Christmas

I feel like such a slacker...Christmas was forever ago and I'm just getting around to posting anything about it. Although, we didn't get home until Saturday night and since then Jacob's been a little high maintenance. A marathon napper he is not.

Jacob had a nice Christmas...busy, but nice. My family's Christmas really got started last Monday with the birth of my niece, Kate. She's my brother's first baby (we found out they were expecting on the day of my first baby shower), which means I'm finally an aunt by blood :) Jacob is also an older cousin at the ripe old age of six months! Here's the first picture of them "together"...

As far as the rest of the week went...wow, was it busy. I felt like a terrible mother, but I had to send Jacob to daycare part of Monday and all of Tuesday just to finish everything up. I had some last minute baking and packing and wrapping to do just so we could leave Tuesday night. It was really crazy! I just felt like he'd be better off playing at daycare than having to run around with me for hours.

We had all of Christmas Eve day with Craig's family. We visited his Aunt Marie's house (which is usually the big family stop but was only a quick stop for us this year, for a few reasons), then went to church and back to Craig's parents for gift opening with the whole crew. This picture is just when we were leaving Aunt Marie's...so cute!

I don't have any pictures from gift opening because Jacob was eating his dinner through it all. Oh well. Still, here's a cute one I took while we were waiting to open them! Jacob did flop back into the tree a couple times while I was trying to get this shot...guess that head of his is just a little too heavy to hold up right now!

On Christmas morning we packed up and headed off for Christmas with my family. It's always quite an affair...a BUSY day. Dinner with my parents and grandma, then gift opening! Jacob loved his moose stocking that Grandma had for him (she's been sitting on it for a few years waiting for us to have kids!), and did pretty well with gift opening...he'd grab the paper and tear a little. Can't wait for his birthday!

This is Jacob showing how much he liked the sweater that Grandma knitted for him!

His big gift from my parents was already at our house, which was nice because it would have been a bear to transport. Jacob got a jumperoo, which he's slowly learning to use. Should have some good video at some point soon! He also got a wagon from some other family members, which will be great for summers to come! He got a lot of clothes (mostly from Craig's parents), and a few other fun toys, most of which make noise and light up! We had two more rounds of gift opening with both sides of my family. He wasn't a fan of all the commotion, but he seemed to survive pretty well nonetheless. All in all, it was good...lots of good gifts but not enough to tkae over the house completely.

He was a pretty good boy for most of the time away, though he's started this fussy back-arching thing, which isn't very fun. We're hoping it's just temporary. He slept pretty good, which was great, and he got to see a lot of people. We did have to keep up a twice-a-day regimen of his nebulizer treatments to try to kick his cough once and for all. He's handling them like a champ. We did put solid foods on the back burner while we were gone, but got back at it last night. We got through what I had prepared, but not without some fuss....still going to take a lot of practice.

Now I'm home with him for four days this week--two and a half alone--so it will be a crazy week. Lots of playing and lots of trying to get the house back in one piece when I can. I've been putting off a lot of projects until this week, so we'll see how many actually get done in between Jacob's needy spells. He's so happy a lot of the time but turns on a dime lately, whether he's hungry or bored. Speaking of which,his power nap is done and it's time to eat! Catch ya later!

Letting Go

I've discovered lately that I have a tough time letting go of the past, at least when it comes to Jacob. Every time he grows out of something, I have a hard time putting it away for the last time. I guess I grow very attached to his little clothes, and I can hardly believe when something that was once so big on him is magically now too small. I probably keep him in things longer than I should for that reason, but then again...things that don't fit him in one part of the body probably fit him in another, so it's tough to make the call. For example, his arms are long so his sleeves get short, but the body of the shirt will fit him. Or his legs are too long for the pants, but his skinny little waist fits in them perfectly. But it killed me to put away his 0-3 month onesies, and the 3-6's are now in the back of the drawer. I still haven't taken the time to put away his summer clothes, though we may need the closet space after Christmas!

I also had some mixed feelings about starting solid foods. It's a big step, and it's generally a great one. It's just...starting that means that he's growing up. He's taking steps toward not needing me to be his nearly sole provider when it comes to mealtime. It's a bit of a loss of control or something. It's a new world of high chairs and spoons and messiness. Definitely dreading the messiness. So far, though, it hasn't been going well. He spits a lot of it back out and then gets fussy. I don't know if he doesn't like it, doesn't realize it will ease his hunger pangs like milk, or isn't down with being confined to a chair instead of snuggling while he eats. We have to keep working on it, but I think for convenience sake we're going to give it a rest over Christmas. No sense dragging everything along if he's only going to get through a little bit before freaking out. We'll try again this weekend.

Ok, time to go get packed for a busy few days...if I don't get a chance to blog, Merry Christmas to everyone!

Six months

I can hardly believe that Jacob turned six months today. How time has flown. He's grown so much. The other day I was looking at pictures from his first couple months and just marveled at how much he's changed. I mean, I still see the same little boy I've always seen, but in reality his whole face has changed. He's filled out, his eyes have gotten wider and darker, and that smile is my favorite thing in the world...particularly when it is joined by a laugh! I laughed at how skinny his little legs were, and I'm so amazed when I think back to how hard those first few weeks were. Being at the hospital that first week was extremely difficult, if only because it was hard to get to know him when nurses were giving him most of his care. I just remember being so overwhelmed by it all...from the sheer discomfort (delivery is really brutal, from the obvious pains to muscle aches from working so hard), to the sleep deprivation, to figuring out nursing and pumping, and of course working out those hospital visits. It was a very disorienting time, almost like being in a fog. The whole first couple months weren't far from that either. Heck, I still have days like today where I feel like I still don't have it all together, for one reason or another. Today there wasn't any specific frustration...just a general fear of not getting it all done before Christmas, I guess. My to do list for the next three days is massive...thank goodness I'm not working. Jacob's definitely going to daycare for at least parts of Monday and Tuesday. I'll start being a full time mom on Christmas Eve!

Thinking back on all of this has me nervously excited for my brother and his wife, who should be welcoming their daughter on Monday. It's so exciting! And honestly, it's nice having been through it and now being on the sidelines seeing someone else go through it. You appreciate it a lot more. Being a parent is overwhelming, and some of it is so hard that it's almost difficult to wish it on someone else...but in the end it's all worth it. It's something hard that you have to go through to make it to the awesome stuff on the other side, once your baby really starts responding to you directly.

Anyway, even with days like today I marvel at how far we've come, and how far Jacob has come. Let's see...some of his more recent milestones...he's definitely sitting up better. He's still not entirely stable, but he's really getting a lot better at staying upright for longer periods of time before that big ol' head of his knocks him off balance. It appears he's also gotten better at rolling over both ways in bed. He used to just roll one way and get stuck on his belly, but I've been finding him on his back again more and more when I go to retrieve him in the morning. He still sleeps on his belly with his butt in the air, though. He's really getting into his toes. He likes to try to pull his socks off and grab and/or suck on his feet. Or sometimes he just sucks his toes right through the socks. He comes by it honestly, though, because I really liked my toes too.

And seeing as today marked six months, we gave solid foods a try. Well, semi-solid. The consistency of the first round of cereal is supposed to be really thin...basically breastmilk with a few little chunks of stuff. Jacob did ok. He spit a lot of it back out, which is normal. He didn't seem to mind the taste, though...no icky faces. We'll just have to keep practicing. He kept grabbing at the spoon, which is going to get messy! Definitely need to buy that mess mat at Babies 'R' Us tomorrow.

We have his six month well visit on Monday morning, so we'll have a new round of stats and percentiles to report. I'd like to go in and complain about his cough again, since he's had it since August, but he's actually got a cold now so there's a reason for it again. It's bad again like it was a few months ago, but considering all that's floating around in there, that cough isn't the worst thing--it's all he has to get it out of there. Hopefully someday it will go away...or we'll find out that there's a reason for it, at least...allergies or asthma, most likely. Not good, but sometimes knowing why something is there is better than nothing. But hopefully we can get some good advice on this solid food thing and make sure all else is well.

We're supposed to get another round of snow tomorrow, which after Friday's horrible experience is the last thing I wanted. Keep your fingers crossed that the lake enhancement is kept to a minimum. I don't think it's stopped snowing here yet. We had perfect gentle Christmas snow all day, but it can definitely stop now that we're assured a white Christmas. I have too much to do in the next few days to worry about getting stuck again. Stay safe and warm, wherever you are!

Snow and Shiners

Ugh...quite the day today. As much as I love a white Christmas, I'm not convinced this is the way to do it. It's still snowing here. Craig is still working and will have to drive through this craziness to get home. It's a little worrisome. But Jacob's in bed and this is as much peace and relaxation as I've had all day. I'm beat. As I mentioned in my last post, I was worried about today's snowstorm. I got up this morning dreading it, and took a deep breath when I saw the snow gently falling this morning at 8:30 as we left the house. After dropping Jacob off at day care, I came out and my back window was already covered. I had only been in there less than 10 minutes and it didn't seem like it was snowing that hard. Yikes. The roads were ok going in, and I sat at my desk all day staring at the snow. It just kept coming. It never looked particularly menacing...just a lot of small flakes blowing around. But sure enough, it piled up. The office closed at noon but considering this was my last day before nearly two weeks away, I didn't want to rush out. I went out to lunch with my Friday lunch buddies (two guys that work game production for the Amerks) and there seemed to be a good six inches or so in places. Driving didn't look fun, but other than the blowing snow it wasn't bad.

I stuck around the office until 3:30 finishing things up, then headed out. The drive wasn't that bad. Slow, but okay. I mean, if I would have been going faster it would have been bad, but at a reasonable speed it was fine. I was a little scared that there weren't really any tire tracks in the snow on the highway, just patches, but it all went fine. My first problem was when I got up to Greece and started running into piles of snow in the road. When I pulled in to day care, the hill to get in was a little scary, and I got stuck at the top for about 30 seconds. A couple rocks and I was moving again, only to end up stuck in my parking space when I came back out. Oh, and this time my back window was opaque again a minute after I brushed it off. It took me about six tries but I finally got out of my space and back on the road. I was hopeful as I drove down the street because it seemed like there wasn't a lot of plow debris at the end of driveways along our street. However, as I pulled into our driveway, I came to a standstill. Ugh. I was mostly in the driveway at that point, which was good. I opened the garage, hopped through a foot of snow up the driveway, and came back down with a shovel to start digging out. I dug around my tires and tried again. No luck. I think I tried one more time and straightened out a bit, but no real movement. I had no choice but to leave the car running with Jacob in the backseat and start shoveling a path for my car. Luckily he fell asleep again despite having had a two hour nap at daycare, which is almost unheard of for him. Fortunately, our neighbor across the street came over and helped me dig, and after 20-30 minutes, we had finished the path and I got in the garage. I got Jacob into the house and ran back out for five minutes to finish shoveling where my car had been.

Needless to say, I've been pretty exhausted tonight. It's a little scary considering this is night #1 of nearly two weeks home with Jacob. Granted, a portion of that time will be spent with family so we will have plenty of extra arms looking to hold him, but I will have a lot of days home with him, too. Hopefully during that time I can officially catch up on my sleep and keep up that energy with Jacob. He'll also have a bunch of new fun toys to play with, so that should break up the day a bit too. I just don't want to feel like I did at the end of my maternity leave, where I was ready for work again because I needed a break from baby land. I spend all day at work thinking about him, so I really want to enjoy this time off. But I'm actually very nervous about it. I don't want Jacob to be bored, and I don't want to spend all day staring at all of the stuff around the house that I need to get done but can't because Jacob takes up most of my time. We'll see how it goes...God knows I have a ton of wrapping to do in the next few days and Craig will be working for most of it.

As for the other part of this post's title, Jacob came home with his first official boo-boo yesterday. He's had scratches here and there, not to mention his little arm hickey way back when, but this is a legitimate bruise. It's tough to see, but you can see it right above his right eye in the picture below:

He did it to himself, flailing his arms like he does so often these days, only with a toy in his hand. Apparently he didn't cry. He just whined a bit so they knew he did it, and that was about it. At least it doesn't bother him. It looks a lot worse than it is, I think. Just a little tiny shiner for a little tiny guy!

Here are a couple more pictures that I couldn't resist:

Finally, wanna hear something crazy? Six months ago right now I was in some pretty serious labor. Although, at this point I probably couldn't feel it thanks to that fantastic epidural. Jacob will hit the six month mark at 2:40am, and I can hardly believe it. Hopefully I'll have a chance to blog more about that this weekend. This post is already long enough! Stay warm and stay safe!

Random Stuff

Just a few random news and notes today...

Jacob had a massive blowout this morning. I swear there was poop over about 2/3 of his back, at least. It was really nasty. I'm not sure that onesie is ever going to recover. I somehow even gave myself a blister trying to scrub it out. I was feeding him and could tell he was going, but when I sat him up to burp him and could smell it really well, I figured something was up. And sure enough...yuck. Nothing like a monkey wrench like that into your morning routine!

Jacob is really, really cute. I know I keep saying that, but every time I look at him, whether he's smiling or sleeping or just being his goofy self, I can't help but think it. I have the close-up Santa hat picture from my last post as my work wallpaper, and every time I click back to my desktop I can't help but smile. He gets a lot of comments when we go out and people peek into his carrier or see us carting him around. When we got his pictures done the other night, the photographer kept saying how cute he was...though she probably says that about all of the kids.

Speaking of the photos...they went ok. I was a little underwhelmed by their backdrop options. Either Christmas or a black or white drape. Hmmmm. Since I didn't want these to be Christmas specific, it had to be one of the drapes...and since he was wearing mostly black, it had to be white. Ugh. We tried him in all different positions...sitting up (he did remarkably well...I hardly had to support him), on his belly, on his back, with me holding him...anything to keep him smiling...which was a challenge. Normally Jacob is so smiley, and he was at the beginning of the shoot. But as it went on he just sort of stopped. He didn't cry (he whined a bit once), but he just didn't smile either. I don't know if he just wasn't in the mood, or if he was getting bored, or if he was too interested in the camera to bother with anything else. Afterward he was smiling again, so who knows. The other issue was that he's got a bit of a cold right now and his nose is extra runny these days. As a result, he's got quite a dry patch under his nose. I put cream on it a lot and it generally looks better in the morning when his nose has been running less overnight (it all must run into his throat instead, since we're back to a bad cough...poor thing), but at the end of the day it's pretty rough. So, the couple good close up shots weren't particularly attractive in the nose region. Ugh. I did manage to pick one pose that was cute, though, so I guess that's good.

In other news, I'm getting a little extra nervous about tomorrow's weather forecast. We're supposed to get like, 6 to 9 inches of snow during the day. Overall it's just terrible timing. For one, it's my last day of work this year. I have a lot to do and even if we got released early, I probably wouldn't be able to leave. And now that I have to pick up Jacob (Craig's got a game...that no one will be at if this thing is as bad as they say it will be), it makes me even more nervous because I don't like driving in weather like that, nor do I want to risk getting stuck somewhere and not be able to get to him. It's that much scarier with a child now....who knew? And the other issue? I won't be able to shovel. I'd hope I'd be able to get in the driveway, but if the plows come out during the day I could be in trouble. It'd be awful if I couldn't get in the driveway or if I got stuck, because I don't want to just leave Jacob in the car, nor can I just leave him in the house if I had to shovel out. Hmmm. I shouldn't worry about it yet, but it crossed my mind and has me a little concerned.

I guess that's about it for now...like I said, random :)

Christmas Card Rejects

Hi, I hope everyone had a nice weekend. Ours was busy as usual. Jacob and I went to the hockey game on Friday night so he could see Santa. I figured it was his shot to see a non-creepy Santa (the ones at the malls bug me...not to mention that waiting in line is awful). Staying up late totally screwed up his schedule for a couple days, but oh well. He didn't particularly enjoy Santa, however. No tears, just no smiles.


Here's a pic I snapped of Jacob when we got home that night...couldn't resist :)

My parents came to visit on Saturday so they could hang out with Jacob while Craig and I went Christmas shopping. It was weird being out and about without him, especially since it seemed like everyone had their baby out at the mall, no matter how young. Crazy. While I did miss having Jacob around, it was nice to be able to move around as quickly as possible (in spite of the slowpokes all over the place) and to not worry about when he'd need to eat or what to do if he got cranky. We had a fairly successful trip, though there's still a lot more to do!

Craig had another game yesterday so Jacob and I were on our own. We ended up going to the children's Christmas program at church in the afternoon, which was nice. Jacob seemed to enjoy it...he was very content the whole time. Once we got home it was time for our Christmas card photo shoot. I'm keeping the winner under wraps since most of the people that read this blog will be getting a card....and perhaps will post it later on once the cards have gone out. But for now, here are some rejects...the best of the rejects, anyway...so many cute ones, but there could only be one winner...

It was fun playing dress up and getting Jacob to smile, until he decided he wanted to suck on his hands non-stop and the drool started showing up on his shirt. We have some "official" pictures tomorrow evening, and I am SO hoping that he's in a good mood for them. We shall see. Happy Monday :)

So awesome...

I really have a pretty awesome little boy. I know that sounds really parental of me, but honestly, the kid is amazing. He's so cute, really sweet, very content, and a great sleeper. He smiles all the time, laughs a lot, and is really pretty flexible. We went to the Amerks game tonight, and he was such a good boy. It was a late night and quite a bit of a change from his normal routine, but he was awesome. And then we came home and he went to bed without incident, even though I didn't get him from his carseat to the crib without waking him up. He just smiled as I put his pjs on and put him in his crib.

I figured it was time to go to a hockey game because we hadn't been there since Halloween. He's grown and changed a lot in the last month and a half, and I wanted to show him off again. In addition, Santa was at the game tonight. I'm creeped out by mall Santas so this seemed like a good opportunity since we know the Amerks' Santa. And seriously, you won't see a more authentic looking one anywhere. I'll post a picture soon. Jacob didn't smile, but he didn't cry either. Wait until next year!

Anyway, the whole time we were at the game people (even strangers) were remarking how cute he is. We ran into one of the teachers at Jacob's daycare (she's a season ticket holder) and she was saying how much everyone there loves him. And while I'm sure they love all the babies, he does seem to get a lot of love there. I think it's the dimple! Or perhaps it's just that he's so easy-going and only cries when he really needs something. Nice change of pace from some kids, I suppose.

The last couple nights he's been so happy, laughing a ton and keeping me laughing myself. He's been going down to sleep really well lately, too (knock on wood), and it's given me some decent time in the evenings to get things done or just relax with Craig like we used to back in the day. I spent a lot of time today talking to people at work because we had our Christmas party all afternoon. There was a lot of baby talk, and Jacob is definitely the king sleeper of all the new babies. He's also the oldest, but still...not by so much that he's getting in two hours more sleep each night than his next closest competitor. I feel bad for the rest of the parents, but I am immensely grateful for Jacob's sleep skills...rest assured.

While I know I have my moments of frustration when he gets cranky or I just don't feel like running errands with 18+ pounds of baby stuff, I wouldn't change a thing. He's such an amazingly good baby, completely adorable and endearing, and I just can't get enough of him. He makes me smile, makes me laugh, and makes me so grateful for the amazing blessing he is. Every time I'm with him I marvel at how great he is. Again, I know this sounds so parental...and parents are totally allowed to be proud of their kids. But I just know I have an extra special baby...and I can only pray that he continues on this path and becomes a very special little boy--genuinely nice and sweet, well-behaved, and completely adorable. Of course, with all of those characteristics we'll have to make sure he's humble as well! For now, though, I am content to just enjoy him. Still can't wait until Christmas week...only one more week of work and then I have almost two weeks to enjoy him...YES!