Priorities

I hope you'll always know (& feel) that you're my number 1 priority.  You're so little right now, but I still wonder what you're feeling on a daily basis...  Do you like going to school everyday?  Do you feel like we make enough time for you?  Do you like the array of foods I'm trying to put in front of you?  Can you recognize the stress that either of us feel on any given day depending on what happened at work that day?  Do you know how much your little smiling face changes my entire mood when I walk in to your room at school at the end of the day? 

We just got back from a great long weekend in Lake Placid, Auntie Alyssa summed it up nicely when she said from the photos on Instagram it looked like we were happily enjoying controlled chaos...  It was so nice to have a weekend away, spend some time with our family and remember what's important. 

It can be very challenging to keep things in perspective when you're drowning in the day to day realities of life.  There are so many things I want to be able to do for you and with you right now.  I want to spend days thumbing through wholesome baby food cook books so I can make sure we're giving you the nutrition you need.  I want to lay on the floor with you for hours so you can explore all of the toys in your playroom for as long as you want.  I want to take photographs of you everyday in all of your adorable outfits so I remember how cute & innocent you are right now, while you're not mobile & getting in to trouble just yet.  I want to enroll in Mommy & Me classes so we can socialize with other local new moms with babies your age.  I want to go to baby music classes with you and see your face light up from exciting music!  I want you to know how much love I have in my heart for you and how I think about you ALL day when I'm at work. 

I've been really busy at work lately and it makes my head feel like it's going to burst with pressure.  I want to do my best at work but when I do that, I don't feel like I'm doing my best at home.  I didn't pick you up from school today until 5:10pm, it didn't hit me how late it was until I checked you out on the computer and I felt a small piece of my heart break off.  Days like this make me wonder if I have my priorities straight...

Nine

Our little boy turned NINE months old a few days ago.  I just packed away the 6-9M clothes and took out the 9-12M, I got sad when I put his 6-9M PJs in the bin... Did you know that they don't make button/snap up footsie PJs for 9-12M??  We thought it was odd that all of our hand me down PJs for the next size zipped up, we like the snaps so much better, what the heck.  Anyway...I took Jack to his 9M check up on Friday morning before school/work.  The doctor said he looked great, Jack was giving all sorts of smiles and he only had to have 1 shot this time (Hep B). 

Current Stats/Happenings:
Weight:  19lbs 9oz (35% - with the belly and thighs on this guy, I still can't comprehend how he falls at 35%, what in God's name does the 99% kid look like?!)
Length: 28" (50% - his height is at a plateau from his 6M checkup)
Activity  Jack is becoming more interested in moving around.  He will roll around and will scoot on his belly, but mostly backwards.  While sitting he will spin himself around to get to whatever he wants within a very stretched out arms reach.  He isn't crawling yet and is starting to get really frustrated by it.  He will rock back and forth on his hands/knees but he doesn't go very far.  If he sees something that he wants and can't get it - he lets us know all about it.
Favorite Things - He loves chasing Buster around (via transport of our arms), I even saddled Jack on Buster's back this week and Jack was giving DEEP belly laughs & shrieks, he just thought it was the best thing ever.  Buster, on the other hand, pretty much despised it :P  He also loves to ride around in his car that we bought him around Christmas time, he can play the music on his own and whenever a song stops, he'll start the music up again, can't cruise around without tunes.  He still loves hanging out in the bath at the end of the day, he'd stay in there until he became a prune if we let him.  He loves his Little Blue Truck books.  He gets super excited when we pick him up from school, kicking wildly, shrieking, the whole nine yards. 
School  - Jack is now fully transitioned to Infant 2 at school (with some gentle nudging/reminding by Mama) the school has stopped switching him back and forth between rooms so much.  He stills seems to love the teachers there and always seems happy when we pick him up, but I can't say it's any easier to think about him being there all day then it was a few months ago...
Sleep - He is still good to us with his solid sleeping through the night.  He has had his occasional nights of getting up in the middle of the night, but it is very very rare and usually linked to a tooth breaking through. 
Teeth - Jack has 6 teeth now, 4 on top and 2 on bottom and they are so stinkin cute. 
Feeding - the latest obsession that is constantly on my mind, worry worry worry.  I just downloaded a book on my kindle called Feeding Baby Greene.  I want to make sure we're doing whatever we can to set Jack up with a diverse mix of food while we have this small window of feeding him via spoon without giant protest from him, this could be a separate entry of its own...  :)
  Jack currently has 5 bottles a day totaling ~32oz (and roughly at 6,9,12,3,7:30)
  As of this weekend, he is now eating 3 meals a day, prior to that it was just lunch/dinner
  This kid LOVES bananas.  We are attempting new/different foods with him as often as we 
  can, but it usually involves bananas in some fashion. 
  He recently started using the pincer grasp for puffs and a handful of other types of foods
  We realized tonight while eating dinner that he will eat whatever we are eating.  We've
  always sat him near/with us while we eat dinner together but tonight Brian made a
  delicious dinner that involved orzo with cilantro/lime.  I put a small amount on my fork
  and gave it to Jack and he ATTACKED the fork!  I then chopped up some of the mixed
  veggies that we were eating and he also went crazy for those!  He has only seemed to like
  things totally pureed - unless he sees it come off of our plate into our mouth...hmm we
  might be on to something here!
  Our next venture will be to switch to 4 bottles a day...then 3...etc etc
Love - Don't know if it's possible for my heart to get any fuller :)

First Work Trip

I miss my pal.  Here I am - in Greenville, South Carolina on what was supposed to be a 2-night trip.  I should have known better seeing as it is January 16^th and I live in upstate NY!  There was a snow storm over night/today back at home.  I wasn’t supposed to fly back to Albany until this evening, so I’ve been tracking my flights all day.  “On Time, On Time, On Time…cancelled” Wait, what?  Every US Airways flight has been on-time today!  Can this be right?  Hit refresh, “cancelled” hit refresh, “cancelled” dam.    That’s what I get for booking the last flight of the day.  When we lived in NJ we learned to always book the first flight out, otherwise you were bound to be delayed – but that was NJ, where nothing goes right with traffic (air or car!).  There was a brief moment when my eyes filled with tears, I texted Brian, we each wrote some choice words, then I pulled it together and called US Airways.  Apparently there is such a thing as air congestion where air traffic control can cancel flights – who knew.  I then re-booked a hotel room at the hotel I happily checked out of this morning (with the thought of being on my way back home to see my boys!).    

I know Jack is being spoiled by all sorts of people at home right now, I can tell by the photos that are being sent to me (thanks Brian & Grammy!)  But I sure do miss him.

Morning stretches with Daddy

Fun with Grammy - woohoo, this lady is crazy!

He loves loves LOVES the phone so I’ve been calling to talk to him in the morning and at night.  He breathes heavily into the phone, lets out some giggles/shrieks and tries to inhale the phone.  He also really likes when he calls someone, so I texted Brian this morning to have Jack call me so he could hear it ring, it excites him greatly!    This is maybe the 4^th or 5^th time that I’ve had to travel in the 2.5 years I’ve been working for GE and low & behold, while I was here it was confirmed that I’ll likely be traveling to Oregon in a few weeks too.  I had a feeling that one was coming – go figure that it will also be smack in the middle of winter.  Do you think it’s feasible to bring Jack with me and strap him in the baby Bjorn while I climb a wind turbine or two?  He seems to like adventure (being thrown in the air, going upside down, etc)…

Hopefully tomorrow’s flight plans go a little more smoothly than this evening’s did?!  I miss my boys!

New Year - New Nap Routine

Jack is a really good sleeper, we got lucky with that.  Starting in early July when he was about 10 weeks old, he made a decision to sleep through the night and hasn't gone off-course since.  Maybe he's adopting some of his parents 110% commitment issues ;)  His naps, on the other hand, haven't always been as solid/predictable.  Up until the past month or so, he was on a 4 to 5-naps-a-day schedule.  Which theoretically sounds great, but the length of the naps, the timing of the naps, the location of the naps - nothing was routine.  He would basically nap at some point after each feeding/bottle. 

While at home, he typically wakes up around 6-6:30am and is ready for a nap (rubbing eyes, yawning, etc) by 7:30-8.  During the week, however, 7:30-8am is the time that he usually arrives at daycare.  When he gets to daycare, he perks right up when he sees all of his girlfriends (teachers), kicking his feet wildly, screeching, ready to play.  So I decided it was time to try to skip that nap while at home too.  It went pretty well this past weekend, we just have to be more creative with how we entertain him.  So depending on what time he wakes up, the goal is to keep him awake for his 1st & 2nd bottle (he currently gets 5 bottles a day, ~6.5oz/bottle) then put him down for a nap around 10.  On Saturday, he napped for THREE hours, from 10:15 until 1:15 - I probably checked the monitor 145 times in those 3 hours.  

We'll see if we can switch to a solid 2 naps a day in the next few weeks.  Yesterday he took 2 great naps at daycare (9:30-11 & 12:30-3) and then decided to skip his ~5pm-ish nap.  He was showing signs of being tired earlier than usual, but he was in pretty good spirits all night and made it until his usual 7:30pm bedtime.  We've learned that typically, he's in charge but we're not giving up on our attempts to maintain some semblance of control!

Lucky.

"Just call us lucky" is a phrase that has been ingrained in me, courtesy of my parents, from the time I was old enough to understand the words.  I've never believed it more than I have in the past 18 months or so.  First, we were blessed to get pregnant in a relatively short amount of time (though it didn't feel like it at the time).  Then Jack was born without complications, so much so that we never even saw the pediatrician while we were in the hospital.  We brought our little guy home and more often than not, have felt so incredibly blessed to have this miracle in our lives.  We had some ups and downs in the first couple of months as we started to figure out the whole parenting thing (I know we're only at the beginning of this very long road...)  But, since Jack learned to smile, he hasn't really stopped. 

This past weekend our little guy was dealing with teething, constipation, a typical daycare cold and to top it all off, he got his first ear infection which came along with a fever of 103.5.  Meanwhile, Brian got the stomach flu.  Friday & Saturday were pretty rough days.  Jack wanted to smile so so badly and everytime he'd try, he'd realize how bad he felt and would let out a little cry instead.  It was such a sad sight for anyone that knows this little boy like we do.  We made our way to the doctor on Saturday morning (right after Jack & I got home from what ended up being a VERY quick trip to NJ to see our newest family member Brody).  The doctor confirmed what I had thought was likely an ear infection, prescribed antibiotics and sent us on our way.  Jack woke up in the middle of the night on Saturday, still in pain, but went back to sleep in his crib.  When he woke up cooing and babbling on Sunday morning, I thought my heart might burst.  I had never been so happy to hear that sweet babble and felt so lucky to have this happy little boy back in our lives.  He's been touchy with the teething still (who needs teeth anyway?!?!) but we're managing with some Tylenol, Orajel & good old TLC.  We rang in the new year by hanging out with our little guy, cooking dinner at home and going to bed at 10pm.  I can't remember the last time I didn't stay up late enough to see the ball drop?!  But, our priorities are elsewhere these days...2012 was quite an amazing year, I can't wait to see what 2013 brings - just call us lucky. :)