Solids Shmolids.

I'm happy to report that Jack has finally shown a little bit of interest in solids...  I had attempted giving him rice cereal a few weeks ago, but he showed no interest.  I tried again on his 6 month birthday and he just showed total disgust.  I then tried baby oatmeal, where he proceeded to roll it around on his tongue and spit it out.  No matter who you ask, everyone (doctors included!!) seems to have a different opinion on what type of food is best to start with, what age, what quantity, what time of day, etc.  I've been trying to just follow J's lead but at the same time, wanting him to like food so we can get going on the process already!  The general rule is that you introduce 1 food for 3 days before trying a new one...this could take a LONG time.  I haven't felt "stressed out" about it but I have admittedly been anxious about it.  This is another one of the things I wanted to document so several months from now when J is eating everything under the sun I can remember that we had a rocky start with this too.  When more of my friends are going through this with their first babies, I can look back and say - oh yeah we had a tough time in the beginning with that too!  But, sust like anything else in life, things only seem important when you're going through them yourself ;)  Once you're through it and moved on from it, it seems trivial! 

On Friday I went to target and bought baby food, all different kinds.  Baby food is so cheap, who knew?!  When I got home from picking J up from school, we sat in the kitchen and I took out the baby apples and we got down to business.  He seemed much more interested in the apples than he was in either the cereal or oatmeal.  He made a handful of funny faces and noises while smacking/sucking his lips and I was very entertained.  He had apples Friday, Saturday & Sunday and it seems like we may be making progress.  I tried mixing in oatmeal with the apples last night and I think he outsmarted me by sucking in the apples and spitting out the oats...  Tonight we're going to try sweet potatoes, but we'll keep on trying until he gets the hang of it - just like everything else that you do for the first time with a baby :)  He also seemed to really get the hang of the "Mum Mums" last night and made a pretty decent mess of himself, but at least he wasn't just banging it on the tray of his high chair over and over and over like he did on Friday... this kid cracks me up! 

6 Month Checkup - Get Mom a Tissue..

Jack had his 6 Month checkup yesterday and was such a good boy!  He was playing away with his little tootsies while waiting for the doctor to come in and see him, happy as could be looking at the clouds and airplanes in the light!! 

He showed off his new trick of sitting up, he let the doctor check out his great head control and also demonstrated how strong those little  short legs are!  He weighed in at 16lbs 9oz which is the 25th % for his age/gender.  I asked the doctor if I should be worried about that and her response was, and I quote, "Have you seen his thighs lately?"  Let's just say that I'm pretty sure Jack didn't get his thighs from his Dad...sigh.  He measured at 28" long which was 90th % for his age/gender and I'm also pretty sure he didn't get his height from his Mom...  Jack also showed off his two pearly whites and the doctor showed me how close his top FOUR teeth are to coming through, ahhh!!  The doctor said he's as healthy as can be and to keep doing what we're doing. 

Jack had to get a number of immunizations/vaccines yesterday, including 3 separate shots.  Shots are tough, maybe more so on Mom than on Jack.  He was laying there innocently babbling away and all of a sudden he gets stuck with this sharp foreign object, his face turned instantly BRIGHT red and he sucked in a deep breath before letting out a big loud cry, looking at me as if he was saying "whyyyyyy????" (This little boy doesn't let out deep cries very often at all, so when he does it triggers something in me so quickly that I can't stop my tears!!!)  Then they stuck him again in the other leg, TWICE.  Poor guy :(  He pulled it together much more quickly than I did!  By the time we got to check out in the front, he was back to showing off his smiles and raising his eyebrows at the receptionist - clearly he was going to be fine so I also had to pull myself together :) 

Our next appointment isn't until 9 Months - I can't imagine how many new things we'll have experienced by then!!

1/2 Birthday!

Well, we've reached the 1/2 way mark and I have to say, I can't believe how far all 3 of us have come since April 18th.  We're starting to settle in to more of a routine though at the same time, things seem to be changing everyday! 

Jack had a big week last week, his first tooth broke through (bottom left incisor) on Monday while at school - and his second bottom tooth broke through yesterday at school, apparently Monday is the day for new teeth!  Only 18 more to go..

Current happenings:
-  Talks/babbles constantly and makes hilarious facial expressions while doing so
-  2 bottom teeth broken through, the first to break through is starting to come up a little more and you can sort of see it when he smiles, it's TOO cute. 
-  Just started rice cereal on his 6M birthday...seemed to go OK until he threw it all up after getting out of his highchair, twice.  After that, he's completely disinterested and closing his lips very tightly anytime the spoon goes NEAR his mouth.
-  6 feedings a day (~6,9,12,3,6,8)
-  Typically takes a dog nap b/w every feeding, sometimes 20 minutes, sometimes 2 hours - depends on his mood, his naps are still completely sporadic
-  We recently cut out his last dog nap of the evening...it was paining me to let him fall asleep and then consistently have to wake him up only to nurse him and put him to bed.  So now we do all sorts of playing/interacting to keep him awake as long as possible after his 6pm-ish feeding, then he gets a bath and one more feeding before bed.  I will admit I was ultra nervous about doing ANYthing to mess with his routine, but thankfully he continued to sleep through the night just fine =)
-  Typically sleeps 8pm - 6:30am
-  Has lost interest in rolling over
-  Sits up relatively well on his own if he is occupied with a toy in front/center of him, though is wobbly still and typically falls to the left, more stable when leaning to the right
-  LOVES to stand up and can hold his weight for an extended period of time while playing on the activity table/center
-  LOVES the exersaucer and the jumparoo, but not so interested in the swing anymore (at home at least, seems to be OK with it in school still)


He still makes us smile non-stop.  Words can't express how enamored we are with this little boy and it seems every day we fall a little bit more in love with him.

Happy Birthday Virginia!!

We ventured out on to the open road again this weekend...this time heading to Connecticut to celebrate a very special first birthday for Virginia.  It was  Jack's first trip to his Mama's birth-state!!  We had such a nice visit with Virginia & her landlords on Saturday morning before her big birthday celebration.  It started with some casual play in their PJs



Later that day they changed in to their party outfits & got ready to celebrate!

 

Happy Happy Birthday to a very special girl - Virginia!!  We look forward to celebrating many more birthdays with you in the coming years :)  xo!

 

 

Fun in NJ!

Jack made another trip to New Jersey this past weekend to celebrate his cousin Lucy's 2nd birthday!  We were on the road bright & early after Jack's first feeding of the day.  When I got back in the car from picking up the essentials (Dunkin Donuts) my sensitive sniffer indicated that Jack had finally decided to break his 3 day streak of no bowel movements...  Luckily we were right in front of a park & ride lot just before getting on the Northway when my sniffer kicked in.  A quick change in the back seat of the car, strapped our buddy back in and we were off!  Jack slept for about an hour, woke up and serenaded us, babbled about the surroundings and then dozed off for about another 45 minutes.  He was a perfect traveler!

We were spending the night at cousin Tyler's - he was very excited when we arrived and Jack was VERY interested in taking in the surroundings of Tyler's house.  He snuggled with Uncle Mike and then we were off to the park where Jack enjoyed his first time in the swing!  We weren't sure if he'd fit in it, but Brian put him and he was happy as could be.  He was smiling away, kicking his legs with delight and turning his head back and forth watching all of the kids run around. 

Tyler wanted to show Jack all of his favorite things in the area, fire trucks, back hoes, ambulances, police cars, etc.  We took a walk to check these out and then Auntie Theresa, Keith & Kyle met us back at the park for a visit.  Jack paid close attention to Kyle & Tyler as they climbed on everything and anything that looked like it was elevated off of the ground, it seemed like he was taking notes...

We went back to Mike & Kristen's for an afternoon snooze...

And then we were off to Lucy's for the big celebration!  A whole new mix of people for Jack to check out! 

 

We had a great weekend visiting with family & friends and were so thankful that our little man cooperated as nicely as he did.  He took naps in all different places (mostly in the arms of people that had been missing him!) and was an easy going, happy guy.  He had enough of his carseat about 20 minutes from home but overall he was quite a trooper...we love that little boy to pieces!

Case of the Mondays

When I was on maternity leave, Brian always used to tell me that Mondays stink.  Most people that work a typical 5 day work week can relate to this.  Now that I'm back at work, I have an even better understanding of just what he means.  I get especially excited to pick Jack up on Friday afternoons.  We chat in the car on the ride home about what we're going to do over the weekend.  He usually says "baaabbaaaba adaaaaa yaaaaaaa ooooh aaaaah".  Saturdays begin when Jack tells us it's time to wake up, he's in charge you know.  We have so much fun with him these days.  We've been assembling all sorts of baby equipment lately, exersaucers, jumparoos (yes there is a difference Theresa), high chairs - Jack loves them all!  It's so fun to watch him explore new sights, sounds, colors, you name it!  I usually watch videos of him throughout the day for a break from work, but on Mondays especially.  He melts our hearts, that little boy.  Here are some photos from our adventures of this weekend, we still managed to make the best of a rainy weekend!  We bid Grammy & PopPop farewell as they left for their recharge trip (sans kids & grandkids - I don't get it?), we had a visit with our friends & went to the orchard  with our cousins for cider donuts & a visit with the "DISGUSTING" animals as Sophia called them.  Weekends like this really make us count our blessings :)