An Overdue Update

Wow, I have been a bit delinquent in updating the blog. Bad Mommy!


Internet Famous
So our adorable little man is already internet famous. I use flickr to host the pictures I use on the blog including the recent pic of Torin in his Bumbo seat. Well, the Bumbo company contacted us about using a picture of Torin on their safety site. Here is a link to his picture.


4 Month Check-Up
He had his 4 month check-up last Friday. His weight was 14lbs 14 ounces (50th percentile), 24.5 inches long (25th percentile) and his noggin fell into the 75th percentile. No wonder he has had such a hard time learning to pick it up! He also had his shots... which of course are way harder on Mommy than baby. He did feel pretty lousy for the 24 hours or so after his immunizations. Poor little guy!


Torticollis and Physical Therapy

Torin is doing AWESOME with his physical therapy. The therapists says he is doing great and is thinking about changing his weekly sessions to bi-weekly. He still slightly favors one side with his head but with every day we are noticing it less and less. Hector and I are just amazed at how fast he is growing and developing.

Last week of maternity leave
So this is my last week of maternity leave. As most of you know, Hector is taking over for 2 months. I am very sad about leaving my little guy during the day but I am so thankful for being fortunate enough to have such an extended maternity leave... plus I have the added bonus of leaving him with his Daddy and not day care just yet. I think this will make my transition easier... of course I am sure I will bawl the whole drive to work on Monday morning. I am so glad I am going back to work on a shortened work week.


Hector and I had this week off together and it was nice to just hang out as a family. We were even able to sneak in a movie. Alamo Drafthouse which is this super cool movie theater that serves real food has what they call Baby Day on the matinees on Tuesday. Baby Days means babies are allowed and will not be asked to leave if they are crying. Hector and I decided to give it a shot. I was so relieved when we walked in and saw other babies. We saw the independent movie "The Darjeeling Limited". I love Wes Anderson movies and it is a dream of mine to visit India some day so it was a perfect coupling of those two for me. Torin was such a good baby. He sat and just took it all in, let us enjoy a movie and lunch, napped for a bit, and didn't even make a peep. What a fun day!



Thanksgiving
We are really looking forward to Torin's first Thanksgiving. We miss our family and can't wait for everyone to see how much he has grown. Hector and I both know we have SO much to be thankful for this year.


More Pictures!!

Growing, growing, growing!

Is everyone enjoying this Fall weather finally? I know Torin and I sure are. We've been going on daily walks to get the mail and around the neighborhood. It gets both of us out of the house and Torin loves riding around in his stroller.

Torin is changing at lightening speed these days. We are seeing some amazing progress from his physical therapy. He is getting so much stronger at lifting his head and has turned into quite the wiggle worm. He loves sitting propped up or in his Bumbo. He also loves toys with rattles and/or squeaks. Of course once he picks them up they go straight to his mouth. We are having so much fun watching him discover new things daily. One of my favorite new tricks is him laughing at loud. Oh my, talk about melting your heart! He just cracks up at his silly old Mom and Dad. We've tried to catch it on video a few times but he always seems to stop once he sees the video camera. We will keep trying! He is also growing like a weed. I laugh when I read in my baby books that babies should double their birth weight by 6 months since Torin doubled his in 3 months. :)

Here are some more pics of our growing boy.

Torin looking at his hands.

Bath time!

Physical Therapy, Pumpkin Patch, and 11 Crazy Grandmas

So Torin has had a busy past week or so. We now have Physical Therapy every Wednesday morning. He has gone twice so far. I'm sure many of you are wondering what in the world does he need PT for. He has a condition called Torticollis (specifically congenital muscular torticollis). This is thought to happen in the womb and basically means that his neck muscles are tight and shorter on one side which causes him to be unable to turn his head (comfortably) to the left. We noticed he favored looking right so much so that he was getting a flat spot on his noggin and we noticed a slight delay in the gross motor skill of lifting his head. His pediatrician believes all of these are related to the Torticollis. It is also usually completely treatable with physical therapy.

So far he has been such a brave little guy at the PT. We are going to a place that specializes in all kinds of pediatric therapies. The physical therapist does gentle stretches and exercises to help loosen those tight muscles and strengthen his neck muscles. We are also given pointers on things to do at home. For example, we need do little tricks to keep him looking left like putting all the toys and interesting things to look at on that side and putting something boring (like a wall, :)) to his right side. We are already noticing quite a bit of difference in the range of motion of his head and he is starting to lift his head slightly when doing tummy time.

Last weekend was a busy one. We started off the Saturday morning taking Torin to a pumpkin patch. We had hoped to get some shots of him in his Halloween costume but it was already warming up for the day and he was so over the pumpkin patch. Ha! Seriously, why are all Halloween costumes made of fur. Don't costume makers realize that it is still hot in Texas in October? We got some pictures but didn't want to torture him too long.

After picking out a few pumpkins for our house, we headed down to New Braunfels to see my Mom and her Bunko gal pals. They were in this great house on the river (Note to Long family: would be a great place to hold our new annual summer get-together). We had a nice afternoon visiting with everyone. Of course, Torin charmed them all. We ended up going to dinner with them and it was so nice to have 11 grandmothers around to help with Torin. Probably one of the more peaceful meals Hector and I have had in a while. Yes, I said "peaceful" even with 11 cackling women around... just goes to show what are normal dinners are like these days which usually involves eating in shifts. We had him on-the-go all day and didn't get back to Austin until almost 11 pm and so yet again we realize how blessed we are to have such a laid back baby. He really is just a go with flow little man. Boy, I hope he stays that way. ;) And I'll be the first to admit, he did NOT get that from me... those genes are definitely from his daddy.

Here are some other pictures of the little cutie patootie... because I know as much as you love reading about the adventures of Torin, you really come here for the pics. :) Love to you all!

Octoberfest

This weekend we went to Octoberfest in Fredericksburg. Everything went great. We left after Torin's appointment on Friday afternoon and headed to Fredericksburg. It is only about an hour and 15 minutes from Austin. A side comment -- wow on how much Austin has grown out to Dripping Springs. I honestly can't tell when one stops and one starts anymore. Anyways, about halfway there I guess we had pushed it a little long and Torin started having a meltdown. No big deal, pull over, change the diaper, feed him, and back on the road. It's funny how children so quickly change your pace of life. In the past, I would have been chomping at the bit to get there (no stops) but you can't really do that with kids.

So we got into Fredericskburg about 5:00 and went to our Bed and Breakfast. It was lovely. A little limestone Sunday House. A Sunday house was a house that farmers had in towns during the pioneer days. They were called that because on Saturday they would come to in to town from their farms to go to market and then they would spend the night to go to church on Sunday. They are typically very small --usually one bedroom-- two story houses. The 2nd story really being an attic/loft space where the kids would sleep. We set up all of our stuff -- pack-n-play upstairs in the bedroom, etc. We decided to hit our favorite German restaurant Friday night for dinner since we knew it would be packed on Saturday. Yum, we both had Yager Schnitzel with German potatoes. Of course Torin was a hit with the waitresses. We headed back to the B&B, put Torin to bed, and read for a little while. David and Stacey (Hector's brother and his wife) didn't make it into town until late so we didn't see them that night (they were staying at a different B&B).

Saturday morning, we got up and went to Main Street, grabbed a quick breakfast, and then went to meet David and Stacey. We decided to try and put Torin in the stroller like a big boy instead of keeping him in the car seat on the stroller. I knew he would be in there all day and I just feel like he is so constrained in the car seat. I figured he would like to be able to sit up some and look around. He loved it!!! He just looked around and took it all in. The weather was nice (in the shade) so I think he was just really enjoying being outside. We spent the morning just browsing all the little shops on Main Street. We didn't buy anything but Uncle David bought Torin some new shoes. This kiddo has got lots of people spoiling him already!! Torin got so much attention -- all the women oohing and ahhing over him.

We hit the local microbrewery for lunch. There was an hour wait so we went to their Beer Garden to wait for a table in the restaurant. Torin totally crashed out in a Beer Garden with football blaring. Oh, to be so relaxed and able to sleep anywhere! I was really loving the stroller set-up then because I could just lie him back when he went to sleep. Love that! By the time we ate lunch, it was mid-afternoon so I decided we should give Torin a break and go spend a couple of hours at the house. He napped again, we watched some of the UT football game (UGH!), and rested.

That evening we headed back out to the actual Octoberfest in the town square. Wandered around a bit and then just hung out and listened to the music and visited with David and Stacey. When the sun went down, the weather was REALLY nice. Again, Torin was a total trooper. I mean the kid did not fuss all day and we had him out-and-about 10 hours total.

Sunday we headed home. We have learned that he does not like having a dirty diaper when he is in his car seat. It does seem to be a bigger mess when he is in his car seat so I can't say that I blame him. We had to pull over on a back country road and change his diaper. Hector kept looking for a parking lot of some sort and I said "oh just pull over one one these back roads." Hello, country girl married to the city boy!

All in all we had a great weekend!

Welcome to our blog!

We thought this would be a great way for everyone to keep up with Torin.

Enjoy!