Foto Friday–Favorite

Foto Friday has moved from Mom Tried It to La La’s Home Daycare.  I’ve only known Lori since I’ve started doing this Foto Friday challenge, but I immediately ‘liked’ her blog when I first found her I and love her activities for pre-k aged children.  I’ve stored a bunch of her ideas in my favorites to use later. She’s very creative.  You should check her out!

On with this week’s photo.  Lori’s first assignment for us was to find your favorite photo.  You can probably imagine that I take a TON of pictures.  Narrowing down to just one favorite is hard.  I’ve loved so many photos in the past two and a half years (since Jack’s been around).  My living room wall is full of my favorites.

Instead of going back over the years to find my favorite favorite, I went with a favorite that I took this week.  Jack had a cold this week, and he spent most of his time laying on the couch next to me watching videos and sleeping.  He had a fever of 100-102 for about three days.  He is now back to his regular energy level with occasional coughing fits and tissue emergencies. 

While he was sleeping, I was able to get some pretty neat shots of him.  I can still see my little baby when he sleeps. 

Needless to say, Mommy and Daddy are now coming down with a cold.  I have a feeling this weekend will be a Miserable Competition with Rick and I both feeling more miserable than the other.

Have a great weekend!

Growth Chart Moments

Jack turned 18 months last week.  A year and a half!  Time flies when you’re having fun!

Here are some cute things he’s doing or saying that I’m sure to forget if I don’t write them down.

• He says “BESS YOU” to anyone who sneezes, coughs, hiccups, or burps. 
• He calls all animals by the noise they make. 
• Dogs = FUFF FUFF!
• Sheep = BA!
• Cows = MMMMMMMOO! ( sometimes Mmmmmeee)
• Mokey’s = OOO OOO EEEE EEE EEEEE!
• He counts to two.  Sometimes he counts to three, but his three sounds like one, so we’re not really sure about that one.
• He yells “CHASE!” and “RUN RUN!” when he he wants you to chase after him.  His chase turns into chrase after a few times.
• He loves putting blankets around him while walking around.  He loves all blankets and hats, and he loves to wrap them around his shoulders or waist and see how far he can walk around the house before it falls off.
• He is in love with CHOO CHOOs!  The boy turns his food into choo-choos, and everything looks like a choo choo track to him evidently.  He can sit on Daddy’s lap and watch choo-choo videos online all day long!
• He still loves to read books.  He knows what he likes and doesn’t like each night for bedtime, and it changes every night!  His nursery floor is covered with books that he fishes through to find just the right ones for that night.
• He can identify most animals, but that doesn’t mean he wants to touch them or get to close.  He’ll enjoy looking from afar for now.

OH, and he’s sleeping through the night now!  It only took 17 or so months, but he’s not getting up much at all now.  YAY!!!!!

This is his favorite blanket to wrap around himself.  And he can’t go to sleep without it on top of him…even if his room is 82 degrees!!!

Our little Darth Vader Boy.

 

He likes to wear hats!

Scout

Jack received this present from his Grandparents at Christmastime, and he LOVES it!

Meet Scout:

He sings, lights up, and knows Jack’s name, favorite color, food and animal.  He’s a LeapFrog toy, and his paws all do something different.  They’re very easy for Jack to push, which I think is why he enjoys playing with him so much.  Scout is very much loved by our boy.

Case in point-

Last night, Jack wanted to take Scout up to bed with him.  I usually don’t bring him up, simply because he’s loud.  His many songs and activities have no volume control, and since it’s a time for quiet, I haven’t wanted to bring Scout up to bed with us.  But, last night, Jack really wanted to bring him up.  He gave him a big hug, a few kisses, and walked to the stairs, ready for bed.  So, Scout joined us for bedtime last night.

It took a few extra minutes for Jack to get to sleep because of having Scout with him (he also asked for Monkey, so he had two friends in bed last night).  Eventually, Jack got to the point where he would sit up, push Scout’s paw, then lay back down.  He did this for a while, and then finally fell asleep.  I thought about removing Scout for the rest of the night, so he wouldn’t wake Jack unintentionally if Jack accidently hit his paw or something.  But, I figured that if Jack really wanted Scout to be with him, I should leave him in there.

Around 10 o’clock, I checked on Jack, Scout, and Monkey.  I think walking down the hall must have made Jack stir, because when I opened his door, I heard Scout going through the start of all his songs as Jack’s foot was doing the ‘horse-foot-stomping’ thing.  I turned Scout off and picked up Jack to snuggle him back to sleep like we usually do, but things were different this night.  Instead of wanting to snuggle into my shoulder, he pointed back to Scout for me to lay him back in his crib!  He wanted to snuggle in with Scout – not Mommy!  Okay!!  I’ll take that!  He wrapped his little arm around Scout’s neck and went right back to sleep.  We didn’t hear from Jack again until much later.

Could it be that we’ve finally found a comfort toy for Jack?  I hope so!  

Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa W!!!

Growth Chart Moments

It’s time for me to stop and look at how my son is growing and developing now-a-days.  I love these posts.  I’m always amazed at how much he’s learning and how quickly he’s growing. Here are a few things we’ve noticed in the last couple of months.

He is understanding simple commands.  When we say “Jack, pick that up” or “Jack, can you find the so-and-so?” he does the command or finds the object without any hesitation.  Okay, so he doesn’t always follow the command, but he knows what we’re asking him to do.  What amazes us is that it’s not just the repetitive things he’s able to follow – things we do all the time.  It’s the things we come up with that he either hasn’t done or hasn’t heard before that make us aware of how smart he is.  I love when you say “let’s go change your diaper,” and he goes straight to the stairs.  

I mentioned that he’s learning sign language now.  What I didn’t realize is that he’s using these new signs in ways we didn’t expect.  He is signing “all done” when he wants us to pick him up or get him down from somewhere.  After wondering about it for a while, we figured out that we always take him down from the high chair when he signs ‘all done’, so it makes sense that he uses that sign when he wants us to get him up higher (like onto the back of the couch so he can look out the windows), or when he wants to get down from somewhere (like from the back of the couch when he’s done looking out the window). 

He’s a good eater.  He eats *almost* everything we put on his tray.  The only things he won’t eat are eggs and cottage cheese. Other than that, he’ll eat most everything else we offer him.  And he can eat normal bite sizes for the mot part too.  We don’t have to make sure everything is super tiny when he eats.  He likes big mouthfuls, and he does a good job of chewing most things.  Though, he does swallow things whole more often than we first assumed.   His diapers prove that.  Oh, and he LOVES vegetables.  He loves all vegetables, but his favorite is broccoli.  Isn’t that weird??  We love it, but we’re surprised by it.

He has the cutest babble recently.  He says “bee-da bee-da bee-da bee-da.”  That doesn’t come through as cute as it sounds.  Say it really fast, hardly moving your mouth, just your lips, and you have a hint of how cute it is.  It makes us laugh each time. 

His one year molars are coming in now.  He has 2 molars that have finally cut through.  It took them around a month, but it wasn’t too traumatic for us.  He didn’t loose a ton of sleep, but he did chew on everything that he could get his hands on.  I’m glad to see them coming through.  Now he’ll have a bit of relief before the bottom two come through.

Another cute thing he does is that when he finds something he wants to play with (usually my cell phone, keys or sunglasses) he says, “Oooohhhh!”  His inflections with his oooohs and awwwws, are just so adorable.

The biggest news is something that just happened last night.  He slept through the night!!!  This is the first. time. EVER!  I hope this lasts for a while, but my hopes aren’t too high yet.  His night was different last night.  Because of our Valentine Date, Aunt Beth got to put him to bed last night.  That may have been what made the difference.  I’m pretty sure she won’t want to drive down to my place every night to put my son to sleep, so this may have been a one-night occurrence for him.

Our little guy is growing up so fast.  We love seeing him change and develop as he grows, and I love sharing what he’s doing.  He’s a special little guy, and we’re blessed to have him in our lives!

(His mom was a math teacher and his Daddy a CPA.  His love for that calculator comes honestly!)

You're a First Time Mother, Aren't You?

I can hear it now.  The shaking of heads, and the "Awww, you're a first time mother, aren't you dear?" I can almost feel the patting of my shoulder from the mom's in my world.  But in an effort to be honest, I'm laying it out there.

Jack doesn't sleep through the night yet.  He's 12 and a half months old now, and hasn't slept through the night ever.  Maybe it's because I breast feed him.  Maybe it's because I let him fall asleep while nursing.  Maybe it's because I never let him cry it out.  Maybe it's because he just doesn't want to sleep through the night!  I'm sure someone could run down the list of what I do wrong, but as a mom, I just simply do what I think is best for our family.  By the way, I've written of my frustrations before here, here, and here. 


So, what's new you ask? Well, let me show you.

Here's the story:

I recently began to realize that Jack doesn't necessarily need to nurse every time he wakes up through the night - he just wants to know I am there.  And now, since he's drinking whole milk during the day, I don't find it as necessary to nurse him each time he cries out at night.   I knew that Jack hasn't needed to nurse two to three times a night for a few months now.  And part of why I was still nursing him is that I knew it would be a quick and easy way for me to get back to my own bed.  He'd fall asleep nursing, I'd transfer him to his crib, and I'd crawl under my warm electric blanket in 10 minutes tops. (otherwise he might scream for an hour and a half- trust me, I know) But something changed recently.  I grew weary.  I just didn't want to continue the painful nursing through the night (teeth and clogged ducts), and I REALLY want him to learn to sleep through the night. So I decided to change the way we handle night time wakings. 

Now when Jack wakes up, I hug him, lay him back down on his pillow, and then sit down in the glider and wait a few minutes for him to fall back to sleep.  That works about half the time.  Sometimes he pops his head up to see if I'm still there.  If I'm not, he will wail.  I have fallen asleep sitting in that glider more times than I can count.  Since I'm already visiting the Chiropractor once a month, and I don't feel like shelling out more money to him, I had to come up with some other sleeping arrangement.  I don't want to sleep on the floor, and I don't want to take Jack to the guest bed to sleep with me as I'd been doing before.  The goal is for him to sleep the whole night in his own bed.  So, a friend suggested an air mattress.  YES!!!  I'll lie down on the air mattress for a while until he falls asleep!  If he needs to see me, I'm right there, and if I happen to fall asleep, it's more comfortable than the floor or glider. 



How's it working, you ask?  Pretty good actually.  Most nights, I don't have to nurse him until the morning.  Some nights he needs a little nursing time.  He is still teething after all.  Sometimes I end up just laying down for a few minutes, while other nights I end up sleeping on the air mattress for a few hours.  Last night I ended up sleeping in the glider for an hour and a half. 

Jack will eventually sleep through the night.  I will eventually take the air mattress out of the nursery.  I will get to snuggle in with my husband and stay there the entire night.  We will eventually have another child.  I won't always do this for my children.  I'm praying for good sleepers with the rest of my children!

But for now, this is what is working for me and my family.  If you'd like to leave a comment about what you've had to do, are doing, or would never do in a million years, feel free!  I'd love to hear them.

That Darn Squeaky Door!!

There is nothing worse than getting my 9 month old son to sleep in his crib, only to have the squeaky door of his nursery wake him up when I'm trying to leave his room.  Sometimes, when Daddy comes in to check on him at night, he inadvertently wakes him up because of that darn squeaky door!

Yes, we have WD-40, and yes, I could walk it from the garage up to his room to fix this situation.  But when I think about needing it, I'm holding a baby-sleepy or sleeping-and can't go out searching the garage for this wonder oil.

So, the other night, I thought to myself, "What else would work?" I know PAM will work (as well as potato chip grease from your fingers-just sayin'), but I had the same problem as before. I'm upstairs when I think of it, and it's downstairs.

So what did I have upstairs with us when I needed it?  BABY OIL!! I put baby oil on some cotton balls and worked it into all of the hinges on the door. 

No more squeaky door waking up my sleeping baby! And no more waking Daddy when I come back to bed after being with Jack (because I used it on our door too!).  That's what works for me.  Stop on by We Are THAT Family to find more tips and what works for others.  Have a great day!

I also used it on my metal shower curtain rod to help the metal curtain hooks glide a little more smoothly.  It's not quite as loud either, which helps eliminate yet another 'wake-the-baby' sound.  

Ummmm

What happened to my son?? Who stole him and replaced him with this even MORE perfect baby today?

I hate to blog about it, because I am officially jinxing myself, but I have to share.

JACK SLEPT FOR10 HOURS STRAIGHT!!!!!!!!!! I got a total of 7 hours of UNINTERRUPTED sleep last night.

Just when you think you have them figured out....

Again, My son hates to sleep!!

Have I mentioned that my son hates to sleep? It doesn’t matter if he’s in my arms, Hubby’s lap, or his crib. He will SCREAM when he feels himself falling asleep. Here is another installment of “My son hates to sleep!”

Yesterday was a good day. He had two decent, but not great naps. By around 7:00pm he was exhausted and ready for bed. We did the usual routine, sans the books. After the diaper change, he was too worked up to settle down for bedtime books, so we went straight to the nursing. He fell asleep peacefully while nursing, and the transition to the crib was flawless. He was out for the count. On with my evening chores I went.

Within the first hour, he was up. He screamed until I came to ‘rescue’ him from his bedtime misery. I rocked him back to sleep in just a few minutes.

The second hour brought the same scenario. He screamed until I ‘rescued’ him again by rocking him to sleep. Two times I can handle.

The third hour brought the same scenario yet again. I wasn’t as patient in my ‘rescuing’, but it went the same way – rocked back to sleep. All three times it seemed all he wanted was to be in my arms. He didn’t seem to be in pain from teeth, or discomfort from gas. Each time he easily fell back to sleep when he was with me.

The FOURTH time in three hours, I finally decided I’d had enough. I was worried that I was going to be up every hour all through the night, and I definitely didn’t want that. On my way to his room, I closed our bedroom door (so Hubby might possibly get some sleep) and then the nursery door behind me. I knew it was going to be a loud evening.

The next two hours were touch and go. Of course it started out with tears. He screamed because I wasn’t picking him up this time. I patted him, and kept a hand on him, which he eventually pushed away. Have I mentioned that he’s like a horse when he’s annoyed about being in his crib? Yes, he kicks the bed like a horse stomping the ground. After a half hour of crying, he finally took a pacifier. I’m pretty sure he fell completely asleep in 5 minutes, but he felt it, didn’t like it, and woke up with a vengeance.

I let him sit up for a while, since he’d been crying for more than 30 minutes, and I figured he had some gas bubbles in his little belly. While he was sitting up, he first tried to fall asleep – his head slumped over his chest, leaning on the side of the crib. Next he screamed, because he realized he wasn’t getting picked up out of his crib. And then he decided to smile and play. He found out that he could reach the crib rail, look over the edge of the crib, and chew on the rail. He was actually very cute.

*this picture is blury because there was barely any light, and I didn't want to use the flash. The shutter had to stay open for a while to let all the light in, so any movement made it blury.

I sang “Jesus Loves Me” about 200 times, all while he was crying. I sat in the chair where he couldn’t see me for a while, thinking that may work.

In the end, I think he just gave up finally. I was patting or rubbing his belly, he rolled over onto his side (always a good sign) and fell asleep. I crept quietly down the hall to my bedroom, where I turned the monitor on. I was assuming he would wake up in a few seconds and we’d have to start the whole process over again. Finally, my body relaxed, my eyelids drooped (more than they already were), and I breathed a sigh of relief. He was asleep. Hubby was asleep. I was asleep. All was right with the world!

Three hours later, he woke up crying. I nursed him right back to sleep. One fight a night is enough for me!

We Have Teeth!

So, last night was a little rough.

But let me back up. Yesterday, Jack had an off day. It wasn't anything amazingly bad, but he was a little cranky all day long. However, he did go to bed at a normal time, and with minimal fuss.

Then he woke up at 10:30. This wasn't unusual, since it had been almost 4 hours since he had last eaten. I nursed him as usual, and when he fell asleep in my arms, I transferred him to his crib. Little did I know that I was not done spending time with my boy.

Two hours later, I'm still up with him. He had decided he wasn't tired anymore and wanted to look around and see everything in his nursery. He climbed all over me looking at every corner of his room. He chewed on his pacifier like he usually does. Basically he refused to be tired. Needless to say, after two hours, I was tired, annoyed (is that OK to say?), and ready to go back to bed.

It was at this exact moment that my son looked me in the eyes, smiled, grabbed my head to bring it close, and gave me big sloppy kisses! Well, that worked! I was rejuvenated and went another half hour without being upset at missing my precious sleep.

But finally, I'd had enough, and I brought Jack to Daddy in our bed. I said, "Tag, your turn." I laid there beside them while Daddy and Jack sat in bed having a heart to heart. Jack looked around and took everything in that he could see (no lights were on). Daddy stayed up to make sure he didn't fall out of the bed (and I think he enjoyed his time with his son).

I guess a half hour or so later, Jack decided he was tired enough to lay down. He finally fell asleep at 1:30am. I took the risk and transferred him back to his crib. The whole time I was remembering that this is how we got to this point in the first place! But the transfer was successful, and we didn't hear from him again until his early morning feeding around 5:30am.

Now, I relay all this because, in the morning, when we brought him to our bed again (to try to catch a few more zzz's), I felt his gums like I do every morning. And I felt teeth! I made Hubby check, and he felt them too!

Ahhhhh, that explains it!!! Our newest Growth Chart moment.

Do teeth poke through clear? I thought I'd see little white bumps, but these are the same color as his gums so far. But they're just the tippy-tippy top of teeth.

An Hour and a Half

That's how long it took to get Jack to sleep for his nap this morning. This little boy HATES to sleep. He does't want to allow himself to fall asleep AT ALL. Even when I take him into my bed, he screams. I hold him in my arms, and he screams. I give him his pacifier, and he screams. I roll him on his belly, and he rolls back over and screams. I leave him alone to cry-it-out for a while, and he screams. I come back in and pat/rub/jiggle him, and he screams. I leave a lull-a-by CD on, and he screams. I do nothing, and he screams.

Eventually he just ends up crashing. I wish I could figure out how to get my child to sleep - WITHOUT nursing him. THAT is what works. "So, why don't you just nurse him?" you ask. Because I want him to learn how to fall asleep on his own. I am going to be changing his schedule soon when we start solid foods, and he won't be able to fall asleep while nursing. I want him to be able to nap when we're out, and nursing isn't an option at the time. I want him to nap when someone else is watching him, and I'm not around to nurse him.

Is this too much to ask???

I prayed today, "Lord, please bless my baby with sleep!" 10 minutes later, He did.

Of all the Joys of Motherhood, this is the most frustrating Joy I face.

I think it's time for my nap now. I'll try not to scream-it-out.