Let's Do This Again

We're pregnant! Two pink lines appeared Christmas morning at 5am, after soothing 13.5-month old Jack with a bottle and a diaper change. I didn't have a bout with infertility, but my experience these last few months makes me feel for women who do. I don't know how they don't go crazy! I didn't start my cycle until two months after I shut down pumping milk. First period started in November, and bam -- pregnant! It just didn't feel like this was that easy. As with Jack, we had planned for this. We are excited and happy, but we're also a little anxious and eager to see and hear little one's heartbeat and get through the first trimester. xo

Thankful

On this Thanksgiving eve... I have much to be thankful for. I have a loving, breathtakingly handsome, amazing husband. I have a wonderful, adorable, amazing son. I have loving parents who provided me with a foundation to create the family I have today. I am loved. I am blessed. I am lucky. I am thankful. This day and every day.

A Year in Review

Wow. It's been a year (and a week and a half) since Jack was born. It's really amazing how far we've come! Here's where we are: Jack is a sweet, caring, inquisitive little boy. He wants to know how everything works, and then he wants to make it happen himself. He remembers things about his toys that surprise me still -- how to make the noises that make him dance, how to lift the doors to hide toys and how to push the truck so it starts revving its engine again. He is funny about his hands. He immediately notices when they're dirty and often can't get past that. I have to wipe them off before he can begin eating again or move on to the next thing we're doing. As we told Dr. Fromson the other day, he will eat any dry carb with his hands, but once moisture comes in to play all bets are off. He's just funny that way! Jack is down for a nap. In the hour he's been down I've mowed the front lawn and cleared some caulk out of the shower (I'll get to the re-caulking another time). A year ago if Jack were napping, mama was napping! We're transitioning to one nap a day. He's already that way at school, but not in a good way. He refuses to nap for more than 45 minutes or so when he's there. Too much excitement I suppose! It's a tricky transition, and he's often tired in the morning but I push him to stay awake. If he sleeps early, he's tired in the afternoon but refuses to nap! One day he'll look back on this time (maybe when HE has a 1-year-old!) and realize he was missing out. ;) He's eating 3+ meals a day, which is a huge relief. That kicked in right about at 11 months. It just clicked for him, I guess. I'm starting the weaning process, so we're into the frozen stash of breastmilk. I'm thrilled that solid food appeases his hunger, he's willing to try new things (whether he keeps the food in his mouth once he takes it in is a different story), and he's dropping bottles. At home now he takes three bottles -- morning, pre-nap and night. At school he drinks a ton more but I'll address that with them soon. He's close to walking. He keeps a firm grip on our fingers but will walk all over the block that way. Today we walked down to Heather and Joe's in an s-shape... sidewalk to the street and back to the sidewalk. He giggled when he'd go up the "step" on to the curb. Last night he would take a few steps holding on to just one finger and holding a wooden spoon in the other. He wasn't convinced but he'd do it. I think we're only a few weeks away from real walking! Jack babbles all the time. There have been a few crystal clear Mama and Daddas, but nothing first-word-esque yet. But he knows who we are. He understands a LOT. My favorite is KISS. He'll lean forward, mouth open wide and give a kiss. To any puppy (life or stuffed), any time. To us... half the time. He's such a sweetheart. He's gentle with other kids, eager to hand his toys away (and hopefully get them right back), and gives big smiles all the time. He emotes -- he'll cry when he sees other kids get really upset. We've seen it a few times and his teachers say he does it there too. He loves his big train scooter that makes train sounds, pushing his radio flyer wagon, LOVES riding in his cozy coupe (and now pushing it around), and all of his stuffed animal puppies. He nests and un-nests blocks and loves to shake shake shake anything that rattles. He's sleeping well, for the most part. He sleeps from about 6pm until 5 or 6am, has a bottle then is back to sleep until somewhere around 7am. He can self soothe, and sometimes will cry in the middle of the night for a few minutes but then go right back to sleep. Daddy hears it sometimes and I'm out cold and don't. At this point he'll go a few days sleeping great, then we'll have to bring back the CIO phase for a few nights, then go back to sleeping through the night without issue. We look forward to him sleeping through the night all the time. Whenever that happens. Age 14? Love him. :)

Holiday Cards!

We ordered them! Great deals from Shutterfly + our git 'er done attitude led to this:

Stationery card

View the entire collection of cards.

Almost 9 Months!

It's been a while since I posted. In that time Jack has gone from sitting up... to crawling... and now pulling up all over the place! It's amazing to see him get stronger and more coordinated every day. It was just last week he started getting comfortable pulling up, but only in certain places. The last 36 hours he's everywhere. He pulls up on the coffee table and a standing toy, but doesn't stop there. The couches, the swing, the jumperoo, stools, the door. Luckily he's gotten better at not falling over once he gets up. Also luckily he seems to have no issue getting himself down. Sometimes it's more graceful than other times, but he gets the job done.

Solids are still iffy. Sometimes he eats, sometimes he doesn't. He's gotten really good at eating at school, polishing off whatever I send. At home, even the very next day, he may take one or two bites and then bail on it. I try not to get frustrated. But sometimes it's hard! I'm good about taking a break and grabbing a snack myself, or playing games with him in the high chair when I feel my pulse go up. I also know better than to force the issue, because that certainly isn't going to turn out well for either of us!

We're trying to push bedtime past 6:00... to 7 or 7:30. Tonight I put him down at 7 after he rubbed his eyes during storytime... and he stayed awake playing by himself for another hour. Silly boy.

It's so amazing seeing him grow and develop. It's bittersweet! He sleeps through the night most nights... but I do miss my little swaddled up baby boy sometimes. Though I do love going in and seeing that sweet little face with little round cheeks giving me a big grin when I come to get him in the morning!

Crying It Out

Hubby is traveling. Don't know how long he'll be gone for work, but so far we're 60 hours in. And so far so good! I was afraid I'd be exhausted already, and I'm not. So far I've been pretty good about going to bed at 10p. (In that I did it once out of two nights, but hey, I'm counting that as "pretty good"!)

Saturday and Sunday night, Jack SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT. (For future reference, he is 7 months and a week old as of Saturday.) He basically slept from 6p-7a. Last night was a different story. He woke up at 2:17a. I'd already talked to one of the pediatrician's nurses about the "cry it out" method. Jack sometimes wakes up and doesn't cry out with his "I'm hungry" cry -- it's different. A bottle will solve things and send him right to dreamland. But while it gets him back to sleep, hunger isn't what wakes him up.

Rewind to last night. At 2:17a it was more of an off-and-on whimper. With Hubby away and only one person's sleep disturbed, I'm going to try letting him CIO. One day in and I'm feeling good about it. He never hit his full-blown cry, and he got softer and more intermittent as minutes wore on. At a half hour, at the nurse's suggestion, I went into his room and rubbed his back, not saying a word. I offered him his pacifier. He took it, rejected it, took it, rejected it. I soothed him a bit more then left his room. I told myself I'd give him until 3:17a at which point I'd feed him. After about 2:50a he was going a minute or two in silence... would whimper/cry for a minute... then more silence. He and I were both out cold by 3:17a.

The next time he woke up and cried I was going to feed him. But that didn't happen until 7! And he woke me up by cooing and playing, not crying. He smiled when I came in to get him and was giggling. He needed his bottle a little quicker than he did the previous two nights (when he slept through the night without waking up and crying for more than a few seconds)... but I consider it a success. Had he woken up at 3:30a or 4a I'd have considered it a failure. I feel like that would have shown that he really was hungry and all I'd done was torture him for a few hours. That did NOT happen and so I feel good about letting him CIO last night. Ideally he'll sleep through the night without interruption. But if he wakes up (and isn't hungry), hopefully it will take less and less time for him to soothe himself back to sleep.

But I definitely prefer the nights when he sleeps through the night nice and soundly. :)

Naps

Naps remarkable things for me, for so many reasons. Sometimes I put Jack down and he goes right to sleep. Other times he sits right up (a new trick!) and plays and shrieks and sings... and then cries before falling asleep. Other times he fights it tooth and nail and it's a #napfail. This morning I put him down when I "felt" like it should be nap time. He woke up at 7, had a 5oz bottle and later ate some squash and zucchini (new today) and then a smaller 3.5oz bottle. Then it was 9:45, so I changed his diaper and put him down. He wasn't exhausted, his eyes weren't puffy. But he rolled over and by the time I came back a few minutes later to check on him after putting a load of laundry in... he was out cold. (As an aside -- he's really effing cute sleeping in just a diaper. Less cute when he spits up some squash on his shirt... but maybe it's because he knows he'll out-cute the situation by sleeping nekkid.)

And the fact our babies fight naps. It's so funny that most adults will nap any time they're allowed, but children treat them like punishments! I was chatting with another mom the other day, saying, "Don't they know they'll be so much happier after their nap? Just go to sleep! You'll be happier for it!!"

Someone is up from naptime... :)

6.5 Months

Jack is learning new things every day! He popped out his two bottom teeth on his 6 month birthday. He sits, and the other day he even got himself from a laying position to sitting up. He's rocking and thinking about crawling but we're not there yet. We're investigating solids. So far we've tried pureed apples, butternut squash, rice cereal and sweet potatoes. All have been hits and misses. Yesterday he ate like a champ and SLEPT like a champ -- 11p-6a. Today he refused to eat anything. He did this once before, the exact same pattern. Ate great, slept great, then the next day refused to eat. You can imagine how well he slept. Not great. I'm already dreading hearing him hungry at 2am! It feels like we're so close... but so far at the same time.

Luckily he's a cutie pie. He giggles a lot and smiles all day. I love watching him grow!

Grace Nails

Word to the wise: if you find yourself thinking "Well you know what, I'll walk into town and Jack is tired so he'll fall asleep and I'll be able to get a manicure before he wakes up!"... pinch yourself cause you're dreaming. I could do that when Jack was a few weeks old, but not anymore.

Grace Nails is where I like to go for manicures and pedicures. I think they do a great job, give great service and awesome massages. Today they went above and beyond... even walking Jack around the shop when he woke up and started to fuss. I'll be honest -- it made me a wee bit nervous. But they were great. Jack didn't really calm down that much, haha, but I was able to wrap up the manicure without them giving me the stink eye. They were awesome. I don't go too often, but I'll definitely be back. Sans the bub.

5 Months Old

I can't believe Jack is 5 months old! Crazytown.

He's rolling over (and he still hasn't remembered he already knows how to roll belly-to-back). He sleeps on his belly. He's drinking 5oz at a time... usually. His sleep is all over the place. He's a ridiculously happy kid who is enjoying finding his voice. And he's found his feet. And he's in love.

And I'm in love. He's awesome. And a badass.

We didn't get those sunglasses. But he let them be on his face without flipping out... which makes me feel pretty good about buying him some sunglasses that will actually protect his eyes from UV rays. We're really looking forward to the weather warming up and spending more time outdoors. We just need to get him ready with a good sunhat and some sunglasses. He'll be old enough for sunscreen in another month. I have super sun-sensitive skin, so we will have to watch him very closely. Hopefully it'll turn out he has hubby's skin, but regardless we'll have to protect that so-soft-snuggly-squeezalishiss (yes) skin safe.

4 Months, 3 Weeks

Wow I'm not good at this posting thing.

We're still in the sleep battle. Every night is different. Every morning is different. Yesterday he was awake at 6:45 and we all suffered because of it. This morning he ate at 6:45 and -- while he was awake when I put him back down -- he slept until 9! NINE! I needed to write that out just to be able to put it in all caps.

My new thing is trying to do better with his naps. New thing as in... I've been focusing on them for the last two days. We'll see how long it sticks. Part of me is thinking that if we could get a nap routine going, maybe his nighttime sleep would be more solid? Hard to tell. When I read all of the Google results for "4-month-old sleep regression," we aren't having those problems. Jack isn't attached to being rocked to sleep at night, he doesn't wake up without his pacifier (he barely sleeps with it at night). He takes a full feeding everytime he wakes up. It's just that sometimes it's 7p bedtime, then 10p, 1a, 4a, 7a feedings. Other times it's down at 7p, eats at 11p, 4a, 6:45a. The 11p feeding is no problem. Hubby and I are going to bed at that point so we aren't waking up for that feeding. If we could nix the 4a feeding that would be awesome. He's starting to just take 3oz at that feeding, so maybe he's starting to wean himself of it? Oh please oh please oh please.

In other news, Jack is rolling over! Back-to-belly! He does it all the time and now there's rarely a time when he's on his back for long. He's forgotten he knows how to roll belly-to-back. He'll get there. He did log roll with two full rolls a few days ago... so maybe he'll get there sooner rather than later.

He's waking up from a nap... gtg.

4 Months

Jack is 4 months old! I can't believe it. He's really grown in the last month. It's amazing to see him stretching out, his face and chest filling out and his hands starting to get a little chunky. I love it!

I did jinx myself with the sleeping. It's a crapshoot. He slept the best he has in a long time last night -- seven hours, from midnight to 7am. It's a late start, but I'll take that as opposed to the feeding in the wee hours of the morning. I'd much rather stay up and he eat right before I put myself to bed. I think he knows when I go to bed, too. Last night I'd just slipped under the covers and started to wiggle myself into a comfortable position when the baby monitor peeped to life.

Jack is doing well at daycare. I work almost every day he's there, and that works out well. It's nothing like my pre-baby full-time days, but for now it's a good balance of mama and writer/producer.

I just realized a salad dressing I've been using for the last two weeks has diary in it. I wonder if that means my days of no-dairy are... over? Jack has been fine. We'll see! His 4-month visit is in a few days. Hopefully his doctor doesn't panic.

He has rolled over from belly to back. Two different days! So he's not consistent. But he knows he can do it. Now I do too. :)

Sleeping Through the...

I hesitate to write this down because I don't want to jinx us. But it's been a few days and I'm really hoping we've turned a corner. Jack is sleeping through the night! He turned 13 weeks last week and ever since he's been sleeping from around 7:30pm until 5:30am. Major development that is welcomed with opened arms. And snoring parents. Two of the five nights he's woken up at 3:30am to eat, but he's lasted then until 7:30am. Both of those nights our pre-bedtime routine was thrown off and I'm hoping if we're on routine he'll last until morning. Fingers crossed.

I think our little guy is easing out of a growth spurt. Maybe. For the last week he's been eating 4oz bottles every two hours, not the previously-usual three hours. He won't take more than that, so it's not like we could just give him bigger bottles every three hours. He's being a little fussy with them sometimes as it is. That's new and hopefully on its way out. Maybe it has something to do with what I'm assuming is a growth spurt but I really have no clue.

He is a super cute and sweet boy. I do know that much. :)

12 Weeks, 5 Days

Just as I feel like I get it figured out... :). The bub knows! He also knows when I work a 4am writer shift and am relying on his afternoon nap for a nap of my own. No such luck today! Just as I started to fall asleep with him, he suddenly needed another bottle. He downed it just 45 minutes after finishing his last one. Maybe my boy is growing! I swear I go get him in the mornings and more often than not these days he's bigger than when we put him down. I can't believe it. I can tell he's high in the height percentiles and lower in the weight percentiles just by looking at his clothes. They hang around his belly but his toes stretch out the end. He turns 3 months in 2 days but he might be in 6-month onesies before I know it.

Jack has started loving to stand in our laps or sit up and look out at the room. We brought out his bumpo seat and he seems to be enjoying it (in 5-minute chunks). He's starting to grip rings on the bottom of toys hanging in front of him. He's holding his head up a bunch, but he is not a fan of tummy time.

We traveled to my parents last week and had a successful trip! Even with an unplanned 7-hour layover in Atlanta, Jack was a wonderful traveler. He slept for most of the flights. We didn't feed him on takeoff or landing (his feedings didn't time out to do that), but he didn't show any sign of ear discomfort. He did cry for the last 10 minutes of the 26-minute flight from Birmingham to Atlanta, but I'm sure it was because he was overtired (maybe from playing with our seat neighbor!). Our car seat travel bag came in very handy, as we gate-checked our car seat on 3 of the 4 flights. We didn't purchase a seat for Jack, and only our last flight had empty seats that allowed us to bring the car seat onboard. It was great, giving hubby and me a better chance at catching some much-needed shuteye. We're glad we didn't check the car seat and snap n go stroller curbside as well. That 7-hour layover was l-o-n-g. Jack was able to hang out, nap, and make smiley faces at fellow travelers from the comfort of his seat. He slept there while I pumped (at gate B19, not ideal). He didn't have to hang in the Bjorn for that entire time. That 7-hour layover is another reason I'd say bring as much milk or formula as you can. TSA recommends bringing only what you'll need. If I'd done that, I'd have had 2 bottles, and likely only needed 1. Instead he ate 4! So bring what your cooler will hold. And have bottles and pumping supplies ready. I was glad I did. Oh and be sure to wear something you could pump in if necessary. I'm exclusively pumping, and I was comfortable doing it at the gate wearing a nursing tank and an oversized long-sleeve shirt. With a baby blanket over me I think most folks didn't even realize I was pumping.

TSA was great at both Hartford and Birmingham airports. They were helpful and friendly and gave us (at BDL) and me (at BHM) a chance to move slowly through security. In both airports we made sure to give ourselves plenty of time and not let ourselves feel rushed (and risk leaving something behind).

It also helped to have great fellow passengers like Jason and Chris who understand that babies make noise. :)

Finding a Balance

If you search "balancing life's demands" in Google, more than 59,900 responses come back. It's tough, and there's no easy answer. As a stay-at-home mom who works from home part-time, it can be really tough. Usually that's because I have a hard time balancing my expectations with reality. If I'm awake, I feel like I should be the one to go if Jack fusses or is hungry -- even if I'm on deadline. But even aside from that, it's tough to work with a fussing baby in the room. I have to figure out how to balance what I think I ought to be doing, how I think things ought to be going... with how they really ought to go. And how to mitigate my stress and verbalize my feelings at the time in a constructive way. And that's tough. :)

10 Weeks, 4 Days

I can't believe we're already at double-digit weeks! He's growing so fast. I guess really it seems like he goes a week without changing, and then he grows overnight. I get him from his crib in the morning and I feel like he's grown so much overnight.

At his two month checkup last week he weighed in at 11 pounds, 5.8 ounces. That's the 50th percentile. At 24 inches long he's in the 90-95th percentile for height. After our initial speedbumps with his eating and spitting up, it's wonderful to see how he's thriving.

He's growing in other ways too. Gone are the days of screaming through every diaper change. It still happens, but a lot less often. And his being calm doesn't mean he's about to pee on us, although that still happens too. He also doesn't always scream all the way through bath time. I think he likes the water warmer than I initially thought, and a warm baby is a happy baby.

He's in daycare twice a week, and so far his daily reports say he's "fantastic." He's also getting pampered -- everybody loves to cuddle with our little pumpkin!

These days he's in his crib sometime between 7pm and 9pm, up to eat at 1am and in the 5am hour. If his cousin is any guide, that means he may be sleeping through the night soon. That would be a-w-e-s-o-m-e. We'll see. Hubby is doing the 1am feeding and usually I take the 5am feeding, pumping right after. Neither of us would mind dropping that 1am feeding. We'll get there eventually.

I've started working a few days a week. I'm lucky not to have to work full-time. I'm picking up some very early writing shifts, but I'm surviving them so far and then I'm done a little after 11am. Hubby heads off to work and it's me and the bub for the day. We nap together, or he goes to daycare with Daddy and I get to nap for a few hours before getting some things done around the house or running errands.

Next up for us? Gearing up for Jack's first plane ride to visit my parents and see his aunt and uncle and cousin for the first time! Can't wait. :)