The Felix Helix

Greetings from England! We made it. Just. Really, we can't complain. Traveling cross-Atlantic with two small children is not easy - even when they're both about as good as can be. There's just SO MUCH STUFF. Two kids, suitcases, two car seats, stroller frame, diaper bag... and we were actually traveling much lighter than we would have had we not had a lot of borrowed baby gear waiting for us. Besides feeling like a pack mule, our flight from New York to London was pretty seamless. Both boys were complimented by fellow passengers on their good behavior. Not too shabby! Leto enjoyed the white noise and slept pretty much the whole flight. Felix was a tiny bit obsessed with the seatback televisions and watched the same episode of Jake and the Pirates about 4 times with no sound. Eventually he fell asleep... and then he fell off the seat. Without waking up, he slid off the front of the seat until just his head and shoulders were on the seat. Eventually, his head and shoulders followed and he barely woke up enough to get hauled back up. Even the rather stern woman next to him cracked a smile at that one. And, perhaps more importantly, despite Felix's declarations that he would not be flying on the plane because it was "too high" or the ominous and slightly worrying "going to shoot it down" statements, our plane took off and landed with no issues at all.

Unfortunately, when Felix decides to share, Leto is more bewildered than anything else.

When using public transportation in New York, strollers are kind of... a humungous pain in the rear. With Felix, we used the Baby Bjorn a lot, and eventually switched to an Ergo when the Bjorn bothered my back. This time around, I've gotten into wraps - basically long pieces of fabric wrapped in often complicated-looking ways to strap Leto to me. It's a bit more versatile than a regular "structured" carrier, and I think it looks pretty cool. Another huge plus is that the wraps cover up hideous nursing clothes, but that's a whole different post... Anyway - here are some cute pictures of Leto all wrapped up, and a little plug for a great babywearing webstore/info resource!

In the brief moments between feedings (Leto is... huge. He's hovering around 95th percentile in both length and weight) Leto has started smiling. Fun!

We all went to a birthday picnic for Zoe in the park last weekend. About 4 seconds after we got there, we appreciated the need for lo-jac systems in children's shoes, as Felix snuck off and bolted across the field.... yay. Felix spent the rest of the afternoon being chased around as he interrupted game after game of frisbee, football, soccer - basically anything he could get in the way of, he did. Zack took some (unsurprisingly) good pictures, which I've stolen to post here.

For the reasonable rate of 2 M&Ms (or Smarties) per hour, Felix will provide childcare services for infants. He will come to your house, appropriately dressed in nothing but a t-shirt, underpants, and a giant cheesy grin. Felix believes that when a baby cries, it's important to provide a train and not one, but two "night-nights." If all else fails, Felix is happy to use your infant's head as a train track. The train treatment has questionable efficacy. He's also available for naptime.

This is why Leto doesn't sleep in his crib yet. He was fussy, so I thought maybe a change of scenery would help... It is so cute?

Same outfit, two different (yet equally passed out) babies! So, just like in the tabloids, the question is: who wore it better? Please note that Felix is over three months old in that picture. Leto is wearing the same sleeper at 4 weeks. Can you say porker??

Okay - I've been TERRIBLE about updating, and there's been a lot going on. We're going for a big fat marathon update today. Loads of pictures and back-dated posts to pretend that I've been good about updating all along. Also, seeing as this blog is no longer just about Felix, we're currently soliciting ideas for a new name. Preferably something we won't have to change if we expand the brood even further. 🙂 Note: Someone already took loinfruit.com. Bastards.

The great part about delivering at 3 minutes to midnight is that Friday counted as my first insurance-entitled hospital day and I got kicked out on Sunday. I was actually going to try to get sprung earlier than the insurance mandated stay anyway, so this just made it easier. Staying in the hospital is basically the opposite of relaxing. I don't understand why they start doing everything SO EARLY. Is there no better time to come draw blood than at 5 am when you know I delivered a baby at midnight? You don't think maybe I wanted to sleep? And maybe you could take my blood pressure and temperature at the same time, instead of waking me up again an hour later to do it at 6am. Or how about the "patient services advocate" who thought that 7 am was an appropriate time to wake me up to ask how my stay is going? I can tell you my stay would have been going better without you waking me up to ask about it! UGH. Can you tell I was itching to get out of there? So Leto and I got released on Sunday morning. PHEW.