When the house gets quiet...

things like this happen! By the time I found him he had scooped out almost all of the Vaseline and was rubbing it in his hair and all over his face. And thought is was HILARIOUS.




As soon as I saw him I knew I had a choice - go into immediate cleanup mode or grab my camera. Needless to say I chose to cleanup later, it was funny until he started chasing me around the room with his slimy self.




And then it started to coat his eyeballs...





So it was bath time. Have you ever tried to wash Vaseline clumps out of hair!? IMPOSSIBLE! Dish soap, peanut butter, and two beaten eggs later (the eggs worked the best) he was a little less slimy. I think it took a week before it was all out.





He keeps me on my toes, that's for sure. And it's really going to get busy this spring when he's not the only child anymore. Yep, Brody will be a big brother in late March/early April! We're super excited, and I'm sure Brody will be happy to recruit a partner in crime. I have a feeling the shenanigans have just begun. :)

Happy Birthday my doodles....

I think I'm in denial, today my little munchkin is one. Has it really been a year already? I can't believe it. And then again, I can't remember what life was like without him. A year ago today Jared and I were dancing around the hospital room to Jay-Z on my iPod "labor mix" trying to get my contractions to progress, and just a year later we have a walking, talking one year old with 16 teeth (whole story coming on that, who breaks 8 TEETH in ONE WEEKEND!?). But the truth is if I could have a pack of Brodys I would in a heart beat, he is such a happy, sweet little boy. I can't believe he's already one, wow.

So far one year old is the most fun age ever. I am so loving watching him run around and play. (The whole crawling to walking thing wasn't nearly as traumatic as sitting to crawling. The increased destruction is only marginal.) So far his favorite things are books, balls, anything with wheels, his toy phone, and eating paper. I hope he grows out of the last one. He is babbling like crazy and has a few favorite words - mama (currently his name for both Jared and me), ball, bird, mum-mum (his favorite snack), and bo-bo (his bunny he sleeps with). It seems like he's doing something new every few days.

So, in honor of Jacox tradition I've decided to declare this "birthday week" and do a few posts with pictures from his first year and some of the cute things we love about him. Here are few to kick things off...

Happy birthday sweet boy, we love you more than words can say.

And just like that...

he walks! I can't believe it, he's getting so big so fast. (can you tell by the too small shorts? It was laundry day. :)

He's been taking steps for a couple of weeks now. Two or three here and there. Then last week he just decided he was going to walk! It is so cute. Most of the time it's with his arms straight up in the air, like they're in his way or something.




And usually he's screaming the whole time. I'm not sure if it's because he's so excited to be walking, or if it's because he's mimicking what I did when he walked for the first time, or if it's because his new favorite thing to do is play chase. Probably a combination of the three. But I love it. And he couldn't be more proud of himself.

What is it with this kid and the fridge?

And the dishwasher, the trash can, the printer (he can just now reach). Basically anything that's not a toy he wants to play with. Toys do not interest him at the moment. But as soon as he hears the dishwasher door open he is hauling it from wherever he is in the house with his cute little janky leg crawl.

He started crawling between six and seven months with one leg up, foot flat on the floor, and the other leg bent like a normal crawl. He uses the leg that's up to launch himself forward and then the other leg scoots along like normal. He looks like a little pirate with a peg leg. Lately he's started putting both feet flat on the ground with his bum in the air like a little silver back. It is hilarious.

So usually I have about three seconds to throw something in the dishwasher before he's trying to pull the door down and grab the forks. And if the door is already down he's crawling on it trying to get inside. I think I didn't appreciate the sitting-up-but-not-yet-crawling-stage enough. And now that he's standing up and trying to take steps I'm realizing that life as I know it is over and the house has probably not seen the worst of the messes. I'm just glad he hasn't figured out how to take his diaper off yet, haha. Oh, I dread the day.





I have no idea where he learned how to do this. Okay, I do. Or I thought that I did. I thought "Okay, he's seen me have one every now and then. Or every day. So he's just copying what I do." But he seems a little too excited, no?

Sometime after that is when l I saw Jared GIVING HIM A SIP. Oh no, no, no, nu uh, no way did I just see that. Now I know who the culprit is here. He has his daddy wrapped around his little finger.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this is just the beginning.



PS - I am overwhelmed and humbled by all of your sweet comments and messages about the previous post. To be honest I was really hesitant about putting it up and worried that it wouldn't come across the way I had intended. So thank you, it's awesome to know that we're all in this together. Perfectly imperfect.

Good Morning

I've been putting Brody in our bed for his first morning nap the past few days. I like having him close since I'm usually putting laundry away or doing other morning chores, and I LOVE cuddling him to sleep (only every once in a while since it does go against everything babywise, but hey, I make the rules right?!). He's just so sweet and cute and sleepy and I can't get enough.

It's funny how much this little boy loves sleep! I'm counting my lucky stars (and know I probably used all my points on this one and that the next one will be a nightmare, haha). We're still at three solid naps a day, some days it's four - two in the morning, two in the afternoon. I think during the two hours at a time he is awake HE IS AWAKE. and BUSY. Oh my gosh, is he busy. He's into everything, and just discovered that the toilets have water in them. all the time! He thinks it's awesome, I think we need toilet locks asap.

But what I love almost as much as how much he sleeps is how happy he is when he wakes up. It definitely takes him a few minutes to actually wake up, but after stretching and looking and scratching and staring, he looks at you like "HI! Let's play!". I was taking pictures of him sleeping in our bed the other morning and he started to wake up so I just kept snapping. This is soooooo him.

giggles + bellies

Nap Time

Nap Time. This has been the trickiest thing for me to figure out how to do consistently so I've just determined that I like a fluid method - one that changes depending on Brody's needs, my needs, vacations/visiting family, sick vs. healthy, etc. In other words I am not going to wreak havoc on everyone involved for the sake of keeping to a strict nap schedule or routine, but when I can without any havoc wreaking I will. :)

So when all is normal (ie: Brody and I at home during the day) I keep to the strict eating schedule (previous post) and watch for signs that he is tired in between. He will usually scratch his eyes, get fussy, and turn red like Jack-Jack from The Incredibles. Since he is generally happy all other times of the day I know this means he is ready for a nap.

After keeping track of how often this happened over a few days I noticed that he is normally awake for two hours at a time, give or take a half hour or so. The only exception being first thing in the morning - exactly an hour after he wakes up he is ready to go back to sleep, like clock work. I'm sure this varies baby to baby, but usually they all have a max time of being awake before a level 5 meltdown ensues.

He sleeps for 45 min - 1 hour at each nap with one big 1-1/2 to 2 hour nap mid day. So this equals up to 3-4 naps a day, which makes us both happy.

In my experience the hard part isn't trying to figure out when they're tired, it's trying to put them down for a nap without losing your mind. One babywise method that really has helped me is putting them in their crib when they're AWAKE. This way they learn to fall asleep on their own and don't require endless rocking, singing, bouncing, etc. to drift off. This is really hard at first so I eased myself into it by putting him in his crib and holding his hands while I shushed him until he was calm. He gets a binky only for naps so that usually helps too. Nowadays I put him in his crib, give him his binky and bo-bo (a little Rabbit that he loves) and turn around and walk out.

There are times when he will cry or fuss when I walk out (maybe once or twice a day) and those times I give him 10 minutes and then go back in to check on him, put his binky in, and walk back out. He has cried for longer than 10 minutes only a handful of times.

Things get tricky when we visit family or when he's sick and wants to be held (which is my life right now since he has hives, poor little guy). Asking grandparents to put a sleepy baby in bed and walk away is like asking me to grow three inches - it would be nice, but it's not going to happen. So sometimes we go off the plan and it takes a day or two to get readjusted but that's fine with me. So here's an example of his normal schedule.

• 6:30              Wakes up in his crib. Put him in bed with us.
• 7:30              Wakes up and has a bottle.
• 8:30 - 9:30    Nap
• 9:30 - 10:30  Play time
• 10:30            Bottle
• 11:30 - 1:00  Nap (usually his long mid-day nap)
• 1:30              Bottle
• 2:00 - 3:00    Play time
• 3:00 - 4:00    Nap
• 4:30              Bottle
• 5:00 - 6:00    Play time
• 6:00 - 7:00    Optional nap or Play time
• 7:30              Bottle
• 8:00              Bath
• 8:30              Bedtime

Self Portrait

I know these are 100% out of focus, turns out I'm not so great at using the self timer on my camera. But I almost kind of like them better than if they were in focus. Tara Whitney calls them "inbetweens", in my case they were a happy accident that, turns out, depict everything perfectly. I was putting Brody down for a nap and it was just him and me, being still.  There's just nothing in the whole world that can make you feel as loved as a soft little baby cheek on yours as they fall asleep. It's my favorite thing.

If you thought that was an innocent face...

..... oh how you were mistaken.

Let's get down to the nitty gritty....

Did someone say SCHEDULE!!??

First off let me say that I am completely about doing what works for you. I am not someone that pretends to have this all figured out by any means, so any and everything I talk about when it comes to what works for us is simply that - what works for us. If it doesn't work for you that is totally fine with me, and don't feel bad if it doesn't. When it comes to babies everyone, I repeat EVERYONE, has a different schedule/opinion/routine/trick/belief system that works for them and they want you to know how amazing their schedule/opinion/etc is. It can get overwhelming to say the least. But the best advice I have ever heard is "Your way is the right way." (I'm trying to get Jared to repeat this as well, haha)

So, what works for us - I heard a lot about the Babywise method before Brody was born and it seemed like everyone who used it was a huge fan. When he was about six weeks old all I heard was "sleep through the night" and I was sold. Buy me the books, teach me your ways - I am all yours Babywise.

I honestly had no clue what it was or how to implement it and trying to figure it out from the book was no help. My baby wants to eat all the time, I am getting zero sleep and will never sleep again the rest of my life, I am sick of pajamas, I want my makeup, will someone who knows how to do this please just TELL ME  because this book wants to explain the philosophy behind the method for forty chapters! So I  facebooked a couple of friends that I knew would explain it to me in short sentences with no big words. They were a lifesaver!

Part One: Sleeping through the night

There are a few basic principles of Babywise that work together towards the goal of getting on a schedule, sleeping through the night, and having a happy baby in general. In the beginning I was most interested in the sleeping through the night part. The two most helpful things I learned about this were:

1) most babies can sleep through the night after they have doubled their body weight and
2) if you work on getting the schedule down during the day they will work out the nights themselves.

The second piece was my key since I was unsure about the whole "crying it out" situation. Considering his health issues I didn't think letting him cry and wail until he figured it out was the best thing. More on this later.

So what schedule exactly? The basic schedule for us is EAT - PLAY - SLEEP and repeat every three hours. The length of each stage changes depending on the time of day, but this pattern really has helped us know when he's tired or hungry since the two can get easily confused. The thing that we remained pretty firm with is feeding him every three hours starting at about 7-8 weeks. Before then he needed to eat on demand to gain weight as a lot of babies do.

So we started with feeding him every three hours (sometimes I would cave and feed him 20 minutes early if I couldn't hold him off any longer) and trying to keep him awake for "play time" afterwards. Sometimes awake time only lasted for 15 minutes but the goal was to not let him fall asleep while eating. If he was asleep and it had been three hours since he ate last I would (gasp) wake him up to eat, but only during the day. This accomplished three things - reinforced the schedule/pattern, gave him the opportunity to eat enough during the day, and helped him sort his days and nights out by not sleeping all day.  For the first two weeks he still woke up every three hours at night and I would feed him. I tried to remember not to stress and concentrate on the daytime schedule. Then at nine weeks he slept through the night for the first time - HALLELUJAH! I was beyond ecstatic, SLEEP! I've missed you! This is when I learned the second important piece:

You will have good days/nights and bad days/nights, just plan on it and keep your eye on the goal. After that one night of sweet sleep he changed his mind and wanted to wake up every three hours again. But now I knew he wouldn't die or starve to death without eating all night so instead of feeding him I put the binky in, put my hand on his belly and shooshed him, and went back to sleep - repeated as necessary. Probably after two weeks of this it was back to whole nights of solid sleep. The heavens opened, angels sang, it was a miracle. Sleep - I'm sorry I ever took you for granted. You are wonderful and I love you.

In a nutshell these were the things that helped me in the early days:

• If someones advice doesn't work for you that's just fine. Check it off the list and try something else.
• Work hard on getting your day time schedule down and the nights will work themselves out.
• EAT - PLAY - SLEEP 
• Be consistent with the length of time between bottles/nursing.
• Don't be discouraged by bad days/nights, it takes practice for everyone involved.

Next time - Part Two: The Anatomy of a Nap

Like I said in the beginning, this is just what works for us. I am fully aware that Brody's sleeping and happy temperament probably have more to do with luck of the draw than my efforts or his schedule, but for now everything's working out great and I get to sleep at night. So either way I'm happy (and grateful).  :)

Someone's figured out....

....the jumpy jump! He's loving it these days.

I can't believe he's already four months old, time goes by so fast. He's so happy these days I can't even stand it! It's like he just wants everyone to be happy, I totally love it. What's new: giggles galore, drool, grabbing his feet, just rolled over for the first time last week, more drool, teething, screeching screams that he thinks are so funny, and a brand new room in the works. He keeps us busy!

We tried rice cereal for the first time a couple of weeks ago and he was not a fan. We might wait a couple more weeks and try again, we're in no rush to switch to real people food. I've heard that's a whole new adventure so we're enjoying the simplicity of bottles for a little while longer. Yes BOTTLES. Have I talked about this yet? I meant to at some point but I don't think it ever happened.

Before Brody came I was totally planning on nursing for the first year, and when he got here we started off without a hitch. :Side note: Who knew your milk doesn't come in for 4-5 days after delivery? What? Has anyone seen the pictures of me five days after he was born? Hello. I was not prepared for the national geographic-ness. So a few hours and a breast pump later I was good to go. We were doing fine the next couple of weeks and then Brody's whole incident happened. After he got out of the ICU we found out that his suck-swallow-breathe reflex was underdeveloped so it was taking us a really long time for him to eat, and when he did nurse it was stop-and-go the whole time with a lot of wheezing and choking.

So at that point I thought about switching to formula. If you google "switching from breast feeding to formula" you will discover that breast feeding is a religion, and if you don't believe you are going to hell. It's crazy-ville, like scare-the bejeezers-out-of-you crazyville. So we kept trying for a few more weeks until my oh-so wise friends, Megan and Kris, both told me that switching, if I wanted to, was TOTALLY OKAY. And it might actually be a good thing. At the time not only was I stressed about him having a hard time eating I was completely overwhelmed with fear and worry that what happened that night would happen again. It was a really hard time. They both said that if switching would take any pressure off then I shouldn't hesitate. So at eight weeks we switched to formula and haven't looked back.

And guess what - it's great!! He's happy, I'm happy, we're all happy. Ever since he's been gaining weight like a champ and hasn't been sick other than a little cough a few weeks ago. I completely understand the benefits of breast feeding and plan to try again next time, but if it isn't a good experience for anyone involved I am 100% pro-formula. I had no idea there were so many opinions out there. I've just decided to follow some great advice I got at one of my showers - YOUR way is the RIGHT way. :)