Jennifer's 365 Project

Today is Easter. And it's Quinn's first, so we had to start it off right with a silly picture.
We drove to my parents house for the day, so it was also Quinn's first road trip. He slept the whole way and when we were greeted there was a ton of candy out.
Dayzee was pretty indifferent to him and was mostly concerned with whether she was going to get some tasty ham or not.
The whole visit was mostly about Quinn.

The great thing about the internet, tablets, and how cheap cameras are is that Quinn's grandparents (both sets) can FaceTime and see him any time, even though they're all 150 miles away.

We are still getting Quinn  used to a bottle. Today he did a lot better than on Wednesday and didn't freak out at all. He guzzled the whole thing down.

This probably isn't news for most people, but it's since Chris has been off and with the car, it's been awhile since I've gotten gas. So today when I filled up I was assaulted by late night TV (which I already dislike) at 1pm while trying to get gas. I thought the radio playing at the pump was bad enough.

I'm going to start crawling back into my car while filling up, just to avoid these things.

Today we introduced Quinn to his first bottle. I did some research earlier on and bought some breastflow bottles since those seemed to have good reviews about simulating the slower feed of a breast vs some other bottles/nipples. Since I still intend to nurse, I want to prevent any confusion or preference down the road where he starts refusing to nurse and prefers the ease of a bottle. Hopefully these work out.

All said and done, it went well. But I had a really hard time with it. I kept fussing trying to dictate how it should be and the whole thing stressed me out more than I thought it would.

We lost an ounce or more of milk just from him spitting up and spilling. I chalk that up to Quinn not knowing what to do with the thing and not expecting the bottle to keep giving him milk the way it was. By the time we got to the end of the bottle he started to get the hang of it and was happy. We will have to just keep practicing so everything goes smoothly when I go back to work in 6 weeks.
After his first bottle we went for a nice long walk. It was 60 degrees out and there was no reason to stay indoors. We met Adam and Comfort on the path between our houses and had a nice long walk. Quinn was completely passed out most of the time, just soaking up sunlight and nature.

I've been working on and off the last few days on getting a button set up to turn on and off a GE Link light connected to the Philips Hue bridge.

The reason why is to preserve the dim setting on the light bulb. When you turn on the light with the switch on the lamp, it turns the light on full brightness. That's perfect for some situations, but when I get up to nurse and change a diaper, I want to keep the room as dim as possible to keep the baby as asleep (or sleepy). Typically we have the lamp set on the lowest setting. Unfortunately that isn't something that can be controlled with the physical switch on the lamp.

I have been leaving the light on most of the night, but I want the baby to get used to sleeping in darkness. That is why I wanted to get a remote switch (or button) set up to turn on and off the lamp at the dimmest setting.

Initially I wanted to use the Hue Tap, which is a remote switch we already have. However non-Hue light bulbs are not compatible with the Tap. That meant finding an alternate way to remotely turn on and off the light. (I didn't want to go out and buy a dimmable light bulb when a more fun, albeit complicated, solution presented itself.)

So I opted to create a python script to run on the Raspberry Pi.
I knew I had all of the components, which was great. I didn't really want to buy anything since I have plenty of miscellaneous switches and buttons for arduino projects. My only real issue is that the plastic connectors on the wire are a bit too high when plugged into the GPIO pins on the Raspberry Pi. Which means I can't quite close the case.

I'm going to have to get a dremmel or a knife to cut down the plastic a bit to close the case. But that's a project for tomorrow or the next day. I also have a larger button I think I am going to wire up to make it easy to push at 3am in the morning.

If you are interested, I have the files and a brief description up on github.
https://github.com/shatteredhaven/ControllingHueLightsWithPushButton

I spent part of the day (and yesterday) off and on working on a python script to run on the Raspberry Pi to remotely turn on and off a light in the baby room. I originally wanted to use an arduino, but I couldn't find an easy way to have it interface with python via wifi. So I opted for the Raspberry Pi instead.

I headed out to the mall between feedings to take a quick break and pick up a few things. It's really convenient living 5 minutes from the mall so I don't have to waste a lot of time driving to get somewhere.
It started to snow and then rain a bit. Not the prettiest of days, but at least it was warm enough to be rain instead of snow.

Quinn noticed the felt mario toys hanging above him in his swing, so I pulled them down and attached them to the side for him to play with.

He enjoyed them for a little bit, until it seemed like the toys were attacking him.

Quinn had a really rough night. And this morning he was pretty fussy as well. He just wasn't happy with anything we did. So Chris decided to try putting some plastic balls he'd bought in Quinn's crib and create a ball pit.

The little guy loved it. He stared in fascination at all the colors.
He tried to mouth them all.
 He kicked them and pushed them with his arms.
And when it got to be too much we cleared them away from his face and arms and he just hung out a little absorbing everything and taking a break. Chris even tossed in the little Spider-Egg (as well call it) for Quinn, since he seems to like to push it with his arms and watch it roll back to him, since it's weighted at the bottom.

It was probably only 15 minutes of play before he was ready to be done, but he was fascinated enough that we'll definitely do this again. He will probably really love it when he's older and can actually pick the balls up.

My parents and brother came out to Grand Rapids to see Quinn (and us). He's much more interactive now at 5 weeks than he was at 2 weeks when they saw him last.
So we had some tummy time and some block tower destruction time on his back. He was pretty much the center of attention for the day.
It was good to have everyone together, although Quinn wasn't keen on looking at the camera. But that's ok. In due time.

Watching these birds enjoy the puddle at the park really made me miss having a parakeet that enjoyed taking baths in your hands.