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A Day in the Life of Griffin Bailey - Age 10 Weeks

Mike Bailey

May 3rd, 2004

Today is Shannon's first day back to work from Maternity Leave.  I decided to take the day off from work as a transition before Kelly and my Father take over duties watching Griffin during the day for the summer.  I thought it would be fun to document the events of the day for those who might be curious and as an archive.

3:00 AM - Griffin went down for the night fairly early the previous evening.  It was a busy weekend for him having been shopping Friday, attending a Wedding and Reception Saturday and taking a walk around Como Lake and visiting Grandparents Sunday.  So he woke up a little earlier during the night.  I started by changing him so I wouldn't have to bug him after feeding.  By 3:30, he had finished 4 ounces of Formula and was ready to fall back to sleep.  He starts to fall asleep over my shoulder and then takes a few minutes stretching and settling in when I put him back in the crib.  Typically, when you have to get up in the middle of the night, you can get back to sleep within an hour.  He was falling to sleep so it's back to bed for me.

7:00 AM - Griffin awakes again.  Shannon was still home and made the bottle for me.  She was also excited that she was able to say goodbye to Griffin before her work day.  He was feeding when she left and he took about 3.5 ounces before becoming playful and no longer interested in the bottle.  I changed him into his outfit for the day and we came downstairs.

7:30 AM - Griffin is often very playful this time of morning and I used the opportunity to lay him under his activity center. (Right)  He likes to lay under the mirror and kick at the dangling toys.  This gives me an opportunity to make my breakfast and read the paper while he's occupied.

8:00 AM - I spent some time playing with him and even made a short video of him playing and singing. (Check the Photos Page to view it)  Shortly thereafter he got a little tired of this activity, so I put him in his chair.  He began getting fussy so I changed him and laid him down on a couple of pillows on the sofa.  He usually likes to sleep on those pillows or in his swing during the day. Within minutes, he was asleep for his morning nap. That was about 8:45. (Right)

While he was sleeping, I began my work.  You see, it was a Monday morning and that meant that I had an audience of people from around the country waiting for me to update this website with the previous weeks photos and news. This is also when I began writing this story. What follows is a little insight on how I update this web site. 

Once I pull all of the pictures off the camera, I have to process them by rotating them in the proper direction and renaming the files so they can be referenced easily.  I then copy the high quality photos to the folder that the web site is published from and use a program to automatically resize them and reduce the quality for easy web viewing.  I then use another program which automatically makes a thumbnail copy of the pictures which I use on the collection pages so you can see all the photos in a small form to determine which ones you want to view. I then begin the process of building the photo page for that week by copying in all the thumbnail photos and arranging them in order on the page.  Finally, I have to link each and every thumbnail to the corresponding photo in the collection.  That is the most tedious part of the process.  The more pictures, the longer this takes me.  But, I digress.

9:00 AM - Griffin woke up about 5 after 9.  Apparently he only needed a cat nap this time of day.  By 10 after 9 he decided he was hungry again.  I fed him another 4 ounces and then we decided it was time for a swing.  Griffin sat quietly for a while and then began singing for a bit until he decided that was enough.  He sat in my lap until his diaper began to bug him.  After a quick change, it was back down for another morning nap. At Least that's what I thought.

10:00 AM - He was laying down peacefully and then I heard some grunting followed by a muffled explosion!  I took him back to be changed and found that the diaper had barely contained what I heard. I cleaned him up and returned him to the couch to settle him back in.  We then began a battle of "I want my Nuk, I don't want my Nuk" for about 20 minutes until he finally fell asleep. Time to post the website and take a shower.

11:15 AM - He woke up and was hungry again.  Another 4 ounces later, he looked like he was going to fall asleep right away.  I laid him down and fixed my lunch.  He let me eat it next to him on the couch without too much fussing.  Then he spent some time on my lap while I started watching a movie until he really did start to get tired, about 12:15.  One more diaper change and he went to sleep. That was about 12:45. I was able to finish my movie and start some laundry.

3:40 PM - He finally woke up from his nap.  This, I'm told, is normal for him in the early afternoon.  While he sleeps, he'll sometimes give out a loud single cry without opening his eyes and then fall right back to sleep.  He'll also sometimes stir and open his eyes, have a look around and then fall back to sleep.  It's weird because you prepare yourself to jump up and change him or fix a bottle and the next thing you know, he's asleep again.

When he wakes up, you have to make a guess as to which he wants first, changing or food. I typically change him first, because otherwise he'll cry in the middle of feeding and want to be changed.  I only pick correctly about half the time and he cries at first when I don't feed him right away.  But, he soon calms down and smiles when I'm changing him.  It's as if he thinks changing him or dressing him is a game.  He smiles and coos while you're doing it.

I made him 6 ounces figuring he would be really hungry.  I was half right, he took more than the normal 4 ounces but only an extra half ounce.  Once he was done, we sat together for a bit until he decided to load his pants again. Now, this ended up being an adventure because either I didn't do a good enough job tightening up his diaper the last time or, the way he was sitting on my lap caused most of his poop to ooze out the side.  Yuck!  Well I carefully got the sleeper outfit over his head without wiping it all over him and proceeded to basically give him a sponge bath from the waist, down.  We then went upstairs to find another outfit for the day and get him dressed again.  That was a first, but I'm willing to bet, not the last time that will happen.

4:15 PM - With Shannon leaving work for home soon and 2 last tasks left to accomplish before she comes home, I put Griffin in his chair and set him at the entrance to the Kitchen so he could see me.  I then cleaned the kitchen and made dinner.  As long as he can see me, he sits in his chair and talks and plays with a couple of toys. It's works out great. By 5:00 I had finished dinner and noticed that he had dozed off to sleep.  I moved him into the TV room and thought I  better eat while he was sleeping otherwise I knew that if I waited for Shannon to get home and eat with her, Griffin would wake up and be hungry.  It worked out well.  I finished, Shannon got home about 5:30 and she ate her dinner while I changed him and fed him another 2 ounces of food.

6:00 PM - Shannon wanted some playtime with Griffin after she ate and I continued my laundry.  Then we began our activity for the evening; grocery shopping.  We figured out our menu for the week and made our list.  We then packed up Griffin and headed for the store.  Griffin has always done well when we're shopping with him. Tonight he was cooing and smiling at first and then dozed off until we got home.

7:30 PM - We got home from the grocery store, put everything away and Shannon changed another wet diaper.  Then the carbo loading began.  He typically has several bottles between 6 and 9:30 to tide himself over for most of the night. 

8:00 PM - He had one bottle of 5 ounces and another period of activity.  When he's active at night, he likes to be sitting up to hold his head up and look around.  If you try to lay him back, he gets upset.  Then, as he typically does, he got cranky when he fights going to sleep.  It's usually a matter of moving him from laying down with his Nuk, or laying on your chest, or sitting in his swing until he settles down.  At that point, he falls asleep for what usually is several hours if you don't disturb him when you move him to his crib.

10:15 PM - We moved upstairs to settle ourselves in for the night.  Just before we decided to do so, Griffin woke up.  We made him another bottle and changed him one last time before turning in ourselves.  That sums up the day.  It was fun, I was able to accomplish some tasks around the house, do some work on the website, and most importantly, got a chance to spend some valuable time with my son.

Total tally for the day:  32 Ounces of Formula, 9 Wet Diapers, 2 Dirty Diapers, 2 outfits & 5 naps.

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Please refer comments or suggestions regarding this web site to mike@baileyhome.us