Read the Post Before you View the Video...

Ok, this is probably wrong on so many levels, but I had to post this because it is really funny. Let me preface this by telling a couple stories. Have you ever seen the episode of Friends where Ross and Rachel have to keep singing "Baby Got Back" (aka "I like big butts and I cannot lie...") to their baby Emma because it's the only thing that stops her from crying and gets her to laugh instead? Well...seems we have our own version of that. Its success has varied since this video was taken, but Jacob still cracks a smile if he's in even a decent mood. So...the actual background story to the video is this: We were watching Survivor on Thursday and I was trying to feed Jacob some pureed carrots, hence his orange face. It was right near the end, as this girl was getting blindsided at tribal council. The girl happened to have a rather large chest, and I said something to that effect (different terminology as you'll see), and out of nowhere Jacob started cracking up. Of course, when your baby laughs, the parental tendency is to try to repeat it and keep your child as happy as possible. So, we did. A bunch. And thankfully my camera was right on the table so I could quickly grab it and capture this moment for posterity. No, it's not a glorious moment for Mommy and Daddy, that's for sure...so my apologies for that. But seriously...how funny is this?

Week in Review

Well, let's see...My biggest beef from the week was the celebration of Valentine's Day at day care. We got a note on Wednesday, I think, with the names of the other kids in Jacob's room in case we wanted to send valentines. Now...I have fond memories of valentine exchanges back in grade school, and I am fully prepared for the celebration of holidays in school as Jacob gets older. Heck, I was all excited to get cupcake pans back when I got married simply because I wanted to be equipped for my kids' birthdays! Though nowadays I think you have to send store-bought stuff because of the allergen information, which is a bummer...one of my favorite memories of school birthday celebrations was when someone brought cupcakes in ice cream cones...yum! Anyway...maybe this was naive of me, but this whole valentine thing caught me off-guard. I never in a million years pictured 7-12 month olds exchanging valentines. But if I would have had more time and energy, maybe I would have done something. But Wednesday and Thursday were late evenings as it was thanks to working late and my once-a-week class at the gym, so I just never got around to it. Next year I will probably do at least a little something for the teachers, and depending on how interactive Jacob actually is by that point, maybe valentines too. He ended up getting three this time around, so at least not everyone did it. Still, I couldn't help but think that this is one of those symptoms of the world being a little wacky.

Of course, just when I was reeling from the Valentine's Day stuff, reality set in as I got to work yesterday and saw the front page of the paper. Somehow in this world of ubiquitous media, I didn't hear about the plane crash until then. It must not have made it to the headlines online when I was on at 11pm the night it happened, and then I must have missed all of the major news at night and in the morning. It was obviously so sad and scary. Our family even knows people (close friends/distant relatives) that live very close to the crash site--close enough to feel the earth shake and then run out to help. It's so tragic and is one of those things that makes you think--about the people who lost children, the children who lost parents, and the young people that never got to make it to their marrying/childbearing years. It definitely made me want to hug Jacob just a little more last night. Craig is flying to and from Newark tomorrow this weekend for a Knighthawks game, and I'm obviously just a little more nervous than usual. Normally I'd be relieved that he has such a quick trip, but not this time around. It also makes me more hesitant as a parent to fly anywhere. You can't let stuff like this stop you, but it certainly makes you stop and weigh the risks.

Jacob is doing well in general. Not much has changed. He still has his cough and we are really looking forward to seeing the specialist and getting him checked out. Still a week and a half until his preliminary tests, then another week or so beyond that until his appointment. Even if there isn't much they can do, it will be good to know what's going on. He's still not exactly loving the solid food, but he does seem to be getting better overall. Earlier he finished an entire bowl of food--a couple tablespoons of cereal (prepared) and some applesauce. It took some coaxing, but he probably opened his mouth more than he ever has for me. He's been doing pretty well at day care, too. Of course, mid-meal he had another diaper blowout, so that's still an issue. While he did get poo on his onesie, it didn't reach his actual clothes, and considering all that was in the diaper (yikes!) I was thankful that was all that escaped. And since it didn't have to sit in a bag at day care for a couple more hours, it washed out pretty easily this time. I don't know what it is, but Jacob's butt, cute as it is, must be formed in some way that makes him predisposed to blowouts. No idea why no diaper can contain him. Apparently Craig had similar issues as a baby, so I suppose he comes by it honestly. I'll keep my fingers crossed that our next baby gets my butt :)

Well, it's almost time to get Jacob up from his nap so he can be fed and ready for when Lori comes to babysit tonight. Craig and I are off to dinner and the Rascal Flatts concert (Jessica Simpson is opening), so it should be a fun night...even if we are thinking about Jacob the whole time! I'm happy it's a long weekend (even though Craig will be leaving early early in the morning for his roadtrip) and I will have a lot of time to spend with the little man. Stay tuned, because I will have a very funny treat to post in the next couple days...but in the meantime, Happy Valentine's Day!

Photo Wednesday

Just wanted to share a couple cute pics for lack of anything better to share today. It's been nice that Jacob finally "gets" the camera, and as long as he's in a decent mood, will do what he can to provide a smile when he sees one. It doesn't always work, and if you hesitate actually taking the picture you might lose his interest, but it's nice to get a good smile most of the time. I love his smiley pictures!!

This one was taken a week or so ago. Jacob was having another rough round of eating, completely uninterested in the bananas and cereal I was trying to get him to eat. So, I decided to just let him play with it, to see if maybe he'd eat some of it himself, off his messy hands or the spoon, and maybe he'd decide he liked it. No such luck, but he did make a pretty good mess! He's doing a little better with the eating these days. Still not exactly opening his mouth willingly, but using various methods you can usually get him to eat some of it, with a little patience. Day care has probably had better luck than me lately!



This one is showing off his cute outfit that Lori gave him for Christmas. I took it because I live in constant fear of Jacob's poop blowouts, and I wanted to make sure I got a picture of him in it just in case it became the unfortunate victim of a blowout that day. They tend to happen with about 90% of his BMs, even though I've tried everything--different diapers, how I put them on--to prevent them. Scrubbing poo out of clothes is really annoying and hard on my hands, but I do it anyway because I want to save his clothes as much as I can. He's not in them for that long, so to go out and buy new ones to replace poopy ones seems silly. I think only one or two items of clothing have ever been given up on, and even in those cases I think they were still wearable. I make it my mission. Anyway, just in case one of the infamous blowouts happened, I wanted to capture a shot of this outfit. How cute is that?

Happy Hump Day!

Live-in Comedian

I know this is probably only going to get more and more common, but Jacob is starting to turn into our own little live-in comedian. Obviously he's not exactly telling jokes or anything, but he does the funniest things. This weekend he really seemed to up the ante a bit. He and I went to visit my parents while Craig was working all weekend. We left on Saturday just before lunch and came home Sunday night. We just hung out and visited my grandma on Saturday, then went to church, lunch, and a birthday party Sunday. In between we had a lot of fun just playing. All of his rolling around and finding ways to amuse himself with things other than toys can be entertaining. He's still obsessed with his feet, and his tendency to grab his feet and try to shove them in his mouth (barefoot, socks or shoes...he doesn't discriminate) can be really funny. In church, I had him balanced on the top of the pew in front of us when we were standing up, and he was folding himself completely in half trying to grab his feet. It was so funny! At one point he was looking at my mom and she bowed her head to pray, and Jacob maneuvered himself as if he was trying to stay in her line of sight, with a big smile on his face. So silly! He's grabbing a lot of stuff these days, and watching him grab and "drink" out of my empty cup was so funny. I think to him it was more about having something to gnaw on, but how he held it in his little hands was so cute.

I love when I can get him laughing hysterically, whether it's something as simple as waving his sock around after he's pulled it off, or bouncing on my bed with him a bit (he lays, I bounce, and he bounces from my "shockwaves"...he laughs every time! And trust me, it's safer and gentler than it probably sounds.). His giggles make me giggle, and some of his faces are just priceless! It's fun to have such a happy, content baby. Our life now is a far cry from those early days when he didn't do much and we were dying for even a real smile. Since he's still not eating consistently well and I'm starting to get worried about discipline in light of his tendency to grab at everything these days (you have to start saying "No" sometime, right? Even if it's not forceful or involving a punishment...you need to start saying it for consistency purposes, I suppose, before it's too late.), it's nice to have a lot of light moments to enjoy!

Here are a couple cute pics from the weekend...

Jacob's first experience with balloons...

And his first real carrot! He barely made a dent but seemed to enjoy chewing on it regardless!

Finally, when we were packing up to leave the birthday party, Jacob was getting a little fussy. I happened to notice that the way he was crying (not hard, just a consistent whine), you could see his teeth really well. My camera was sitting in the diaper bag at my feet, so I quickly grabbed it and snapped a picture so I could have the first official picture of Jacob's first teeth! As you can (hopefully) see in the close-up, the teeth are just coming in. And yeah, he's got a little rash there from all of his drooling. We put cream on it multiple times a day and it's still like that. Poor thing. As cool as the teeth are, I'd much rather focus on the smiley boy in the picture above!

Three Years Ago

Three years ago today I took a big step in shaping my life as it is now. That was the day I started my current job. It was a huge step to leave the sports world, but it was something that had to be done. Sports had been pretty good to me, at least in some ways. I had wanted to work in sports for years, and it allowed me to make a few dreams come true...seeing all the behind-the-scenes stuff, hosting a TV show, meeting the love of my life...and a lot of it was a ton of fun. I had good friends (more like dysfunctional family members) and for better or for worse, my life revolved around that job. I never really loved the central tasks of my actual position, but I did what I could to keep it fun and get the job done well.

After a while the job really began to wear on me, for a lot of reasons. Long hours, low pay, friction with my boss, and being able to discuss little else with Craig at home really started to get old, and I realized one day how the job had just beat me down. I knew we wanted to have kids at some point, and for many reasons it couldn't happen working there. Not enough money or time ranked right up there, but I remember thinking for ages that based on my emotional state from being so drained all the time, I couldn't even fathom the emotional commitment it would take to have a child. I was just spent.

I finally got up the guts to send out my resume to a headhunter, and before I knew it I had an interview there, then an interview for my current job. It all happened very quickly (three weeks or so), and bolstered by another argument with my then-boss, I swore to myself that if I got offered the job, I would take it. And I did. I had absolutely no idea if I would like it or if I was really even a good fit for the position, but I figured that ultimately it didn't matter. I was smart and could learn, and I would do what I could to make it work. And if it was really awful, I'd keep looking...no worse off than I was before, and gaining more experience and making more money in the meantime.

Thankfully, that was never an issue. It took a while to settle in, but since I found my niche, it's been a great job. Good hours, great pay, and low stress, but challenging enough to keep me engaged without making me crazy. And most importantly, the extra time and money made it possible to have a baby. It also allowed me to get my sanity back, which was integral to surviving parenthood emotionally and mentally. I still have my moments, of course, but I never would have been able to do it in my old job. I know now more than ever that we never could have done it with both of us working in sports. All the evenings and weekends that Craig works make that abundantly clear. As much as I beat myself up sometimes for being a working mom, I'm grateful that I have a normal schedule and am only away from him for the time that I am. I know that Craig must hate when he comes home and Jacob's already in bed.

I am extremely grateful that I had the guts to change jobs, because it was the beginning of the path to the life we have now. All of it shows God's perfect timing. That I got this job alone was miraculous, because it originally had been given to someone else, who then decided she was afraid to work downtown. I interviewed with the headhunter just as that was happening, which opened the door for me. The argument with my old boss really convinced me to take the job even though I wasn't sure if it was what I was looking for--definitely the push I needed. In the end it is really a great fit for me, from the organizational and creative aspects, to having great bosses (they surprised me with cupcakes and a little gift this afternoon!), to just a general good fit with my lifestyle. And the fact that I had such a good setup for my maternity leave (my old co-worker who was available to come back and work remotely for the summer) was great. It really turned into a nearly perfect scenario. And it all began three years ago today...

A couple more notes...

I knew there was more I was going to mention yesterday, and I remembered one thing. Jacob is obsessed with things with buttons...namely remote controls, phones and computer keyboards. If it's got buttons, he's all about it. He tries to type whenever he's sitting on our laps by the computer, will bend over backwards (literally) to pick up the remote control, and constantly grabs at the phone when I'm holding him while talking on it. He doesn't exactly have the coordination yet to consciously hold it and press buttons at the same time, but he's got pretty decent accuracy at hitting something when he's grabbing. This morning he leaned over the boppy pillow backward after his feeding, and grabbed the remote. Of all buttons, he hit one that changed the video input so the screen went blank. Lucky aim :)

In other news, his teeth are finally, officially poking through! Based on him waking up early a couple (and now three) mornings in a row and some other general fussiness, I felt in his mouth last night and was surprised to feel some rough edges! No wonder the poor kid has had some miserable moments...those buggers are sharp! I don't know if that's just how new teeth feel, or if he's got extra sharp ones (yikes!), or what. I'm hoping that they'll smooth off once he starts chomping down on some rougher food. I remember when he was first born his fingernails were rough, so maybe it's the same with teeth? Who knows. Either way, I'd probably cry too if those things were cutting through my gums. Nothing a shot of Tylenol and a short 5:30am feeding can't fix, though! (Ugh.) Incidentally, I keep hearing about these teething tablets that supposedly work wonders, but even though they're homeopathic, they scare me a little. I read somewhere that if you're allergic to ragweed they may not be the best because they have something in them that's in the same family. I'm terribly allergic to ragweed, so if Jacob inherited that...well...it's a little scary. Hard to know if it's just internet hype or legit medical research. The doctor didn't recommend them, but like gripe water (remember that, way back when?), other doctors out there do. Sometimes a frozen teething ring or washcloth doesn't cut it!

Waking up early for the third morning in a row has been rough. 5:30am has to be almost the worst possible time for Jacob to wake up, because it's so close to my normal wakeup time (alarm is set for 6:07am, I'm usually out of bed around 6:30) that no matter what I do I can't really get back to sleep. Even if I did stay up and do a full feeding then go back to sleep for the half hour I'd normally spend feeding him later, he'd theoretically be ready to eat again by the time I'd drop him off at daycare so it really doesn't do me any good. I've been doing two short feedings--one at 5:30 to lull him back to sleep as the Tylenol kicks in, and another shortly before we leave the house so he doesn't show up to daycare starving. The short feeding later cuts 10 minutes off my normal morning routine, so it gives me a few minutes to go back to bed, get a few more low-key minutes of rest, and psyche myself up to get back up and shower. I'm still technically awake at 5:30, which is far from ideal, but those few minutes back in bed make a big difference in my attitude, if nothing else. I'm not too happy about risking Jacob getting back on a middle of the night feeding, but when his teeth are bothering him, nothing else seems to work...so we'll just deal for now.

Hopefully I'll be able to get pictures of his teeth soon, but they're not in enough yet to even attempt it. I can hardly see myself, let alone with a camera in my hand! I'm sure they'll be adorable when they make it in, though!

Miscellaneous Monday

Has it really been nearly a week since I last posted? Oops, sorry about that. I guess last week was a little crazy. Between making up work time for doctor and dentist appointments and generally busy evenings, I guess I just ran out of time. I would have posted over the weekend, but I got busy early on Saturday and then got sick...another brief but painful bout of the flu/food poisoning, much like I had a month or two ago. Not sure why that keeps happening, but it's awful. This time my parents were in town, so at least Jacob was well taken care of. Once they left to meet friends at the lacrosse game, Lori was there to help out until after Jacob was in bed. Thank God. I was feeling pretty brutal until about the middle of the afternoon yesterday. The worst part of the whole thing is just not being able to take care of Jacob like I'd like to, from keeping my distance in case it's catchy, to not having the energy to hold him or rock him or play with him, to a non-existent milk supply thanks to the dehydration. Unfortunately, the illness meant Jacob had to miss his first Superbowl party. We just enjoyed it at home, but I should note that the DVR was a huge help in enjoying the game and the commercials, because I can't tell you how many times we were otherwise distracted and had to rewind!

Anyway...let's see...last week...we made a little bit of progress on the solid foods front. Jacob still isn't exactly an eager participant, but he's getting better about letting me sneak bites in and not screaming about it. We had one good and one great bananas and cereal feedings a couple evenings, and so I decided we'd give it a shot at daycare on Friday, which apparently he did pretty well. We had a less successful attempt on Friday night out at dinner, which was the first time Jacob sat in a restaurant high chair instead of having his carseat in a sling or highchair or booth. I don't know if it was the timing or what, but he wasn't interested. He did seem to like sitting up and looking around, though. He had an okay feeding last night. So far we've tried apples (will be trying again soon), bananas, sweet potatoes, and green beans (the night he got sick--probably won't try those again for a while). Today at daycare I left him squash. Hmmm. So, like I said, still not great, but making progress. We'll keep working on it.

Jacob definitely seems to be increasingly aware of things. His various skills are improving a lot. My parents hadn't seen him in three weeks (they were off visiting Jacob's beautiful little cousin Kate!!) and remarked how much he seemed to change just in that time. He can grab better, sits up well, and smiles a LOT. As long as he's content, he'll smile at Craig and me upon eye contact most of the time, which is great. He laughs quite a bit, sometimes at nothing but mostly when I'm doing something goofy or tickling him a little. He still loves his jumperoo, and had us laughing last night when he was really getting going in it! He's definitely got his quirks, though, like how he tends to chomp down on faces. Out of nowhere he'll try to latch on to your face...but he's not sucking, he's almost chewing. You can actually feel him biting down. Let's hope that stops once his teeth come in!! He was up in the middle of the night the last couple nights (Saturday to Sunday I couldn't blame him, because we were all a little off...and last night he just wouldn't go to sleep, so I can see how that might have left him a bit unsettled), but it could just be teething again. Until those bottom two come in (they're so close!) we may be dealing with this stuff from time to time. It's tiring, but I can put up with it when I consider how lucky we've been so far.

He's getting really grabby, reaching for everything from glasses (his favorite) to Craig's hats, my necklaces, toys, drinking glasses, or anything near his changing table. He's very curious and is starting to get to the point where if he can't grab something he wants, he expresses his frustration. Not all the time, but sometimes. Luckily distraction still works most of the time!

I'm sure I had more to add, but I guess I will save it for another day...enough for one post!