fabulous weekend!

July 4th and more

Sorry I am just getting to this now, but Axel and I have been busy preparing for daddy's bday. Today Keith turns 34 and Daddy's list of wants continued to increase as the days approaching his birthday neared. It is funny because typically Keith and I don't want anything, but this year was different. First, Keith said, "I think I want a couple of new shirts for my birthday. You know, the ones with the collar that you bought me a couple of years ago". A couple of days later, "I think if you can get my battery for my watch, that would be great." And then I got, "I think if you can get a new phone for me and transfer my numbers that is what I really want!" But on Monday I got, "I really want chilly dogs. Can you make your yummy chili and can we put it over those hot dogs that we had at your mom's house this weekend?" Of course I thought! So, Axel and I had to go to the mall Monday and Tuesday this week in order to get daddy shirts and a new phone that works! I just finished getting the battery and buying all of the ingredients for the chili that I need to start making in the next 30 minutes. Good thing he won't read this until after today is nearly over. The wonderful thing about the way I shop is that his entire birthday only cost me $50. Yep....if you time it right and get shirts on sale with an additional 40% off at the Gap and then get a phone when you are eligible for an upgrade, money is hardly needed. Keith and I are very proud of our cheapness, a.k.a. frugalness

Now, on to Axel. Axel received a cute hat for my birthday from Tyler and Cynthia. Tyler and Cynthia love to buy Axel gifts. I do have to say that I love the baseball cap and am looking forward to when it fits!


We all had a great time at Gamma's house this weekend for the 4th. Every year we all get together and play croquet. The winner gets to add their name to the croquet trophy and keep it the entire year. Unfortunately, I lost it to Ryan in our dual off. I do have to say that he played quite well and I lost to a true up and coming croquet champion.



Axel had a great time after getting his screaming fit out the 45 min before everyone arrived. Boy, was I glad to get there an hour earlier than everyone else.

I am not quite sure why he is starting to become a screamer, but my only guess is that he is in pain from teething. His teeth still have not broken through his gums, YET, but besides biting on everything and being a constant drool machine he now screams uncontrollably at night and occasionally during the day. I have to "shhhh", swaddle, and rock him quickly side to side in order to calm him. The hour and a half that it initially took me to get him to stop and go to sleep is now down to about 20 min or so. Axel has also not been sleeping well during the day. Yesterday I discovered that if I swaddled him he actually took a full 2 hour nap. Unfortunately, last night was a pretty bad night of sleep and he was up almost every hour, but hopefully we will get back on track again. I keep threatening to give him baby Tylenol thinking that it will help, but I am afraid maybe I am reading him wrong and he is not in pain, but just has new found fussiness for other reasons that I am unaware of. The one night that I did give him Tylenol he slept quite well, but that was a week ago and his sleeping improved the following night for almost a week until last night. I guess the teeth make a slow progression and don't have to cause constant pain? Any moms out there who can help out or clarify would be greatly appreciated!

Here are a few more pictures from this weekend. A family picture with all 5 of us. A picture of naked Axel in the 95+ degree Sacramento weather and daddy being funny with Axel. Daddy thought he needed yet another picture of Axel holding some hard liquor along with a firecracker for his 1st 4th of July. Axel actually slept through the two hours of fire works that we did. I was glad because I really wanted to stay and enjoy the family tradition. Axel will probably be sleeping for at least another year or two during the fireworks, but I am sure he will love all of the fireworks that we set off eventually.




Hope you all have a great end of the week and I will post again soon on how daddy's/Keith's b-day went and how his weekend of racing goes. His team's race is this weekend so I am sure it will be fun. Ok, time to start that chilly while Axel's eyes are still shut!!

New Tricks....

Axel and I wanted to give a shout out to Grandma and Grandpa Burgess in Chicago for his 3 month birthday. You can see how cute Axel looks in his Cub outfit.It is still a little too big, but we wanted them to know that we are thinking about them and love them very much. We hope they enjoy these two photos that were posted especially for them!!! Every 3 days Keith has been diligently cleaning Axel's diapers. I finally managed to snap a few photos of him rinsing out the poops before placing the diapers in the washer. Axel is becoming more and more aware of his surroundings. I think I talked about how he is not only aware of Louis and Touis but seems to enjoy watching them as well. Here is a cute photo of Axel and Louis sitting on my lap. Physically Axel seems to make gains every day. I can't believe how much sturdier and stronger he is. I have been doing a better job of capturing these moments on film but I do have to say it is hard when I am the only one around during the day so I apologize for the poor quality in these photos and videos. I have a video of Axel rolling over. Yes he is on our kitchen table and he is always supervised and never left alone. Getting this on film only reminds me of how mobile he is becoming and how I can no longer leave him unsupervised on any surface besides the floor. :)

I also have a couple of photos of him standing in his play gym. He still loves to stand and he finds it even more satisfying to bite the support bars in the gym while he is standing. We discovered this on Wednesday when I stood him up next to his play gym he lunged for something to put in his mouth and ended up placing the support bar in it. I thought it was so cute I intentionally stand him next to it now. I also couldn't resist in adding a photo of him sitting up by himself with his back supported against the couch. He looks all grown up as he reaches for Mr. Giraffe. Sorry so short. We hope everyone has a great 4th of July! We will post again early next week!