Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Lucky

Jude is going to be 4 months old this week.  Wow.  Looking back at pictures he has come such a long way and grown so so so much!  At this point our guy is wearing anywhere from 9-12 month clothing!  Can you believe that?  And it’s not that he is big or chubby, it’s that he is so long!  I think this kid is going to be one tall dude when he grows up!  Also the cloth diapers give him a big booty, so that ups the clothing size as well.

We have had some success in the sleeping department.  Jude actually slept through the night abut three days ago, going down at 7pm and getting up at 6:30am with out a peep in between.  Normally though he wakes up once sometime between 10-12pm and we just sooth him back to sleep using a sort of Ferber method and then he is up between 4-5am where he eats a few ounces and goes back to bed till 6:30-7am or so.  It’s really been great. I love our bedtime routine, some down time in the crib while I get things ready, a nice long bath with lots of kicking and singing, then a big bottle and a little cuddle time.  And now Jude goes pretty much right to sleep on his own without it being a long production after using the Ferber method for a few days. The only down side is that he has become a real bear at nap time.  He just doesn’t want to do it for very long.  We try for an hour nap in the morning and a two hour nap in the afternoon.  It used to be that this was easy and he liked the schedule, but this week it is a no go.  Earlier this week he even had a day where he didn’t nap AT.ALL.  Ugh!  Luckily he was in chipper spirits all day despite the not napping.  It seems to be getting better but the only place I can get him to nap for more than 20-30 minutes at a time is in his swing, which is a life saver but a habit I hate to make.  We went cold turkey on weening him off of swaddling and I dread the day we have to get rid of the swing too.  Though it was really only bad with the no swaddling for about a week and I think part of it was because of teething.  Yep, still working on a picture but Jude’s TWO bottom teeth have broken through the surface and are coming in strong.  So cute.  But SO.MUCH.DROOL.  Really, he soaks through shirts.

Being a stay at home mom has been going really well for me.  I feel like we have a routine and because of birthday money we have been going out and doing things a few times a week, which has been really nice.  And I think going forward in our budget we are going to come up with a small amount of money each month for S and I each to have and spend as we will.  Some mad money.  Though we still have days were I feel like I am just counting the hours till S comes home and takes over or bedtime/nap time.  But those days a few and far between and they are nothing compared to the horrible, rotten, no good, very bad days we used to have in the beginning.  After all, in the last two weeks I haven’t once cried or said terrible things to the baby, so improvement!  But sometimes it is so good, so much fun, so much joy that I think to myself, how did I get so lucky?  Because over all that is the only word to describe this beautiful life that I am living, lucky.

Now, to reward you all with some pictures!

 Doesn’t he look like we have done something to really astound/embarrass him in this one?

 Jude LOVES his jumperoo.  He only two days ago figured out how to jump 
in it and he goes crazy in it.

 This guys name is Octo-Jude, for sure Jude’s favorite toy right now.

 Nothing is safe from Jude’s teething mouth.  Other than teething toys of course, he doesn’t want
anything to do with those silly things.

 We realized with the rate Jude was growing he probably won’t fit into these
hats during the winter, so we did a hat photo shoot.

And last, our little pilot.  Such a heart breaker.

-Liz


Wednesday, May 16, 2012

First Tooth!

Yep, that’s right folks, our little 3 month old baby has gotten the start of his first tooth!  It started on Saturday, my birthday.  He was super cranky that afternoon and drooling buckets.  All last week you could feel on his gums that they felt different, you could feel ridges so we figured it was coming, but we didn’t know how soon!  Now that it has been a few days the little middle bottom tooth has poked its way out and you can see the top of it sticking out of his gums!  It’s going to have to come up a bit before I can get a picture (without making him really mad) but it is for sure a tooth!  We have been giving him liquid baby pain killer that our pediatrician recommended and it seemed to help.  I think he is feeling better now though and so I didn’t need to give him anything for it today.  Too bad he really isn’t interested in any of his 50,000 teethers yet!
-Liz

Saturday, May 12, 2012

30 Things I Didn’t Know When I Was 20

Today, I turn 30.  And I’ve been looking at old pictures and thinking about what it was like to turn 20 and be 20 and it made me think of how far I’ve come and how much I’ve learned.  So I put together a list of all of the things I didn’t know when I was 20 that I know now.

30. When to stop drinking.  Sometimes a lady needs to recognize when she has had too much.
29.  Less is also better when it comes to make up.
28. The choices you make effect your future.
27. There is nothing wrong with having a nice purse.
26. The color pink is the best.  No need to rebel against it just for the sake of rebellion.
25. How to make a baby when you are a lesbian.
24. How to make that baby smile and laugh.
23. That it is possible to make friends with people you didn’t go to high school with.
22. That the Smashing Pumpkins would not be my favorite band forever.
21.  That not every Tori Amos and Ani Difranco album would be genius.
20. How delicious sushi can be.
19. How wonderful it is to be married to a beautiful woman who loves you very much.
18. That 30 wouldn’t feel old and super grown up.
17. That my family would be the most important thing to me someday.
16. That I’d ever want to go back to Tulsa.
15.  Somehow when I was younger I always thought that I’d eventually figure out how to wear high heels.  I guess not.
14. Cottage cheese is good, but not as good as goat cheese.
13. That I’d ever go back to my original hair color.  I love not having to worry about coloring my hair.
12. That I’d still be painting stick people.
11. My younger brother is happily married to his high school sweetheart.  I never would have seen that coming at 20.
10. How much I’d love being a stay at home mom.
9. That my psychology degree was a waste of time.
8. My bedroom is still more often than not a mess.  I really thought I’d grow out of that someday.  Fingers crossed that it could still happen.
7. When I was 20 I figured I’d end up with at least one or two tattoos.  Really glad I didn’t.  I prefer my clean, classic look that never goes out of style.
6.  That I’d want to be a teacher just like my mom.
5. That someday it’d be hard to sleep in past 10, even when I’m super tired.
4. How tired having a newborn in the house can really make you.
3. That you don’t have to be a bitch to get what you want.
2. That one day I wouldn’t be so shy.
1. That I’d have a son who I’d love more than words can say.

Hopefully by 40 I will have learned a lot more!
-Liz

Monday, May 7, 2012

Now that you’ve mastered that, try this!

Life is moving along her faster than it should.  I feel like Jude grows and changes everyday!  I get home from work and go, “whoa, did you grow while I was gone??”  His new skill this week is lots and lots of really loud talking.  He just talks his babytalk to me, Liz and his mobile or his toys.  It is so cute!

We keep changing things up for him lately.  He is doing really well with it all.  First, we have put him on a 4 hour schedule.  He eats, naps, and plays within the 4 hours and then starts again(except for at night).  We did this in hopes of him sleeping thru the night.  The first bit, he kept sleeping later and later until her slept from 7pm until 3:30am which was great!  Since he was doing so well with that, I decided last night to not swaddle him.  It was a rough night, but he did well considering.  We just had to go in there quite a bit to soothe him.

The schedule is making for a really happy baby.  He was such a good baby before, but would cry thru the day on and off.  Now, he is all smiles, coos and laughs when he is awake.  He has not only doing well on the schedule, but he also now sleeps in his crib unswaddles for his naps and at night!  What a big boy!

The schedule is really a learning tool for us and we realized some things.  1. He was eating a few ounces here and a few ounces there every hour or two.  I think whenever he was fussy, we stuck a bottle in his mouth and he learned to soothe that way.  Now, he takes down 8 oz bottles 3 times a day, some at 7am, and a 5 oz at night and is happy as can be.  We are working on weening him off of the 5 oz at night and right now his finiky about his 7am feeding, so I think once we take away the night bottle, he will drink the 7am down with no problem.  2. We can tell his different cries now.  He really likes to know when he is going to nap and sleep.  He goes down so easily when before he would cry because he was so tired. 3. He is much better about not getting overstimulated now.  I would play with him until he got fussy before and now with good sleep and big bottles, he love to play like a maniac during his play times.

We are not too strict about the schedule currently.  He sometimes is off by 30 mins with naps and sometimes we feed him outside of it if he is obviously hungry.  However, doing it has made him a better communicator and us better at picking up on what exactly he needs instead of just trying the usual 4 things.

He plays so hard now.  He bats and things and grabs things and chatters and coos and is so darn adorable.  We love to watch him change and grow all the time!

I have a hard time with cry it out, so Liz has accomidated me and we have not done that part of the sleep training.  She says that we are doing it in a month if he as not adjusted, but he is doing so well I don’t think it will be a problem.

He still HATES tummy time.  I call it tourture time and he screams at the top of his lungs for 3 5min intervals of it a day.  It is torture to all of us.  I know it is important, so we do it, but I just wish he would tolerate it more.  He still has not rolled over more than halfway because he hates is so much.

I love all his smiles and laughs.  He thought putting on pants is hilarious once or twice.  He knows Liz and me and will give us a smile just because we are there.

I have always wanted to be a mom, but I had no idea how much it would just fill me up and give me new purpose and joy.  Even when it is a bad day, it is still so amazing to have Jude in our lives.
-S
PS- Liz’s 30th b-day is Saturday, so wish her happy birthday if you get a chance! ;)

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Wordless Wednesday

Jude mid-blink, AKA Baby Alec Baldwin after an all night bender