Big News!

Jacob may have reached two milestones today, though the one is probably up for debate! Of course, I was the only one here to witness them, so I don't have anyone to compare notes with! Anyway, earlier today I swear Jacob got in his first real laugh. For quite a while he's made some noises that sounded like laughing, but you could really tell that they were just normal baby noises that bore a resemblance to laughing. When you hear a real baby laugh, it's pretty unmistakable. I actually have another blog to thank for that...it posted a video of a laughing baby, and there was definitely a difference. I know all babies are different, but it confirmed that a real laugh just has a different sound to it. Anyway, I've been trying to tickle Jacob to get one out of him since I know he's in the age range to be able to do it, and I swear I got one today...a deep-from-the-gut giggle! I haven't been able to replicate it, but it was cute. He was really cute a lot today, actually. He had his fussy moments in between, but seriously...sometimes he'd make the cutest faces at the funniest times. When I was feeding him tonight, he took a little break, and when I looked down at him, he was just looking up smiling at me! It was so funny. There were just little moments like that all day, where out of the blue he'd just start smiling and making happy noises. There's nothing better than having your baby look at you like you're the best or most entertaining person in the world :)

As I mentioned, he did have his grumpy moments today. He got hungry during church and wouldn't stop screaming (we were in the crying room by then, thank goodness!) until I got him a bottle...and even after that he wasn't particularly happy. I ended up putting him in the swing for a while this afternoon and he took a two hour nap in there. Normally I would never leave him in there that long, but he desperately needed the nap, and so did I. We had a busy, nap-less morning since we went to the doctor--followup on the bronchiolitis--the cough is still there (horrible overnight) but apparently it will just take time to get better. He's got a well visit coming up in less than two weeks, so I imagine we'll look deeper then if it still isn't gone. Anyway, I expected he'd wake up happy, and he was for a bit, but then he started to get crankier again while we were out running a couple errands. However, when I went to get him out of the back seat he gave me a big grin. Maybe he's in a needy phase and just needed to see me. He was back to his happy self tonight, thankfully.

So anyway, at one point I put him down on his belly because he's been getting close to turning over and I wanted to keep him practicing. He struggled for a good five minutes or so, getting ever so close but not quite getting his leg to push right when he was at the peak. He did manage to scoot himself up the blanket a few inches when he'd get up on his knees and push off. He was starting to get frustrated but I told him to give it one more shot...and sure enough, a minute later, over he went! He was still too busy whining from being stuck on his belly to really process what he'd just done, but I picked him up right away to celebrate! So, his first big mobility milestone....Jacob turned over from his belly to his back! Back to belly can't be far behind based on everything we've seen, but once he masters that one, things start to get scary! I like being able to leave him unattended on his back for a few seconds here and there, playing in his baby gym or laying in the middle of our bed. It'll still be a while before he gets too far, but it'll happen before we know it.

Hard to believe the weekend's over already...no long weekend for me, unfortunately. Craig may have a short day tomorrow, but that doesn't nearly make up for working late on Friday and all day today. Hockey season has begun, and now more than ever I am relieved to not be working there anymore. I have something way better to fill those extra 10-20 hours each week! :)

Weekend Treat

Jacob went to his first hockey game tonight. We actually didn't watch much of the game (actually, pretty much none) because we were walking around and I was afraid of the airhorn and all of the noise. I can't decide if I should buy headphones or if a winter hat with earflaps will drown it out enough. Anyway, Jacob did pretty well but it got late and he started to melt down as I figured he would. The night seemed to go well, though, even though the Amerks lost. I really don't miss that job at all. The amount of stress I would have been feeling today would have been horrible, and if I was still there we wouldn't have the time or money for a baby...so yeah, it's all worked out rather well.

Jacob is officially sleeping better. He goes down without as much fuss, has an easier time soothing himself, and has been sleeping better again. Whew. Of course, being up late tonight could have totally messed him up, but we'll see. He's taken to sleeping on his side a lot. Thank goodness for breathable bumpers, because this morning when I went in to get him, he had turned himself on his side and had his face buried between the mattress and the bumpers. It scares me when he turns himself like that. Tonight when I put him down he kept turning his head down into the mattress, like he was trying to eat. I decided to feed him a bit before putting him back down because I didn't want him suffocating himself! I don't know how I'll sleep at night when he figures out how to turn over.

It should be a nice weekend at home, with beautiful weather and just enough stuff to keep us busy. Every weekend is just such a blessing now because I get to spend time with him. Sleeping in and having time for other things is nice, but at 3pm today all I could think about was getting out and going to pick him up. He's so awesome.

And to prove it, here's a little video showing him in action...so cute! Have a great weekend!

Bedtime

So...Perhaps Jacob was just sleep deprived. I don't want to come out and say that he's better, because every night is a new adventure around here these days. However, he did pretty much sleep through last night with just a little fussing (not enough for me to wake up--Craig checked on him briefly on the way back from the bathroom, though). Much better than the previous couple nights where I was up feeding in the middle of the night for the first time in a long time. Ugh. Jacob's napping wasn't going well for most of the week. Hardly anything on Monday with my parents other than when my mom took him for a walk, and just an hour yesterday before majorly crashing for most of the evening. I did some research and figured out that there was a chance that he just wasn't getting enough sleep in general, which was making him overtired and therefore extra cranky at night. I decided that I needed to make an effort to get him to bed earlier than I had been (usually around 10, depending on his feeding schedule). Early on he'd go to bed between 11 and 12, but back then the days just ran into each other...every three hours, day or night. Slowly but surely it's gotten earlier, usually with me aiming to get him eating his last meal by no later than 9:30. That didn't always work, but most of the time that's just how it worked out based on his schedule after day care. I knew that kids generally go to bed earlier than that, but figured it came later. I figured at this point he was mostly flexible within our schedule. But with how cranky he'd been with napping and going to bed lately, the sleep-deprived crankiness theory seemed plausible.

The problem? Well, here's my issue right now. Every day Jacob wakes up somewhere between 6:00 and 7:30. Sometimes I have to wake him up, but not often. He gets a half hour of feeding time, and other than that, there really isn't a lot of quality time. I try to play with him a little when I'm dressing him, or to interact with him if he ends up in his swing or vibrating chair while I'm finishing getting ready. Lately I take him in to Craig (who's still in bed) while I do any finishing touches. As it is I wake up at 6:15, get out of bed by 6:30, and need to be out the door by 8:30. There just isn't a lot of time to just have fun with him, and I really can't get up any earlier. At the end of the day, either Craig or I pick him up by 6:00. Often the non-picker-upper isn't home until 6:30 or 7. If he's awake at that point we can usually squeeze some playtime out of him before dinner, but between feedings and naps and cooking dinner and any other evening tasks that need to be done (dishes, bill paying, shopping, etc.), again the playtime is limited. Add a couple feedings in there and there's even less.

So...the point to all of this is that there wasn't a lot of good bonding time with Jacob before, and now, with an effort to get him to bed earlier before he melts down, there's even less. It bothered me enough before that the people at daycare see my baby more than I do, but this just made that even more obvious. I'll admit that I was a little nervous today when I came in to pick him up and he just kept staring at Ms. Angela and wouldn't turn to me even when I tried talking to him. Did he like her more than he likes me? He was good with me after we left, but still. That sort of thing messes with your mind. A handful of hours each day just doesn't seem like enough. I feel really bad about that. However, what can I do? I can't give up my job, and neither can Craig. On top of liking what we do, we can't afford to give up either salary, even if you take out the daycare cost we'd save. My dream has always been to go part time, but that's still a ways away, if ever. Not only is that probably not possible for my position, but money-wise I still think it would be a little too tight. It's a bummer.

If going to bed early gets Jacob sleeping better overall, we'll both be happier in the time we do have together...so that's good. But I can't deny that it kills me that I don't have more time to spend with him. He's so amazing and totally makes me laugh, and even giving up one more hour of that is tough. We'll see how it goes, though...

Picture Day

As promised, finally some pictures...

This was taken at my Geneseo reunion a couple weekends ago. Jacob was obviously enthralled by the goings-on. Although, this response is better than the one he had when I tried to take his picture overlooking the Genesee Valley...it's a great picture of the valley with Jacob screaming in the foreground. In any event, he got rave reviews even when sleeping. I love the open mouth sleeping face :)

This one is from this past weekend. I usually go for the smiley shots because they're too stinkin' cute, but he does have a sweet little face even when he's not smiling. As you can see, he's getting ever closer to mastering holding his head up. He's still not particularly excited about tummy time, though he will tolerate it for a bit. One of these days he'll roll over, and then there will be no stopping him.

I took a picture like this a couple months back and decided it was time to take another. Jacob was happy, and it had been a while since I got a good, smiley picture of him. It's tough to really compare the pictures, but it's funny because we thought at that time that Jacob was starting to chub up a bit, and now he looks quite a bit bigger than he did then...and I still don't think he's that chubby. He's definitely grown, though. And check out the dimple!!

People have been telling me to take a lot of pictures of him, because kids grow up so fast. I totally get that, and thank goodness for digital cameras...much easier to take a bunch and edit your photos without spending all the time and money on film and developing. I do still print mine, but I pick and choose. I like my photo albums a lot and thought it would be sad if they just cut off. Anyway...I take a lot of pictures but only like a handful of them. Part of me wonders if I'm being too picky...I mean, Jacob's adorable and as his mother I should love and cherish every photo. However, I want to show off his best looks. I don't mean to censor the not-so-great shots, but I tend to gravitate to the ones that seem to capture his essence the best. Sometimes it seems it doesn't transfer to photos very well, or that it's tough to get those key smiley moments. I just feel bad when I put him through repeated photo ops just so I can get a shot or two that I really like. And then at the same time I'm a slacker with video. Video will someday remind us of all this stuff we'll forget--his cry, his noises, his little movements--but yet it's hard to know what to capture, particularly right now when he doesn't do much except smile and bat at things. Like the mediocre pictures, I know that every moment is special, but I guess my challenge is figuring out what's special enough that I'm going to want to look at it repeatedly as the years go by. Hmmmm.

But anyway, I hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Fun weekend

Other than continued sleeping difficulties (which actually weren't too bad other than a 2:30am feeding this morning...ugh), we had a nice weekend. Jacob was very well-behaved on Saturday when we hung out with Lori (my cousin, his godmother). We went to lunch, did some shopping, and came back to her place to hang out. He only had a couple fussy moments, and otherwise was super happy and smiley. He also went to bed pretty easily that night, which was nice. He woke up at 5:30, but on weekends I don't mind because I know I can get up anytime around there, feed him, and still get a few more hours of sleep after. During our shopping I picked up a carrier cover to keep him warm when the weather gets cold, so that was good. He also got a couple cute articles of clothing and a $1 purple monster hooded blanket at Target...figure it'll be good for quick trips on cool evenings until I find him a winter hat or a hooded jacket or pram (aka snowsuit-ish type thing).

Yesterday we took Jacob's first trip to the arena for a hockey event. He got to see a lot of Craig's co-workers (some for the first time, some for the first time since he was about six weeks). He was strapped to my chest and was pretty sleepy by the time we got out to see the ice, but he'll get his first real dose of hockey on Friday. Later yesterday my parents came up to spend a couple days here. We had a good time (except for that darn Bills game) and today they are watching Jacob all day. So far so good apparently. He was a little fussy this morning but not too bad--which may have been due to the large poop he took shortly thereafter. He's now sleeping in his stroller after a long walk. He's eating well and I'm sure he will wake up hungry but happy this afternoon. My mom is cooking dinner (yes!) and I'm looking forward to going home for a nice evening. I just wish I wasn't so scared of nights now. So odd that he's regressed in the sleeping department. Still seems to be a growth spurt thing from everything I've read, so I'm hoping it fixes itself soon. He's still got a bit of a cough/congestion thing from the bronchiolitis, so if he's not all better by a little later this week, it'll be back off to the doctor even though we've got his four month well visit in a couple more weeks. Poor baby....and darn co-pays.

I'm hoping to get some new pictures on here soon. I was trying for some video and may have to try again later, but I know I at least have a cute pic or two I can post when I have a chance. He's such a cutie...adorable with his dimpled smile, and just super sweet even when he's not smiling. Such a good boy.

Discovery

We (Craig, me, and day care) have been noticing that Jacob is becoming more and more aware of his surroundings. I think he's officially discovered his hands, because he's taken to sucking on his fist a lot. He wraps one hand around the other fist, and basically sucks on the first finger at the top of the fist. It's sort of funny to see, and very funny to hear. I can't decide how I feel about the hand sucking, since it's a bad habit...but these days I'm all for anything that seems to soothe him, and that does it, at least for a bit. I also noticed the other day that he's finally seeing the animal mobile above his swing. For the longest time we tried to get him to look at the four animals that hang above the swing, and he never seemed impressed. But all of a sudden the other day I noticed him absolutely transfixed by them. It was actually really cute. Someone at cay care commented how he's becoming more aware of things, too. Supposedly he had full on baby conversation with one of the other boys there...exchanging baby noises like a normal conversation. Would have loved to see that!

Last night Jacob went down without a fight, though he had practically fallen asleep eating prior to that so I suppose he was too tired to bother. However, he started crying a bit at 1:30am...ugh. I waited it out and eventually he fell back to sleep. I knew he couldn't be THAT starving at that point, considering he's easily made it at least twice as long overnight before. However, he started up again around 4:30am, and after waiting as long as I could, I decided I was better off getting up and feeding him a bit so we could both get some sleep. I gave him ten minutes on one side and tried to switch him over, but he was apparently too tired to go on. That's another new trend, by the way--getting too tired after one side to bother with the other. He's almost never done that, but he's done it a lot this week. Anyway, I put him back down but he started crying a few minutes later, at which point I sent Craig in. No sense putting all the burden on me if he wasn't just hungry. Still, neither of us got much sleep after that point.

I theorized while I was laying there awake that maybe Jacob isn't sleeping through the night anymore because he's getting healthier. He's had that cough for over a month now, the one that we now know was due to the bronchiolitis. We're still giving him the inhaler a couple times a day (though not before bed, in case that was making him more hyper) because there's still a lot of congestion in there, but it sounds as if it's breaking up some. The cough isn't as frequent and he seems to be getting more out of his nose, so we're hopeful we're on the downside. So anyway, I was thinking that maybe his illness had been making him extra tired, and now that he's getting better, maybe he's back to being a "normal" baby...which I suppose means he wakes up once in a while. I'm still thinking it's probably a growth spurt, because they hit one at three months and it can disrupt sleep and all that. Let's hope it's just temporary.

In any event, I'm glad it's the weekend. A couple days with him will be nice, and my parents are coming in to visit for a couple days. They're going to be playing the role of day care providers on Monday, which will be an interesting experience for them. While I'm sure they'll do fine, it's probably been a while since they've had an entire day alone with a baby! I'm sure they'll have fun, though. I'm a bit jealous, actually!

Off to enjoy the weekend!

Updates

Not much has changed with Jacob's fussiness, though we did actually get him into bed without him crying last night. He started up about five minutes later, however. Tough to say if it has something to do with his medicine, the bronchiolitis itself, a growth spurt, or just some general change in his perception of the world. It's just a bummer because it came out of nowhere after weeks of great bed behavior--going to bed without incident AND sleeping through the night. He was up at 6am this morning, which was ok but earlier than usual. Again, I know we've been lucky for so long so it's tough to complain, but it does take some readjusting. Other than the bed issues he's still a pretty happy guy. We still get plenty of smiles and he doesn't seem too bothered by gas these days. He is actually on a pretty regular streak as far as BMs are concerned...three in two days late last week and three in two days between yesterday and today (two at day care--finally they get some of the fun!). It makes for much easier cleanups when he goes more frequently, that's for sure! I still can't tell if the expensive formula makes a difference for him or not. I guess we'll have to keep watching until this can runs out.

He had his first "school pictures" taken yesterday. I guess it's good because we hadn't gone to get any formal ones done elsewhere. Is it really necessary in this age of digital? I don't know. But apparently they got him smiling and a couple people told me he looked really cut and we'll have a lot to choose from. I can't wait to see them.

I forgot to mention (because I only figured it out the other day) that Jacob has now doubled his birth weight. He clocked in at 13 lbs. 10 oz. on Saturday, which is officially double 6 lbs. 13 oz. Crazy. Some days I can definitely tell, but others he still seems like this little tiny baby. We're slowly transitioning into size 2 diapers and eventually I'll get around to putting away most of his 0-3 month clothes. Some still fit, but things like Gerber onesies (traditionally run small) haven't fit well for a while. Just as well since it's getting too cold for his summer clothes anyway. Such a shame, because they were really cute :) He's also outgrown a bunch of socks with those giant feet of his. Scary to think we'll have to start getting shoes for those monsters sometime soon. Despite bulking up a bit, I think he's still probably a pretty skinny baby. He hasn't quite gotten that baby chubbiness yet, particularly around the waist (though I LOVE his belly!) because most pants are still big on him. Most sleeves, however, seem short. It's so weird how you can look at him and know he's grown, but that you really have to sit and think about it...otherwise he doesn't seem that different from the tiny baby we brought home! You just don't notice the changes as they're happening. But yep, I guess he really is a lot bigger than the little peanut I sat there feeding all the time in the hospital! Jacob's also on the verge of becoming the "big boy" in his room at day care...eventually the babies move up to the next room, and there's still one ahead of him who's over five months old. But he's supposed to be moving up soon and Jacob will become the oldest. Crazy, since it doesn't seem like that long ago that we were visiting that room the week before I went back to work and he was so small compared to the other babies. I can hardly believe it's been almost five months since we toured the place all the way back in May. That doesn't seem like it was an entire summer ago! Time flies!