Eight Months

I know I say this every month but…where does the time go?  I know before I can blink I’ll be buying him stuff for his dorm room.  Oh, God, let’s not think about that…

So, I was supposed to have this post up on Wednesday.  I typically write my blog posts the day before and have them auto release early in the morning.  Well, instead of drafting my post on Tuesday, I played with Jake the entire day!  Many of you know how rare that is for me but for those who don’t…

I have a retail job and, while I actually do like my job, I don’t like the hours.  I work days, nights, weekends, holidays, you name it.  The nice thing about my schedule is that I get days off during the week.  More often than not, I go ahead and send Jake to day care since we have to pay for it anyway.  Then I’m able to get my list of chores done (read: cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, food prep, running errands, etc) more quickly and efficiently than if I were to have him with me.

When I’m with Jake, the whole world stops.  I try to focus 100% on him, playing, laughing, tickling, etc.  This is the main reason I take him to day care even if I’m off.  I want to be able to focus and get my stuff done so that when I do have him with me, I don’t have to worry about that.

Jeff has been doing a great job of pitching in lately.  So much so that I decided to *gasp* spend a whole day with my little guy!  It was fabulous.  We played in the morning, he took a 2.5 hour nap (from which I had to wake him!), went to a play date, went in to Mommy’s work, and then came home.  What a great day!

Long story short…I didn’t get my blog post written.  #sorryimnotsorry

So here it is.  Two days late.

But who’s counting?

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Jacob is eight months old.  Eight whole months.  He’s such a stinkin’ cute kid.  I feel like his last month or two have really been full of milestones!  Here are a couple new things we’ve learned to do in the last month:

He is completely sitting up by himself unsupported.  He’s alllllllllllmost able to pull himself to a sitting position.  Typically he rolls on his side and then tries to swing his torso around so it’s upright, but a lot of the time he just kind of clunks himself down.  Silly boy!

He’s had a ton of new foods!  His list of foods include broccoli, apples, peas (loves them!), green beans (blech!), banana, and peaches just to name a few.  I have pretty much stuck with purees, but he has recently shown an interest in puffs, so we’ve been practicing on those. He loves these pouches.  I unscrew the lid and just let him suck the contents out like a juice box.  He is actually really good at it!

I am going to start moving more towards the baby led weaning approach (where you give them bits of actual food and let them eat it), but I still get nervous every time.  He has gagged several times in the past with banana and the puffs, but hasn’t had an episode in a while.  I’m thinking he might possibly have figured out what he’s doing.

He can stand pretty well.  I like holding him up in front of me because I can easily hold him and hug him at the same time.  We use this table thing to help him stand.  He can hold on to it pretty well and it’s got pretty colors and lights on it to keep him interested.  Jeff said when he picked Jake up at daycare today, they were talking about how Jake can stand (assisted) really well and that he had been trying to pull up on things all day.  We think he’ll be standing on his own very soon.  Perhaps by his next birth month?

He is all about the crawling lately!  He started scooting on his front.  We called this the army crawl.  Then he started getting up on his hands and knees and just sort of bouncing or rocking back and forth.  Then one day, he figured out what to do and started crawling!  He still does a mix of the two, but it is so cute to watch.  One of his favorite things to crawl after is the camera.

Mommy doesn’t like that though.

He threatens us unless we give him lots and lots of yummy food.  The other day, he grabbed on to Jeff’s adam’s apple and I snapped this picture.  It’s grainy (thank you, iPhone) and sort of hard to see, but it’s cute.  Jeff’s face is priceless!

He is the happiest baby when we go in to get him from his nap or from sleeping overnight.  Speaking of that…he sleeps through the night!  He’s been doing it for a couple weeks now.  Every few nights, he wakes up crying, but I typically just put the monitor face down on the bed and try to tune him out.  Usually within 5-10 minutes, he’s back asleep.

It’s funny.  Just last month, I was contemplating calling the doctor to try and figure out why he wouldn’t sleep through the night.  Then I told myself to just be patient and see if maybe he’s just stubborn and he’d do it in his own time.  I was right!  Let’s hope he doesn’t revert…

He officially has two teeth!  In the Seven Month post, I said he was just starting to get teeth.  Now he has two beautiful pearly whites.  They are the bottom front two and they are so cute!  Of course I don’t have a picture of them.  You’ll have to make do with the cute one above!

He really is the happiest baby.  He gets fussy between 6-7:30p as I’m assuming many babies do as they are tired.  We were putting him down around 6p, but he was waking around 4a, so that was quickly changed.  Now we do our best to keep him up until at least 7:30p.  Sometimes he does great and stays up until 8 or 8:30p.  Other nights, he is so tired he’s practically asleep sitting up by 6:30p.  Those are the nights we pull out the big guns:  bathtime.

He has such a great time in the bath.  I have been putting on a swimsuit (yes, I know I could just get in naked, but for some reason I don’t feel comfortable doing that…call me crazy) and getting in with him.  It’s much easier to wash his hair if I’m able to be right in the middle of the action.

So anyhow, happy eight month birthday, Jacob!  You get playtime, I’ll take the Starbucks.  After all, they never miss a birthday!

 

Seven Months

Our little guy is seven months old!  He is such a good little boy, always smiling and laughing.  He loves his mommy and daddy and lights up when he sees us.  One of Jeff’s and my favorite things to do is pick him up at day care.  In fact, we fight over it!  When we were on vacation last month, we would almost always pick him up together because we wanted to see that smiling face so badly.

In the last month, Jake has had so many new experiences.

He went to a friend’s birthday party,

and then got to sleep in Mommy and Daddy’s bed.

He ate solids for the first time, his favorite being apples!  He gobbled those apples right up and asked for more.  He loves peaches too.

(BTW, that bib says “Star of Mommy’s Blog”…thanks, Auntie Carolyn!)

He started sitting, unsupported, on his own.  I can now put him on his little booty and leave him there.  He can hold himself up with no problems!

He has continued scooting and has pretty much mastered turning around in a circle.  I watched him on the day care video feed from Friday and he was turning all over the place!

He has a tooth!  It’s just starting to come it, but it has broken through the skin already.  We didn’t even know he was teething until Jeff told me he felt something sharp in Jake’s mouth last week!  What a good little boy.

Just yesterday, he took a big boy bath without the baby tub! (Yes, I know this is still him in the baby tub, but I didn’t have a picture from yesterday.)

We are so lucky to have this little boy in our lives.  Every day is a gift and is more precious than the last.  Love him!

Milestone: Sitting Unassisted

I know I’m deviating from my MWF format, but I have the next week’s posts already planned out and I really wanted to get this one up sooner rather than later.

We’ve celebrated several of Jake’s milestones here on the blog in the past few months including giggling and rolling over.  Today, we need to recognize the wonderful achievement of sitting unassisted!

He’s been sitting for a while, but usually I’m nearby with my hands at the ready to catch him when he inevitably topples.

He’s been holding himself up longer and longer.  Soon, I won’t even have to worry about him falling over and bopping his sweet little noggin.

One of his favorite places to sit up is in the bath.

I think the little ledge helps him hold his balance.  I haven’t tried a bath without the whale tub yet; I need to get some adhesive ducks (BBT, Carolyn??) or a mat or something.  We did break out some of the bath toys for him today though.  He loved it!

I am thoroughly enjoying each and every milestone we pass.  He just gets cuter every day!  I love that little boy more than words. 

Birthdays, Berries, and Babies

Birthday parties, especially baby birthday parties, are so much fun!  I think my favorite part is seeing one-year-olds tasting sweets for the first time.  One of Jeff’s friends from high school has a little girl who will be one later this month.  They decided to have her birthday party this past Saturday and invited us over.

They made burgers and hot dogs, had chips, fruit, various salads, and cupcakes along with the little one’s birthday smash cake as well.  We took Jake and let him interact with the birthday girl and one other little boy who was about 9 months old.  I think he really liked watching the other two.

After little miss had her fill (well…almost…she could have kept going!) of birthday goodness, we were all sitting around on the carpet talking.  I sat Jake in front of me and let go, not thinking.  I fully expected him to topple over as is customary, but he just sat there for a little bit.  He was bent over, but he didn’t lean side to side at all!  I think we might have achieved another milestone today!

(Not the best quality picture but oh well…)

The birthday girl’s mom gave the little boys gift bags for attending (how cute!) so Jake scored some little puffs and finger foods.  We can’t wait to try them later this month after he starts eating real food!  Soon after presents were over, Jake started getting tired and fussy, plus I had another engagement, so we packed up and went home.

For the first time in…oh…probably six years, I had the weekend of the Troy Strawberry Festival OFF!  My sister-in-law asked me if I wanted to head up there and I was able to say yes!  Originally we had planned to take Jake, but Jeff offered to watch him and I took him up on it.  Truth be told, I was a little hesitant of maneuvering Jake around a crowd like that.  I am not the calmest person when it comes to crowds.

We left home around 2P and got to Troy within 45 minutes or so, dodging two near death accidents on the way.  OK, maybe not near death, but we definitely were paying more attention to others than they were to us!  I guess our luck paid off when we found a parking spot less than a block from the festival!

The three of us (me, my SIL, and our other friend) slowly meandered down the aisles of the festival, checking out the different booths and food options.  I hadn’t eaten a whole ton of food at the birthday party and was still pretty hungry.  I wanted something savory, but opted for the strawberry shortcake because the only stand I had seen was at the end of the line and I figured we wouldn’t have the option to get it again once we made our way back to the front.

It was pretty good, though the strawberries weren’t as sweet as some of the ones I had gotten at Dorothy Lane a few weeks ago.  It was still yummy.

We kept walking, stopping at a couple booths to look at the handmade gifts before coming upon a very intriguing booth.

(source)

Wine frappe.  In other words, fun slushy for adults!  They had samples so we all tried the strawberry daiquiri and the pomegranate flavors.

They. Were. Delicious.

I ended up buying the pomegranate and cranberry acai flavors.  Heads up, Peggy, we will be trying these in September when you come.  If I can wait that long.

After searching for the chocolate dipped strawberries and striking out, we decided to head home, making a quick stop at Trader Joes.
We needed wine…

Once home, I played with Jake till he fell asleep then threw together some grilled chicken and single serve loaded baked potatoes (recipe to come).  It was a great, fun-filled day, but man, was I beat!

(“Strawberry” fountain in the square)

Sunday, Jake, Jeff, and I had a playdate with fellow blogger Joanna and her family.  We went over around 12:30p and spent a few hours talking and playing with our little ones.  She was lovely enough to cook us lunch.  We dined on jerk chicken, broccoli rice, roasted asparagus, watermelon, and almond flour donuts.  Everything was delicious!

The babies spent lunch napping (how about that?) and even though her crazy dog “The Destroyer” was barking up a storm, neither boy woke up.  They must really have needed some sleep!

After lunch, Jake woke and spent a bit of time making funny faces at The Husband.

After a bit, we decided it was time to go, packed up our stuff, and headed home.  Jake ended up going to bed around 5p and didn’t wake up until 10:30p for a quick but hefty feeding (9 ounces!) and then immediately went back to bed.  Jeff and I took advantage of this time to sit outside on our gorgeous patio, drink Skinnygirl margaritas, and enjoy each others company.

It was a great weekend and made me appreciate the time I got to spend with both boys.  I hope I get to spend more weekends with them in the future!