Happy Father's Day!

Things are going well here and the little guy is becoming more and more fun every day. We had a really nice Father's Day, especially since J is starting to get more smiles and coos from Mr. Bean. J has been playing the guitar and singing to him, and we got two great videos of Mr. Bean kicking and "singing" along. One was to just a clip of some kind of random "rock riffing", and the other was an entire performance of a song that J wrote for the baby when I was still pregnant - it is "his" song and J played it for him several times in utero. That was really sweet.

Mr. Bean got his dad a photo mug and mouse pad from Shu.tterfly for Father's Day. J loves the mug, while the mouse pad may go the way of many future Father's Day gifts - he says he probably just won't use it because it doesn't go with the "theme" of his desk at work! Whatever!

J's dad was here for a visit over the weekend, but left on Sunday morning so we had the whole day to ourselves. He stayed at a hotel fortunately, but still spent a lot of time over here from Thursday evening through Saturday evening. He was completely gaga over his first grandchild, which was sweet but also kind of overwhelming. He is a very strong personality and I can really only take him in small doses. But I'm not about to begrudge him any time he wants to spend loving on his grandson.

On Sunday we had a quiet day and went out for a walk through a street fair near our apartment, until the walk was cut short by baby needing to eat. It was nice to just hang out with the three of us though.

On the eczema front - I think it is pretty much completely gone. I wanted to try to confirm that cow's milk is to blame, so rather than eating something that would take a while to work its way out of my system again, I gave him a bottle of breastmilk that I pumped before cutting out the dairy. Indeed, that seemed to cause a tiny little flare-up, so I feel pretty confident that we have identified the cause. So right now I am enjoying a yummy iced coffee with vanilla flavored Silk Almond milk. I've been really missing cheese, so I'm going to search out some nice goat and/or sheep cheese. For example, I might not be able to eat parmesan on my pasta, but I can have pecorino! I will draw the line at drinking goat's milk or eating goat yogurt though...

We are still having fussy late-evenings with the little guy, and now he has stopped wanting to take a bottle before going to bed. The past two nights I've had to nurse him rather than J giving him a bottle - he just gets hysterical about the bottle. I was able to give him the bottle later the other night, for a middle of the night feed, and he took it with no problem, so I'm not sure what is going on. I guess he's just over-tired and fussy, and only the breast will do. I also realized that he's just not napping much during the day, so we need to work on that. He is sleeping well at night, and right now is still sleeping at 10:30 am, after eating at 7:30. So I guess he is getting most of his sleep needs met overnight and in the morning, but we do need to establish a more formal nap in the afternoon or early evening, ideally in his crib rather than his swing. He still sleeps in the co-sleeper in our room at night, but I want to start putting him down for a nap during the afternoon in the crib in his nursery, so he can start getting used to sleeping in there. I'm not sure when we'll transition him to the nursery for night time.

Ok, I think he is starting to wake up finally and he's going to be hungry. It's so funny how quickly he can melt down when he needs to eat!