Thanksgiving Weekend / My Birthday

Hi All!!

It has been a while, too long if I do say so myself.

The Thanksgiving weekend was a bit crazy so posting was down on my list of to-do's but I'm back now and all is well :).

Jack's first Thanksgiving was perfect! Max's sister Amanda was in town from Texas, and she hasn't seen Jack since August so he had a few new moves to show her :). And some of the rest of the extended family that came in for the holiday had never met Jack in person so it was really special. He got passed around and "ooed" and "awwwed" over.

I got to put him in what was quite possibly the cutest Thanksgiving outfit ever and we got to sit outside and enjoy the weather. It was a cool 50 something day here in the desert and it was amazing. We spent the holiday at Max's Aunt's house which is picture perfect. It's a gorgeous house with horse property, which means of course, horses! Jack got to meet the horses and touch them, he was so fascinated by the giant animals. Before this the biggest thing he's ever seen is Honey :). He also got to "ride" on their goat, Gracie. It was so much fun. I didn't get any pictures though because I was so busy trying not to drop him in horse poop or get him stepped on. But you'll just have to take my word for it that it was one of the most adorable things ever.

We took some great pictures and had some great food. His first real holiday was so much fun!

Saturday was my birthday celebration. My birthday was technically Sunday but who wants to celebrate on Sunday? This year I decided that all I wanted was a nice long date with Max. So we dropped Jack of with the grandparents at 3 and headed out. We were supposed to go to As You Wish which is a pottery painting place but it was all booked so we had to come up with a different plan. So we headed over to Dave & Busters. For those that know we had our wedding reception there and it was so much fun but I think that was the last time we were there (over 3 years ago now) so the games were a bit different and it was so much fun. After that we went to dinner at the Yard House and had some great food and conversation. We even split the greatest dessert, which we never do.

The last thing on my birthday to-do was a movie. Surprised right? :) We ended up seeing The Good Dinosaur which was super cute and a lot of fun.

I'm so glad Max and I got the chance to have a little alone time and I'm sure the Grandparents enjoyed every second of private Jack time; even if he was fussy the whole time :).


I spent my actual birthday decorating for Christmas which was perfect! I love Christmas, more than pretty much anything. And this is also Jack's first which made it that much more special. We still have to go pick out a good stocking for Jack and a "My First Christmas" ornament but it was perfect none-the-less. I can't wait!!!!

I hope you all had a great weekend too!

6 Month Must Haves

6 month's has been one of our favorites so far! He is so much fun to play and roll around with and I can't wait to see what he does next :)

#1 Rug - When we moved into our tiny rental house over a year ago I was so excited about the hard floors. With two dogs that shed like crazy and one that has made it his personal mission to dig up carpet, hard wood floors through out was a God send. But now with a sitting baby on the verge of crawling; I have come to despise them. They are constantly covered in fur, dust, dirt, plant bits, thorns, etc. from the dogs and thus Jack is covered in it all. Sure enough he slobbers all over his hands and then sticks them all over the floor and back into his mouth. Enter his rug. We bought a large area rug for his room so he can roll, sit, learn to crawl, etc without getting too grungy. It has been the best thing ever! If he tumbles over from sitting he's fine. He can roll around and play with toys without me hovering over him and constantly taking fur and other unknown outside bits out of his mouth. BEST.THING.EVER.


 #2 Abacus - This was a splurge buy. I can't resist baby things. I got this just after he turned 6 months and he started to sit better. I wanted something that was upright and would keep him from reaching down to his feet. Sure enough he would reach down to grab a toy and fall over. Even now that he's a great sitter and hardly ever falls he still loves it. I also love that it's a simple wooden toy with no fancy bells and whistles. It's quite which is great and he loves it which is even better.


#3 Alphabet Ball - This was a hammy down but they still have it in stores so it must be good. Jack loves to slap this and spin it over and over again. I also love it because it has multiple learning settings. You can set it to animals, letters, or the alphabet. I usually set it to alphabet because the other two settings sing while the ball spins and then once it's done spinning it tells you what you landed on but Jack doesn't let the ball stop spinning long enough to get to that part. So when it's on the alphabet setting it sings the ABC's while it spins and then makes the noise of the animal it lands on. After it makes the animal noise I always tell Jack what letter and animal it is and now he's come to expect it. When the music stops he looks up at me and waits for me to finish speaking before spinning it again. What a smarty pants!


#4 Bathtub Chickens - Ok these are technically ducks but with their small beaks and little feet they look more like chickens. Jack doesn't want to play with his multitude of rubber duckies, but only with these and then he has a chicken bath towel. I'm sensing a theme here :). Maybe for his birthday we'll have a barn yard chicken party!

Jack's 7 Month Update

 

Weight: ~16.5 lbs

Length: ~27"

Loves: He loves to roll around on the floor going in every direction. He'll pick up his hand and watch his shadow dance around on the floor; it's super adorable. He also smacks everything! He hits the ground when he's on his tummy, he'll smack your face if you get too close, he'll smack his toys. It's pretty hysterical.

Hates: He still hates being ignored. He also hates having a poopy diaper, he must be changed immediately. But really who wants to sit in their poop for very long anyway?

Milestones: He's an avid sitter and he rolls around like an old pro. He's trying to figure out crawling. If we prop him up on his knees he can balance for a while and rock back and forth before his arms or knees give way. But he hasn't figured out quite how to do it on his own. He can sorta get his knees under him but then he forgets about his arms and face plants. Or he'll get his arms posted and then his legs loose all function. But he's trying and that the goal. I think he'll be full blown crawling around Christmas.

Sleep: He is a great sleeper! I usually put him down around 8:30 and he gets up around 6:30-7! He's pretty amazing. I'm so used to it now that if he goes down at 9 instead of 8:30 I start to get mad and wonder what's going on with him haha.

Eating: He has been a real trooper (besides our crazy Dr. episode you can read about here)! He didn't seem to like the sweet fruits as much as I thought he would at first but he loves them now. We have tried apples, pears, peaches, and plums. We also tried beets and that was terrible! He hated them, the second time I tried to feed them to him he projectile vomited all over the kitchen. It was like a horror movie with purple/red beet vomit everywhere. So we left that for now and will try them when he gets closer to 1. And then a few nights ago we started Avocado. Now that he's getting bigger I'm trying to make his food a little chunkier instead of soupy and it took some getting used to but he's catching on quickly! I'm so proud of him and I hope all these foods will help him learn to love food and not be so picky like me :).

Teething: Nothing yet but his gums are looking thin and you can see a little white behind them! But they haven't poked out yet and the Dr. said they might stay like that for a while so nothing really counts yet. We're still on the Great Teeth Watch of 2015!

Park Play Date

This weekend was super busy but so much fun!

One of my old co-workers has a daughter who is almost exactly 4 months younger than Jack. While she no longer works with me we have stayed pretty good friends. And are bonded in first-time-motherhood.

We decided to get our babies together for a proper play date since they are both old enough to look around and enjoy company. We headed out to the park for a walk and a picnic. The babies did great!  They slept during our walk and were bright and alert during the picnic. We obviously took several pictures and enjoyed every coo and smile. It was also a really great chance to talk to another first time mommy. Every baby is different but there are some amazing similarities in motherhood.

Her daughter Ellie is so adorable. She is so wide eyed and loves to stick her tongue out at you! She is just starting to coo and makes some pretty funny spit noises. Jack on the other hand is 4 months older so he was grabbing her and rolling around everywhere. He also loved cooing and saying "dadadada" over and over again very very loudly. Ellie is also on the verge of rolling at 3 months so we were hoping she was catching on while watching Jack do his crazy barrel rolls.

 At one point they were holding hands and we reached adorable overload!

As we were packing up to leave I noticed the baby swings. And since Jack is really good at sitting now I knew this had to happen. He enjoyed it for a few seconds and then started chewing on it which was a no go so we had to stop. But not without getting some great pictures first! :)

It was a great park date! I'm really hoping to make this a regular thing :).


The rest of the day was spent at our other friends house for a Guy Fawkes party. "Remember Remember the 5 of November". It was a lot of fun. There were kids running around every where and Jack was really good not fussing or crying as the other kids were screaming. We of course also saw "THE LIGHT" that night. Which I guess turned out to be a military missile exercise over the pacific. It was sill pretty crazy to see no matter what it was.

Sunday was pretty typical. We went to swim lessons and Jack did so good! He didn't cry once even though he went under the water several times. This was his first time not having a melt down. I was so impressed. After that was nap time and menu planning for me. Once Max got home from his field trip (remember the reason we got new tires) I headed out to the store and got a whole bunch of new foods for Jack try and I spent the rest of the night making baby food; so you better like it all Jack!

Who knew what the inside of a papaya and mango looked like?! I do now :).


I hope you had a great weekend too! Check back for Jack's 7 month update and 6 month must haves. He's getting so big!

Feeding a Baby is Stressful - Part 3

Wait what?! "But you already made the switch to formula, you have gone through it all" you say...but this is motherhood and its not over until...forever. Dun Dun Dun!

As you well know feeding Jack has always been a struggle, you can read about it here and here.

Recently he has been eating 5 bottles a day each 6 oz, and 2 oz of solids at breakfast and at dinner. For some reason or another a few weeks ago he decided eating was over rated. He wouldn't take a bottle or solids. He decreased his eating down to two bottles a day and no solids. Every terrible memory of his first few days of life came rushing back. I wondered if he was losing weight, if he was getting dehydrated, if he would have to be re-hospitalized. My mind was traveling to all the worst places.

Thinking you are starving your child is stressful.

After about a week of barely eating Max and I took him to the Dr. He had no other symptoms, no fever, no rash, no soar throat, no signs of a cold, etc. so the Dr. didn't really know what to do or what was wrong. He still gained a teeny tiny bit of weight since his last appointment so she didn't seem too worried and told us to just keep an eye out and come back for a weight check next month. So we went home. I became a hawk again; downloading a new baby tracker app, measuring bottles down to the last drop and spending hours frustrated and crying over the health of my little tiny baby.

Trying to force a bottle nipple into a child's mouth while he smiles and spits it out is stressful.

Then that glorious day came. I picked him up from daycare and the babysitter told me he ate all his bottles and every bite of his breakfast. He even fussed for more. My healthy baby was back! The clouds lifted and I was so happy I cried the whole way home. He has upped his bottles to almost 8 oz and now scarfs down his solids. He has also started crying for food which he NEVER did before, we always had to keep track of the time and offer it to him instead of him asking for it.

Having a wonderful babysitter watching him and who is as worried as I am makes this a little less stressful.

Jack has started solids, as I'm sure you have figured out from here and here. So far he has eaten every thing I have given to him except beets. He hated them, the second time I tried to feed them to him he projectile vomited all over the kitchen. It was like a horror movie with purple/red beet vomit everywhere.

And now since he's tried a variety of foods we are starting to dive into combinations. How do I do that? Do I choose like 4-5 fruits and veggies and puree them and freeze them. Then take two cubes and mix them together when it's time to eat? I think so, that way we have many options. But here's another monkey wrench he's also getting good enough to start eatting chunkier (stage 2) foods. But if I make enough purees to last another 4 months then he's past that stage and I have a whole bunch of food he's past eating now. So is small batches the answer? But in small batches there isn't a lot of variety? It all seems so over whelming.

Digging through a pile of solid food suggestions is stressful.

Through this whole feeding process I have felt stressed and judged by myself, strangers, other mothers, co-workers, family, and friends. But the truth is nobody is the same, we all do things a bit differently. So why do we judge each other so easily? Why do we make assumptions and accusations when the truth is we are all in this parenthood thing together? So to all the breastfeeders, the formula feeders, the pumpers and bottle feeders, the solid food buyers and makers, and to all those doing their absolute best to feed their babies I APPLAUD YOU! What we do is not easy it is not stress free (See above) but is the best. Whatever you are doing, however you are doing it, it is the best. You are doing your best, and nothing is better than that.

Happy Halloween!

I can't believe Jack's first Halloween is already over! This is my favorite time of year...surprised? Who doesn't love this time of year? I like my old, lived in, cozy year as apposed to the new year. Nobody likes January!

Anyway...This year was extra special because it's all Jack's first holidays.

Saturday started off a bit rocky because Max blew out a tire while searching for a great camping spot to take his class on a field trip next weekend. Well one new tire isn't a big deal. But since he has an all wheel drive car you have to get four new tires so they are all the same and your drive train doesn't explode. So that was a rough hit to our budget. But we weren't going to let it ruin our holiday.

After I picked him up from Discount Tire we headed to the grocery store to pick up a pumpkin and some candy. Late on the pumpkin train...yes, but it's Max's family tradition to carve the pumpkin the day of and since I get to have all my Christmas traditions he can have this one. And it gets done either way so that's all that matters.

Jack obviously couldn't help us carve the pumpkin but he could play in the pumpkin guts like a pro! Isn't he the cutest!

After we got the JACK-o-lantern (See what I did there? :) ) carved we got all dressed up and headed out for some pictures.

Can you tell what we are?

The most depressing was when little kids asked me what I was when I handed them their candy at the door. When my answer of a 1960's girl and/or Austin Powers wasn't helpful, it made me feel really old :). But Jack made the best mini-me so it was worth it!

We didn't take him trick-or-treating since he's too little to eat the candy anyways and we wanted to make sure that we passed out candy to kids that could enjoy it. Besides once the sun went down Jack was out like a light anyway.

We stayed up watching Austin Powers (what else?!) and passing out candy. It was a great Halloween.

I hope you guys had as much fun as we did!