No longer a newborn

Dorian is now 12 weeks old and a newborn no more. It has gone by so quickly I could cry. But I'm too happy so I won't. He is the cutest baby ever. His personality is really starting to shine. He "talks" all the time, smiles wide open grins, is on the verge of laughing, kicks his legs, is beginning to grab things (accidentally right now), makes eye contact with whoever speaks with him and so much more. He sleeps 4-8 hours at the beginning of the night (the 8 hour stretches are bliss for Mama) but still wakes up every hour after that. Still, it's definitely progress.

He had his 3 month check-up on Monday. He weighed 14 pounds, 14 ounces - almost 15 pounds!!! Almost double his birth weight! He was 25 inches long. He is in perfect health. He had 3 shots and screamed but James was able to calm him down really fast. Poor little guy. The doctor said he does think Dori may be teething! It is a bit early but he said it does happen in some babies and he could feel something on his bottom gums and he does have the common symptoms (drooling, gnawing on his and our hands, fussiness).

James and I have just about (but not quite) gotten over that damn English cold. Our house is a mess at the moment because the builders are working on our bathroom/laundry room. Dorian's nursery is done - we just need to have it carpeted now. James has been working hard teaching, editing videos and working on recording projects. He will resume regular gigging in a week. I have been busy preparing for an exam to qualify for nursing school. I will take it on Monday and am dreading leaving Dorian for 4-6 hours. I have never been apart from him and he still isn't taking the bottle. I have visions of him screaming his head off the whole time I'm gone (as he does when we try to give him the bottle). Hopefully he'll prove me wrong. The doctor said it will be fine to leave him for that amount of time, even if he isn't taking the bottle. Apparently, the worst that will happen is that he will cry so hard he'll eventually fall asleep. I was so worried this would traumatize him and he'd end up hating me, but everyone has been quick to remind me he does not have those kinds of feelings or thoughts yet. Thank goodness. I could use some more reassurance though, so if other parents can relate, please share your thoughts. I am really worried about Monday (and not about the exam). I love Dori so much and hate to think of him upset.

A few pics, of course...

How grown-up does Dori look? He doesn't even look like a baby - he looks like a little boy!
Okay, he's still a baby...Dori loves to eat his hand
Playing with Daddy - Dori LOVES being held up high
Visiting Grandma at the hospital so she can show Dori off to all her nurses
Watching Daddy play - Dori's eyes intently follow Daddy's fingers!
Letting Dad know he's not happy with the way hats are placed on his head
Thanking Grandpa for removing the hat
Talking to no one in particular
Insert guitar here
Still loving the sling
Mama's boy
Cute
Cuter
Cutest

Christmas Wrap-Up and Happy New Year!

Hi all! We're back home, safe and sound and sick and tired. This is the longest cold EVER. Both James and I are still coughing, snorting and constantly yawning to try to make our ears pop. Dorian is great! He was wonderful on the flight home...both James and I really noticed how much he has truly changed in 3 weeks. On the flight over to the UK, he slept the whole time. On the flight back, we put him on his back on the table in front of us so he could kick his legs, wave his arms and smile at nothing in particular. We walked him up and down the aisles and stood up more as he really likes to be able to see the world around him. He did sleep, though we also noticed how much bigger he seemed in our laps on the airline seats. Amazing what a difference 3 weeks can make. Dorian now holds his own head up all the time. He smiles a lot. He makes loads of noises ("talking"). He now loves his swing and falls asleep in it easily. He can sit on his own and amuse himself for up to an hour! He loves lying on his back on his play mat and looking up at his mobiles. He still loves his Mama but does allow other people to hold him for longer periods of time. He sleeps in longer chunks now and can wake up and not start crying for 15-20 minutes. He doesn't seem to be too jetlagged at the moment, though he is falling asleep around 4pm in the afternoon California time. He slept (obviously with several feeding breaks) from 4pm-6am last night! My parents threw a New Year's Eve party (my dad's birthday is December 31 so they always do). Since Dorian was sleeping, I thought it would be best if I took a little nap too around 9pm. I slept through until his next feeding session at 1am! I missed ringing in the New Year! I can't think of any other way I would have rather spent it - in bed, cuddled up next to my sleeping baby. Bliss! James was away last night at a gig (the reason we returned before New Year's from England).

We will edit our 5+ hours worth of England video footage this week-end/next week and get some video clips up for you soon. In the meantime, please enjoy a photo extravaganza!!!!

James' friend Ben playing an impromptu piece at the White Hart Pub in Bridestowe. Ben, his French girlfriend Suzanne, James and I were a team for Graham's Christmas Quiz. We came in 9th out of 15. Not bad, though the boys would have done better without us foreigners. The quiz was tough and very anglocentric. Back to Ben though - he and James used to play a lot of music together. Ben is an amazing pianist, singer and songwriter - he plays piano 5 nights a week at the fanciest hotel in Devon. He has loads of stories of celebrities and politicians (including Tony Blair) requesting songs and listening to him play.

Auntie Leggy (Ro has called me this since he started talking!), Uncle Jim, Ro Ro and Dori. James and I used to babysit Rowan all the time when he was a baby and toddler. We moved to the US when he was 2.5 years old and saying good-bye to him was the hardest thing we've ever done. Ro meant everything to us, and it so nice to see how into Dorian he is. He absolutely adores his cousin! It is so sweet.

Boy pile! Phil, Josh, Ro and Dori
Grae, Josh and Phil
James, his sister Hannah, dad Graham, and Dori
James, Jen, Josh and Ro decorating the Christmas tree
Cousins!
James with his close friend (for over 17 years!) James Hanlon. Hanlon's baby Erin Rose is 2 weeks younger than Dori - look at how much bigger Dori is though! We've got ourselves a giant here!
Doting dads
James' other close friend Nick holding Dori - doesn't look like Nick has had too much experience with babies, does it? :) Plus, the men were a little worse for wear after a night on the town!
Finally, James' last close friend Duncan is left holding the baby!
My friend Sam (who visited from London for 4 days) and Dori
My new favorite photo of Uncle Jim and Ro Ro
Joshy is a wine connoisseur already!
James' Equation bandmate Sean holding Dorian, James holding one of Sean and Kath's twins Poppy (or is it Lily?)
Equation lead singer Kath and the other twin Lily (or Poppy????)
James and Dori, asleep from too much excitement (actually, illness)
And Kelly too
The food spread for the Open House on December 23rd. Jen and Grae put this on for their friends and neighbors. We had dozens of people coming in and out all day to see James and Dorian (and me too, I suppose!)
Ro loving Dori on Christmas Eve (after the Crocker family traditional Christmas Eve walk)
We celebrated Christmas day with Hannah, Phil, Ro, Josh, Jen and Grae. It was so fun to enjoy it with Josh and Ro. They were so excited to see this many presents under the tree!
Playing games Christmas afternoon (a Crocker family tradition)
Kelly and Hannah at Christmas dinner
Josh in his new policeman outfit
Rowan in his self-made spy costume
Christmas Day 2 (celebrated on December 26 "Boxing Day") with Graham's family. This is one side of the table - James' uncle Rob, James, James' aunt Jill, her husband Roy and cousin Dan's girlfriend Charlotte (Jill and Roy have 2 sons - Dan and Stewart)
The other side of the table on Boxing Day (Dan's girlfriend Charlotte again, Dan, Kelly feeding Dori, James' mum Jen, cousin Stewart and his wife Gerry)
Christmas Day 3 (December 27th) - celebrated with Jen's family. I could not even begin to fit all these people in one picture! Jen has 2 sisters and a brother, all of whom have 2-3 kids, most of whom now have partners and kids of their own! We had around 25 people over, and not everyone was able to make it!
Jen prepared 4 big food days - one for the Open House, 2 full roasts for Christmas Day and Boxing Day and a luncheon feast on December 27th. Plus, she managed to do this while fighting The Cold, looking gorgeous, and fitting in time to spend with her 3 grandsons! Amazing.
Watching Bob the Builder with the boys
Feel like you've seen this picture before? We have loads of pictures like this, as Rowan kept wanting cuddles with Dorian. He would say "Leggy, Dori is holding my hand" or "Jim, Dori flumped on me again!" ("Flumped" means "farted" - apparently the word fart is not a nice word in the UK)
The last photo of the boys in 2007
Happy New Year everyone!!!

Coming home...

We had a wonderful Christmas week, despite all the illness. We are now starting to feel normal again, though both James and I are still coughing a bit and feeling very fatigued. Dorian is doing great...he has had a growth spurt the past few days and has been eating nonstop! He also started drooling like crazy today and keeps gnawing on my finger. Is he already getting teeth??? Plenty of pictures and video clips to come upon our return. We leave for Heathrow in 3 hours. It's been quite the trip. See you all again from Bloggerville, California!

I'll leave you with a photo of the family out for our Christmas Eve walk...

Christmas week

Our holiday pictures are saved on the desktop computer here, which does not want to cooperate at the moment. Don’t panic, the pictures are safe, I just can’t access them right now! I will include some pictures of James' village and Dartmoor throughout this blog. I love all the history!

Pictures of the surrounding countryside (Dartmoor National Park)


Dorian is doing sooooo much better. The past couple mornings he has hacked and hacked, obviously trying to get gunk out of his chest. James and I spent about an hour each morning in the bathroom with the hot shower running to allow the steam to break up some of that gunk. Poor little guy. I know he doesn’t really have feelings yet – he’s mostly a machine with built-in reflexes – but it is horrible to hear him scream while trying to cough the stuff up. Still, his health is improving by the hour and I am so thankful for antibiotics. What happened to newborns who got this sick before antibiotics? I dread to think.

In other news, James and I have been very sick since Friday. Our colds became much worse over the week-end, complete with fever, extremely sore throat, aches and pains and the worst cough in the world. James is feeling better today, but I am still feeling like I’ve been hit by a truck. I am so hoarse, it’s funny I suppose. Jen and Grae are now sick too, though they keep insisting they’re fine! It’s the British way, you know? Stiff upper lip, chin up, soldier on! It’s so unfortunate that we have now spent over a week dealing with illness on our 3 week trip. James had to cancel a night out with his close friends this week-end and we have not seen his sister Han, her husband Phil or our nephews Ro and Josh as much as we had hoped.

We drugged ourselves up (James more than me since I’m breastfeeding) and managed to make it up to Bristol to see James’ close friend James Hanlon and his wife Sarah. Their 7 week old baby girl Erin Rose has already had the cold so they were not worried about her catching it. We also made it over to see Kath and Sean (James’ former Equation bandmates) and their 6 month old twin girls Poppy and Lily. Yesterday was the open house day Jen and Grae planned for Dorian. Dozens and dozens of people from their village came to see us. Dorian was held by at least 15 people and did great! He is a little charmer alright.

Dorian finally got over his jetlag on Friday and, boy did he! The past 2 nights he has slept for 10 hours!!!! He woke up to feed both nights after about 6 hours and then fell asleep again for another 4. SUCCESS! Of course, James and I haven’t been sleeping because we’ve been coughing so much, but at least we haven’t had to deal with the baby at the same time. I hope Dori’s jetlag on the way back doesn’t take as long (2 weeks) to beat. Even if it does, at least we know he can do the long sleeps! He is also feeding much more efficiently – his sessions in the middle of the night take about 10-15 minutes. When I pump my milk now, it literally GUSHES into the bag so I know that something has changed. We still don’t have Dori on the bottle yet, but we continue to persevere. What a challenge this has turned into!

At 1pm today, we are going for a Christmas Eve walk with James’ immediate family (Jen, Grae, Han, Phil and the boys) – it is a family tradition. Tonight we’re off to the village pub – another family tradition.

Bridestowe’s White Hart, built in the 16th century
I will probably pop over to the village church for a midnight service with Jen, just for the full English Christmas experience. James refuses to go – he has never been and is not about to start now. I remember going to the service the first time I visited Devon and it was a barrel of laughs – we sang Christmas carols and laughed at the drunk vicar!

Bridestowe’s Parish Church, the third on the site – the present church was completed in 1450
We will celebrate Christmas day with Jen, Grae, Han, Phil and the boys. On Boxing Day (December 26), we will have Grae’s brother and sister and her family over. Finally, on December 27th, Jen’s 2 sisters and brother and their families will come over (more than 20 people!) On Friday the 28th, we will pack up and then leave at 3am for Heathrow. I will try to post again before we return to the US, but you can expect a couple of long blogs with photos and videos some time upon our return. You’re not going to recognize Dorian – he is so big and his face is incredibly expressive now. His personality is really starting to shine.

Thanks to everyone for your thoughts and messages while we’ve been ill. We hope you all have a wonderful holiday week. Enjoy every minute! Love to you all.

Poor little sick baby

Yesterday was the worst day of my life. Dorian was so sick. We had a really tough night again on Wednesday night - lots of coughing, gagging, screaming when coughing. Everyone still thought it was just a cold but I started to doubt this when we began hearing constant rattling noises in his chest. He also became so pale and threw up A LOT of milk after one of his coughing fits. Then came the deep sleep and fever - almost 101 degrees (anything over 100.5 in a newborn is considered potentially dangerous and you are urged to go see a doctor). So off we went to Okehampton Medical Center, about 15 minutes from James' parents' house. I was very impressed - I wasn't expecting much for a small country town hospital. They got us in to see a doctor within 5 minutes of arriving and she was amazing. Dorian's cold had spread to his chest so he was prescribed a 5 day course of antibiotics and Paracetamol (acetaminophen aka Tylenol) to lower the fever. After 24 hours on the meds, he is a completely different baby. He is still coughing, but seems so much calmer and happier. He was MISERABLE yesterday and last night. And so was I. I am so relieved he is okay and that he received wonderful care. Now we can enjoy the last week of our trip. James and I both have a cold (the original virus Dorian had) but we are functioning just fine. We have a million people to see over the next week, and so many family obligations for the holidays. It is so exciting! I will post more pictures before Christmas Eve. Hope everyone is doing well - I hear it's been raining in the Bay Area. It rained the first day we arrived in England but has been sunny (albeit extremely cold and windy) ever since.

Still sick

Poor Dori is still sick. Last night was horrible. He kept coughing to the point of gagging. I was so scared. Luckily, James is very calm and kept control of the situation. I was almost ready to go to the hospital! It's funny, I am so excited to be a nurse and when other people are sick, I'm levelheaded. However, when I'm sick, I'm miserable. And it appears that when Dori is sick, I am terrified! He just seems so little and fragile and when the coughing made him appear to stop breathing for a second (an illusion), it scared the life out of me. He's going to be okay though - we're keeping a close eye on him and staying in for a few days. James and I are feeling sick now too! :( Plus, Dori is still jetlagged so we're exhausted (probably why we got sick as well!) At least we are staying with James' mom and dad (so even though we're sick, they still get plenty of time to spend with us).

Picture taken the day before Dorian came down with a cold - looking really alert and bright-eyed (and old!)! More pictures to come soon.

England update

Sorry for no posts over the last week. We have been insanely busy (or felt like it anyway) since arriving last week-end. It's been great so far...we're catching up with loads of old friends and family. However, I am absolutely exhausted. Dorian is jetlagged. He sleeps all day and is then up from about 12-5am (4-9pm PST). We have had plans during the days though so I haven't been able to sleep when he does. Today we had Ro and Josh (our nephews) over and I had to go back to bed this afternoon. I felt so bad because Ro, the 5 year old, was dying to spend time with Dori and I. I am so sleep-deprived I felt sick though. I managed to get a few hours sleep this afternoon and do feel better for it. It's amazing that Dori is jetlagged (and still one week later) - we hadn't realized he actually had gotten into a routine in the US! Dori also woke up with a little cold today - he's snuffling and coughing. It's not too bad and he seems okay but of course, it breaks my heart to have him sick. Hopefully it will stay as is and not get any worse.

Here are a few pictures to tide you over - I'll try to get some more up over the next couple days...

The cousins
Auntie Han, Uncle Phil, Cousins Ro and Josh
All bundled up - it's in the mid-30's here!