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!