I got a call from Lisa that Mathias rolled over on his own this morning.  While he’d managed to roll over a number of times before, those cases had all been on soft surfaces or inclines, both asterisk-producing qualifiers worthy of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.  This morning was on a hard surface, his play mat, meaning he finally found a way to not get stuck on the arm he was trying to cross over.

Typical of Danielson, he decided to do it by himself with no one else around.  I of course was at work, but Lisa didn’t see it happen, either.  She’d walked out of the living room for a few moments to take care of something, and when she returned Mathias was laying on his stomach with his head up in observation.

I came home tonight all ready to study, but instead found myself confronted with a sick baby and an equivalently stressed mom. I’ve gotten some studying done, and am feeling slightly better about the test on Wednesday–slightly–but still wish the little one had picked a different time to get sick.

Ah, parenthood. Lisa occasionally mentions that she sometimes feels she’s going insane when staying at home with the baby all day, but from my point of view she’s doing a remarkably good job. I’m sure if I was the one staying home I would’ve gone coo coo for cocoa puffs a few months ago. It’s kind of weird: She often suffers from a lack of adult interaction, I often suffer from too much of it, and we’ve found no great way to bridge the gap. There have been a number of days where I’ve come home completely wiped out from work and school wanting nothing more than to have an hour or so of down time, only to find her in a position 180 degrees from mine. Long term, this will get better as Lisa and I start going on trips again, or even start finding the time to go out on a few dates. Until then, though, there will probably be a few more nights like this one.

~ ~ ~

A few hours after going to sleep, Mathias awoke agitated and cranky. Lisa and I both took turns trying to put him back to sleep, but both of us failed. I came close at one point, but he caught a coughing fit a moment after I put him in his crib, and we were back to square one.

Eventually Lisa and I ended up together in his room with a few of the lights on, with both of us taking turns holding him. He calmed down, started sucking on his fingers, and quietly stared back and forth at the two of us, apparently comforted by the fact these two people he’d grown very familiar with were sitting there keeping him company. And in that way, while it wasn’t a good evening, it wasn’t a completely bad one, either.

In addition to the regular studying and errands handled this weekend, our family headed off to the SuperTarget in Roseville to get some portraits made of Mathias. (I’m kind of old school and wanted to go to Sears, but Lisa had heard good things about the Target studios.) Mathias actually seemed to enjoy the photo shoot, although the end results were kind of disappointing, with the overall quality somewhat akin to what you’d see on a ProLife Across America billboard.

Next time we decide to do a portrait, I’ll probably just buy a fancy set of sheets and do it myself. When we get the prints I’ll see what I can do to scan them in and get them up on Flickr.

~ ~ ~

In other Mathias news, I wouldn’t be surprised if our little guy starts talking in the next few weeks or so. He’s been making various baby sounds for quite some time now, but sometime over the past few days he’s started enunciating in such a way that his sounds seem less like baby babble and more like some unknown foreign language. This is just another one of those things I never thought I’d find exciting, but, let me tell you, it is.

A quick Mathias note:  Our little man is standing!  Okay, so he still completely lacks the entire balance thing, requiring mom or dad to actively steady him, but as of today he seems able to counter gravity for two to three seconds at a time.  He’s still working on effectively grabbing larger objects (i.e., the kind he could steady himself with), too, but seems to be getting closer to success there as well.

I’m amazed at how quickly our little baby is growing.  At this rate he could very well be running around the place by the time he’s one.

Now that Mathias has been sleeping through the night more often than not, and has been getting very close to outgrowing his co-sleeper, we finally decided to move him to his crib in his own room tonight.  It’ll be the first time since his arrival that he won’t be sleeping in the same room as us.  It’s kind of weird…  We finished off the nursery a few weeks before he was born, but aside from the changing table, it’s pretty much been laying dormant since then.  Our preparations over the past few days to move him in there have been a reminder of all the planning and work we did in the first place.

This photo seems like a very long time ago.

I’ll miss waking up to his morning calisthenics and vocal exercises, but it’ll be nice to get a few extra minutes of sleep, too.

For the record, the post immediately preceding this one was brought to you courtesy of Mathias banging on the keyboard.

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m n  cdddddeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeb                vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv                                                                                                                                   nkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk        nnnn
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While Lisa was taking a nap this afternoon, I went about finding ways to entertain Mathias. We ended up in front of the Christmas tree, with me holding him closely enough to it that he could grab branches with both of his hands. Continuously playing with the needles and staring at the ornaments, he appeared completely fascinated it, making me wonder how he’ll approach next year’s version when he has a better understanding of the fact that, uh, there’s a tree in the house for some reason.
Of course, the first time I shifted my attention even slightly he managed to pull a branch into his mouth, but that issue was rectified quickly.

We spent some extra money and got a Balsam Fir this year. It’s a gorgeous tree with soft needles and a very pleasant smell. At 7 1/2 feet, it has just two inches of clearance in our sunroom.

$75 didn’t just buy us a tree. It bought us the use of a 10×10 foot plot of land that’s been nurturing it since I was a junior in college almost a decade ago. It bought us the time spent in a nursery, and associated care, before being planted in that plot as a seedling. It may have bought us fertilizer, or maybe the use of irrigation equipment. It bought us the labor to cut it down, and the transportation down from Hinckley. And, finally, it bought us the labor to give it a fresh cut and wrap it up for car transport.

$75. I almost feel like we got away with something.

Saturday evening in Madison. I’m kind of losing track of time; I had to look up the day to make sure I knew what day it was. One day sick, two on holiday, and now the weekend. I tend to start losing track of what day it is on whatever day three away from work may be, so at least I’m consistent.

I’m still kind of sick. Whatever I had on Wednesday has slowly transformed itself to a slow, hacking cough. Argh.

Thanksgiving in Two Rivers was good. We’d planned on driving across Wisconsin Wednesday evening, but between me being sick, the weather and last-minute funeral preparations, we didn’t do the drive until Thanksgiving proper. We were out of the metro early enough that we weren’t able to listen to Turkey Confidential–unfortunate, as it was becoming a tradition of sorts–but instead got in some audiobook listening in and caught the first half of the Packer game.

My parents’ first reaction to Mathias was surprise at how much he’d grown, followed by about 24 hours of continuous fawning. At one point Mathias spent probably 45 minutes suspended on a comforter between my dad’s legs, apparently loving it. Less than a day later Mathias was in a shopping cart at Wal-Mart pushed by a very proud grandfather, a grandfather already completely intent on spoiling his grandson.

In other words, the visit with my parents went well.

Mainly due to me being a) sick, and b) horrible at communication in general, we were barely able to link up with Ben and Beth while in Two Rivers. We did get to hang out for a few hours, though, sitting in our hotel room along the lake, talking in hushed inside voices as to not disturb the sleeping baby nearby.

After departing Wal-Mart on Friday, Lisa, Mathias and I headed down to Madison on what from that point forward would basically be a funeral trip with detours. Most of the drive was on US-151, a highway I once frequented back what seems to be a lifetime ago. It was probably the first time in over a decade I’d driven it, and with the bypasses and so-called improvements that had taken shape over the intervening years, it bore little resemblance to the drive I remembered.

Madison had a dusting of snow when we arrived, albeit a more modest one than we’d seen along the lake. Much of today was spent out and about as the mom and grandmom took care of errands for the coming days. The funeral will be an extremely proper Polish Catholic two-day affair, which apparently caused some clothing concerns for Lisa and Ann. (The extent of my preparations consisted of making sure my ties weren’t wrinkled and polishing my shoes.) Anyway, we head down to Indiana tomorrow.

We got to see Robin and Andy for a few hours this evening, which we used to have dinner at Dotty Dumpling’s Dowry before catching No Country For Old Men at the new Sundance Cinema here in Madison. Dinner was good, and the movie was great. As usual, Robin and Andy seem to have about five million things going on–I always feel lazy after talking to them–but overall are doing well.

Well, we have to be on the road to Valpo in a nine hours, so I’m going to hit it. More later.

A bit of baby news from last night… For the first time, Mathias slept through the entire night without waking up!

More sleep for the family appears to be on the horizon, especially for mom. That’s good, as she both needs and deserves it.