On Hands and Knees

I still get those BabyCenter emails every week, talking about where Baby should be at whatever point in time that I'm reading their chronological baby timelines. What those bits of advice usually do is remind me of how below average Baby is, at least in terms of where he is in his locomotion evolution. An average baby will begin crawling around 8 months. Baby is at about 9 1/2 months, and has the strength, the poise, and the form, but he still doesn't know how to move his legs to propel his tubby body forward. He can go in reverse, and turn left and right on a dime, but this model seems to lack any forward acceleration.

Until last Thursday, that is, when I get a phone call at the office from Mommy to report that Baby is finally crawling...

What, no touch screen or 3G support?

Yes, it took some time a little beyond the "average" for him to hit the rug on all fours, but as a parent, always keep in mind that everything about babies is about averages and percentiles, and no number can be concretely tied to development or growth. Where Baby was at the lower end of the spectrum for crawling, we met a baby girl who was walking at 6 months. (The average age for walking is one year.) Baby is 50th percentile in weight, but he's wearing clothes for a two year old. Don't let emails, books, charts, and averages worry you too much - they're just guidelines, and just like adults, every baby will be different.

I'm hoping the average age a baby can hold a game controller is coming up soon.

Tossing and Turning

When he was a wee lad, Baby would lay down to sleep, first on his back, then eventually flipping on his tummy. Life was simple back then. Now he's getting bigger, stronger, and faster, and he's no longer content with just two sleeping positions. Now he can sit up, spin around, scoot, lay down, and repeat. His crib is more playmat than mattress.

While I'm in the office, I keep an eye on Baby by using a webcam and connecting to him with an online conference call. What I typically see within the first 20 minutes of a nap for Baby now looks like this:

If you want to set up a monitoring system to watch your little insomniac, you'll need the following:

• Computer in baby's room
• Webcam
• Video chat software

I purchased an Acer Aspire One Netbook to keep in Baby's room and hook the camera up to. It's got a 9" screen and weighs under 2 pounds, so it doesn't take up too much space. The small size and keyboard will also make typing easier for Baby, so he can document his own adventures one day.

The webcam you choose doesn't need to be anything complex, but should perform well in low light. Unfortunately, that's not really a number you can determine in the camera's specs, so you may have to experiment until you find one that works well in the lighting conditions of your baby's room. The webcam I use is a Microsoft LifeCam NX-6000 Webcam, and a non-Microsoft rubber band to attach it to the slats at the foot of the crib. The higher the placement of the camera the better, to keep your baby from reaching it. Note that this (and likely other Microsoft brand cameras) require Windows XP or later, with Service Pack 2.

Finally, some sort of program or software that lets you use it all. After doing a lot of research online, I settled with Tokbox. Tokbox is a site that lets you do video chat, video mail, and video conferencing without any software downloads and completely for free. Not having to have to download anything was important, so I could more easily share videos with anyone who wants to see Baby by just sending a link. This company has only been around since 2007, so there are some kinks to work out on their site, but it works pretty well for the most part.

And now you can spy on stalk monitor anyone! If you have any questions on how any of this stuff works or need a recommendation, just leave a comment and I'd be glad to assist.

Baby's Snifflin' New Year's Eve

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season, and a good start to the New Year. For Christmas, Baby got his first cold a week before the start of the holidays, wrapped in tissues and wet washcloths to wipe his runny nose with. He overcame it right around Christmas day, where he generously passed it on to Daddy, and I've been sick since. I read somewhere that there are over 70 strains of the cold virus, so once you've gotten a cold, you're immune to that strain for a while. That means I probably can't get Baby sick again, but Mommy has been popping Airborne like candy.

An average cold for a baby lasts between 7 and 10 days. As long as he's not running a fever, he can likely just overcome the cold on his own. Don't bother with the Infant Tylenol, as that stuff actually isn't recommended for "infants" under 2 years of age. (Says so right on the box.) What you do want to give baby are saline nose drops. Two brands were highly recommended to me: Baby Ayr and Little Noses. You basically just squeeze a few drops into their little nostrils as they lay screaming and crying while someone else holds them down. Should clear them up right away. When I was comparing the two, Ayr was the lower priced brand, but the directions suggested keeping the baby horizontal for a minute or two after dropping the drops in - good luck with that. I'd pay a dime more to avoid baby violence, so I went with Little Noses.

We also tried something by Vicks called Gentle Vapors, which is like a Menthol version of a Glade PlugIn. It filled the room up with a Vick's vaporub scent, but seemed to do little to help with Baby or Daddy. It did mask the scent of poopy diapers though. Each scented pad lasts for maybe about an hour before the scent is gone. And the plug-in device doubles as a nightlight. Oh, and because Daddy couldn't smell anything, guess who got dirty diaper duty?

Asides from that, Baby got lots of cool gifts for Christmas, and out of every blinking, rocking, rolling, noise-making toy...

he still probably loved the wrapping paper the most.

He spent a very good Christmas Eve night at Auntie's, and a first night over at Grandma's for New Year's Eve. He's not crawling yet, but is very close to it. And he's making very sudden movements now, including one where he spun and threw himself off his changing table - no harm done, because Daddy caught him, but we're thinking of moving him somewhere a little closer to the ground to change his diaper now.

So as we enter 2009, we wish you loyal readers a happy, and most of all a healthy New Year. Baby suggests bundling up in your furriest outfit.