reminisce

I was just going through a cd of pics and video my mom took on JT's birthday. Here is a video of John holding JT (for the first time, I think).



How sweet our little boy is. He sure was little.

step into mama's photo booth

I've done a fair amount of venting here about motherhood. Folks told me to hang in there until 6 weeks, because everything gets better then. Oh my... it does get better. I have stopped holding my breath so much, let some of the tension go.

JT smiles at us now. It's irregular, but it's not just because he's having gas. So I feel a little less like a bad parent all the time. That's how I was feeling when the only feedback I got was negative. I will try to keep this in mind when he is terrible two and only getting negative feedback from me. :-)

We still get up once a night to eat. But I have kind of gotten used to that. I will probably miss it, actually. It's special quiet time (well, quiet after I get the bottle in his mouth) for just mother and son with no other noise or distractions. And the middle of the night is a little bit fascinating for me. Several times we watched storms come and go around 3am. And when there is a full moon, we can see it out the front windows while he eats. Nothing like moonlight on the baby's cheeks...

Image is designed with a Photo Booth Photo Strip Overlay by KristyAnn Designs available at My Digital Muse.

7 weeks old

Can you believe our little darling is 7 weeks old already?! I was starting to look forward to going back to work, to re-enter the world of adulthood. But now he's starting to smile and coo... I am going to lament every missed smile. Being home is so much more rewarding when I can get a smile in between every cry or diaper change. :-)

Here he is swinging a couple weeks ago:



And here he is today... while he was playing away on the floor:

looks like Dad

looks like Dad, originally uploaded by brungrrl.

Here is JT next to his dad's baby photo. What do we think? Is he the spittin' image of dad or not?

He may have some serious red hair. When the light hits it sideways, it's pretty red. The next few months/years could be interesting in the hair department!

He's getting so big now... our little 10-pounder!

Nana thinks she's funny

Oh, Nana thinks she's so funny with her cartoons . . .

really, he's happy...

One might think from the most recent pictures on flickr that my baby is never happy.

The hat fiasco was sooo funny. Not to JT, I'm sure. I'm sure it's a clue as to what his personality is going to be like. When something makes him mad, he's going to let us know it. :-)

When we got home from the mall, he had a bath. He loves bath time. I look forward to it because it's some guaranteed happy time where we don't have to figure out why he's upset. He likes hanging out without clothes, splashing in the water, getting lotioned up, and then playing with mom and dad when he's finished.

Tonight we hung out and "talked" to him after the bath. He is starting to almost smile and coo a little bit. We love the sounds that almost resemble phonics. Actually, if John has his way, this kid will be talking in just a few months.

Last night he slept from midnight to 5:30am. He usually sleeps better after a bath, and I think he just had more than 4 oz. of milk, so let's hope that we are going to get many consecutive hours of sleep tonight.

With that, I am off to bed to ensure that I am sleeping while he's sleeping.

mmm, wine

We took the little guy out to dinner with us tonight. He was so good. It was nice to get out, too. And, I had a glass of pinot noir. YUM. I haven't had a drink since July of last year - I missed it!

one angry baby

JT and I had a photo shoot today. I'm a great photographer, I tell ya. I might quit my job, I am just that good at photographing babies...


Oh well, someday I am sure we will feel nostalgic about that toothless howl. :-)

slip-n-slide

We spent the 4th of July at a picnic at my friend Amy's house. You probably wouldn't expect a bunch of sober 30-somethings to entertain themselves like this...

floor time

floor time with Daddy, originally uploaded by brungrrl.

JT loves floor time. I think I mentioned that. But here is proof. And I love reading to him. He just looks fascinated. Of course, it could just be gas, too. :-)

Some of our favorite books: Sheep in a Jeep, a Baby Einstein shapes book, My Many Colored Days (Seuss), and Things That Go.

I also read him random things like magazines and catalogs that I like to read for me. He's just as fascinated with that stuff.

Gotta go, the boss is about to wake up from a nap. He let me have a 2 hour break this afternoon, can you believe it?!

simpsonized

Here are John and Stacy Simpsonized...

Looks very much like us, huh?! And while JT looks much like Maggie from the Simpsons when he sucks away at his binky, I couldn't get him simpsonized with the photos I had.

Days at home are long... can you tell?!

what's new

photo by Carol Miller

JT and I had some great floor time today. He was awake and not screaming for about 30 minutes. He let me read about 5 baby books to him and part of an article from Wondertime. How fun! (He usually throws a fit of hunger before I can get to page 2 of any book.)

We also went on an outing to the grocery store. Not much, but he was good the whole time and I got out of the house.

The trip to the store was to get him some medicine for gas. He's making poo now, but he sure struggles with it. He had a bowel movement this afternoon that he worked really hard for. I bawled my eyes out to see him strain so much. The medical assistant at the pediatrician's office said the anti-gas medicine should help with the straining. If it doesn't, we'll switch to a non-dairy formula for a while. The poor little guy should really be able to get through a day without pain.

Well... I sure digressed on this post. I really do obsess over my son's eating and pooping all day long, so there isn't much interesting to discuss.

Here is a story from this morning... At 5am, JT got us up to eat. John gave him a bottle and I pumped breast milk to store for another time. I grabbed the bottles from the counter that I washed last night. I dried them out, put the thing together and started pumping. Well, halfway through, I notice the one bottle has a SPIDER in it. UGH. I was SO freakin' angry. SO angry. Ruined an ounce and a half of precious breast milk... and let's not even talk about the skeeve-me-out factor of having a spider in the bottle. (No cracks on the ounce and a half... production is low, but it is what it is and I am hell-bent on keeping it up.)

Have I mentioned lately what GREAT people we have in our lives? That is a whole story for another blog post though. We have had blessings like crazy for months now. Folks have brought us food and presents for JT and all kinds of nice things. Makes us feel like we brought our son into a wonderful world!

He's falling asleep in his swing right now... have I mentioned how sweet he is when he's asleep? Love him...

I have to laugh or I will go crazy

Baby stress is killing me. I thought I would never go back to school for an MBA... but now I am thinking it would be easier than taking care of a baby!

So I just watched 20 minutes of an Ellen re-run. She showed this panda video on her show. I am still laughing over it. As she said, you just don't think of big scary animals like panda bears being frightened by small things. Check it out:



And here is a photo of our son JT that shows just what wicked parents we are. I especially like the milky drool on his mouth. :-)

I used to have hobbies...

I got up at 2am, 5am, and 8am to feed the little munchkin. I'm not complaining. I'm happy when he eats. And since he went back to sleep in between feedings, even better! The first thoughts that go through my mind when I wake up these days are "how long did he sleep?" "how long since he ate last?" "did he poop yet?"

And it's not just me. John got to sleep through last night. So when he got up this morning, he wanted to know if the little guy pooped. Do you think maybe we have issues? As he walked out the door, John said, "give him some more prune juice today."

JT has been a little constipated. From what I've read, it's normal if he doesn't have a bowel movement for a couple days. But we sure hate seeing him grunt and strain when he does finally have one. The doctor recommended giving him a teaspoon of prune juice. We gave him a dropper full yesterday, but it doesn't seem to have had any effect yet.

You know what's worse than forsaking your interests and hobbies to obsess over your baby's health? Writing about it on your blog... :-)

a birthday every week

JT is 4 weeks old today. We celebrate his birthday every week on Monday. Of course, today is my birthday... but it's not so much to celebrate as being ONE MONTH OLD!

On Saturday we drove 2 hours north for JT to meet his great grandparents. I think he really likes his great grandma. They spent a lot of time together! We had such a great visit. JT is lucky to have 3 great grandparents in his life. Tomorrow he will meet his other great grandma and his Aunt Joan.

"supermom"

I can't believe I have a 3 week old baby. Where does the time go? And why do I feel like it's only the start of time flying by?!

I'm not a fan of the young baby days. I need more interaction. I need to be less stressed about basic stuff - like eating. I'm going batty worrying about how much he's getting to eat, if it's enough, if he's growing, etc. So the whole supermom thing, definitely not feeling it.

JT's an awfully sweet baby though - very tolerant of his inexperienced parents. Here is a picture of him on Sunday when he discovered his reflection in the mirror end of a toy. Pretty cool to see his face light up when he caught sight of his face.

John got a hot tip that baby swings are THE thing for happy babies. So we went last night and got a swing. I think JT must like it because he's been sleeping in it for the past hour... and we don't even have batteries for it yet to make it swing on its own.

What a little precious... I just wanna give him kisses all day long... :-)