Quiet Weekend Planned

We are enjoying this weekend because we don't have any obligations other than to relax! We just went to the mall to return some clothes that Jacob can't wear and to find some long-sleeve shirts for him to get him by until summer. Unfortunately all of the stores are stocked full of summer clothes and long-sleeves are long gone. We are very ready for warmer weather for many reasons, but one main reason is that we are anxious to put Jacob in his cute summer clothes! This was Jacob's first shopping trip to the mall. He played all morning so he was due for a long nap, which served us well why we shopped. I can't navigate the stroller very well and probably knocked into almost every corner I took, but Jacob didn't seem to notice :)

We plan on watching the basketball games tonight. My final two (NC and UCLA) are still going strong, but my bracket hasn't gone as well as I had hoped. The house finally got cleaned this past week (only took me six days!) and I am trying to tackle spring cleaning whenever I get a spare minute. Everything takes so long to get done these days. Rascal is starting to shed his winter coat so keeping the house clean is near impossible. I hate finding dog hair on Jacob's things.

Since we could sleep in some this morning, I made the executive decision last night to try and let Jacob cry himself back to sleep if he got up in the middle of the night. Sure enough, he woke up around 3:00 and lasted a little while with his pacifier before going into an all-out wail. We shut his bedroom door as well as ours and tried to go back to sleep. After about 30-45 minutes of him crying I gave up and went in to try and soothe him. The poor kid's face was soaked with tears and his cry was like none other that we have heard so far - it sounded like he was truly terrified. I discovered that he had a very wet and poopy diaper. He never poops in the middle of the night, so maybe that was the cause of his crying, who knows. Anyways after a diaper change, he continued to cry hard, so I gave in and fed him. Even after going into his milk coma, he still had the crying after-effect sucking in for air noises that you get after having a really good cry. This is the first time he has ever had them and it really broke my heart. I feel like the worst mom, even though I had his best intentions in mind. I have no idea how to break him from waking up in the middle of the night crying. It is so much easier to just feed him and then go back to sleep, but I'm trying really hard to follow the doctor's orders. Any moms have any advice for me?

Happy Easter!!

We have had a pretty good weekend. My dad came up yesterday for the afternoon to see Jacob and give him his Easter basket. He got him bunny ears (he steered clear of pink) and they are so cute!! Poor Jacob suffered through lots of pictures with them on :) We gave Jacob his Easter basket from us this morning and took pictures of him in his Easter outfit. It is so cold here that I had to put a long-sleeve onesie on under it so that he would stay warm. The shirt looks really big on him so he looks even bigger than he already is in it. We went to church before going to Dan's mom's house for lunch. Jacob has been going to the nursery the last few weeks which makes our church-going experience so much nicer. He just isn't one of those babies that will contently sleep in his carseat for an hour. It was nice to see a lot of Dan's family today. All of Jacob's cousins were there which always makes for great craziness. Jacob got some really cute summer outfits from his grandma and great-aunt and I can't wait until it is warm enough for him to start wearing them!

Jacob was so much fun this weekend. He rolled over for the first time (back-to-front) Saturday morning. He must have liked it because he did it four times in a row! He did it again today too. We will really have to watch him now. He also started to squeal, which kind of sounds like an animal noise. He seems to play off of us and do it more when we are encouraging him. It sounds so funny, but I haven't decided if this is a good thing or not! Hopefully he will keep exploring his voice and settle on another noise that sounds less like an animal!! Nevertheless, it is great to see him change and do more fun things.

Here are some pictures!!


Jacob looking at his reflection on the mirror on his play mat

Jacob after he rolled over

"Nakey Jakey" in his bumbo seat

Grandpa giving Jacob his Easter basket

Jacob with his bunny puppy from Grandpa

Jacob getting his Easter basket from Mom

Jacob and his counsin Makynzie who is a few weeks younger than him

4-Month Check-Up

Today started out on a rough note. Both Dan and Jacob are battling new colds this week and Dan decided for the first time in years to stay home from work. Dan normally drops Jacob off at daycare in the mornings so I had to take Jacob this morning. Well, in the daycare parking lot my car battery died. Before I could even get Dan on the phone to get help, another parent tapped on my window and offered to jump my car for me. What a nice guy. Bless his heart, I was your stereotypical dumb woman (in relation to car knowledge) and couldn't even figure out how to pop the hood. At least Dan had the good notion to equip my car with cables. Now I know why my car has been a little slow to start this past week!

Jacob's appointment went great. We discussed starting solid foods - our goal is to have him on three meals of solids a day by six months. I don't think that he is ready to start cereal yet, but we'll see! We also discussed his night sleeping. I was told to stop night feedings and let him cry in the middle of the night. This will be so hard but I am hopeful that Jacob will adjust and learn how to soothe himself. We also discussed helping him develop his motor skills and mobility. He was such a trooper through his shots. He turned tomato red and cried hard for about one minute, but got over it. So far tonight he has been doing great. We went for a walk and played quite a bit. We have been practicing sitting and he can sit upright for a little while before toppling over. He still has a long ways to go, but it is fun to work with him on this. He loves being upright so he doesn't seem to mind!

Here are his 4-month stats:

Weight - 16lbs 4oz (74th percentile)
Length - 25 1/2 inches (66th percentile)
Head circumference - 50th percentile

I know I promised pictures, but I don't have the energy to post any right now!

Four-Month Highlights

It is hard to believe that Jacob is four-months old today! I have compiled a list of highlights of Jacob's accomplishments as he reaches this milestone today.

1. He giggled for the first time yesterday as Dan was tickling him. It sounded like "hee hee." We tried to get him to repeat it with no such luck.

2. He smiles on command now.

3. He cooes. I think that he is going to be like me in that I am a fairly quiet person, but when you get me talking it is hard to get me to stop sometimes :)

4. He is on the verge of rolling over. He likes to roll onto his side, but hasn't quite figured out how to roll onto his stomach yet.

5. He loves to play with his feet. This includes sticking his feet up in the air and grabbing onto them with his hands, kicking at us while changing his diaper, and splashing during bathtime.

6. He grabs onto anything within reach of his hands.... and I mean "anything" (I'll leave it at that!).

7. He is definitely teething, but has yet to sprout another tooth to join the one he has on the bottom that he got five weeks ago.

8. He is finally sleeping in his crib although he is rarely sleeping through the night anymore. In fact, he is now only sleeping a few hours at a time and wants to eat more often. Everyone told us that if your baby sleeps through the night early on, you'll realize how spoiled you were during those nights when they don't.

9. He seems to be almost over his two-month long cold.

10. He is fascinated with mirrors. His favorite activity right now is to sit on the bathroom counter and smile and coo at the reflection he sees in the mirror. I also saw him craning his neck at an impossible angle the other day on his playmat trying to look in the mirror that was behind him. Once I moved him so that he could see himself better, he started smiling at his reflection in the mirror. So cute!!

11. He continues to grow and we'll find out on Thursday where he falls on the percentile charts. Our youth pastor "kindly" pointed out to us yesterday at church that he has the biggest head he has ever seen on a baby. Nice. Without fail, we get these two comments about him with every person that meets him - "He is such a cute baby" and "Wow, he is a big baby."

12. Probably the best highlight of all is that he has become the biggest highlight of our lives and never ceases to make us smile, even at 1:30 in the morning when he wakes us up for a diaper change and feeding :)

I'll post later this week with an update of how his four-month check-up went along with some pictures and maybe a video we shot of him playing in his jumperoo.

Another Growth Spurt

It has been awhile since I blogged last. I was sick most of last week with a cold and had laryngitis for about four days. Poor Jacob kept making inquisitive faces at me as I would try and talk to him trying to wonder why his mom sounded like a injured duck. I am finally feeling better and was able to catch up on rest over the weekend.

We think that Jacob has gone through a bit of a growth spurt the last couple of weeks. His appetite has grown and he must be starving in the middle of the night because he keeps waking us up around 1:30 am to eat. He hasn't woken up at that time since he was a newborn! I noticed that his clothes were getting too short and tight on him last week so we have gone through another wardrobe changeover. I did some shopping over the weekend to get him some long-sleeve outfits to tie him over until it gets warmer out. We have lots of short-sleeve and shorts outfits that we got him last summer not realizing that he would have already outgrown them before it even got warmer out. Thank goodness we still have the tags on them so they can get returned!! It is hard to believe that he is already wearing 6/9 and 9-month clothes.

Jacob's eye infection saga continues. I had to take him into Convenient Care on Saturday because he developed another nasty eye infection Friday night. The diagnosis this time is that he has blocked tear ducts which are causing the frequent infections. I'm not completely sold on this, but Jacob has his four-month check-up next week and I plan on asking his doctor more about this. The good news is that he isn't contagious, but the bad news is that this can last for many more months and potentially lead to surgery. We feel so sorry for him because we keep having to clean out his eye which he absolutely hates and then get drops in them which sting :(

Here are some random pictures of Jacob over the last couple of weeks.

Jacob and his "Auntie" Sharla


Jacob in his jogging stroller for the first time


Jacob sleeping in with Dad