Jamison at 7 months

How is it that our little monker is already 7 months old??  It just doesn’t seem possible!  I remember this time last year we were so excited to find out if he was a “he” or a “she”.

About 7 hours old (left) and 7 months old (right)

Jamison has started belly sleeping.  As soon as we put him in his crib he either screams or he flips over on his belly and goes to sleep.  And he pretty much stays like that all night.  He loves to sleep on his belly with his butt in the air.  The first few nights of him doing this, I didn’t sleep because I was so worried about him not being able to breathe, but he seems to be able to breathe even when his face down in the mattress.  He likes to sleep with his hands under his face too.

             

Speaking of sleep, he is still kind of hit or miss, but this month he gave us a handful of nights where he slept ALL night 8pm to 7am!  It was amazing.  And then there are nights like last night where he’s up at 2am and I can’t get him to go back to sleep for the life of me, even after I change him and feed him.  At 3:40am I finally gave up and let him cry and he went to sleep 10-15 mins later.  I’m still not a big fan of letting him cry, but if he’s just fussing I’ll let him go until he starts to cry.

He was sick for the first time this month.  I took him to the doctor and he had a double ear infection and they treated him for croup.  I’m not sure he had croup, but they gave us steroids anyway.  He had a rough few nights for sure and the poor thing was coughing and covered in snot.  I took him to the doctor about 10 days after his 6 month appointment and he’d gained a whole lb (up to 18.86lbs) and a full inch (up to 29”) in less than 2 weeks!  He’s growing like a weed!

This month he also had his first little temper tantrum!  I took a wash cloth away from him during his bath so I could use it to wash him and he screamed.  Little turd.  He’s very aware of where we are now and he gets upset sometimes if everyone leaves the room without him.  He’s starting to babble more and use consonants when he talks.  He gets very excited when he sees any of us and starts making “uhh, uhhh” sounds and kicking his legs and swinging his arms around.  He loves to bounce.  He can easily roll from back to belly and sometimes he gets from belly to back and he can sit up for a while with the boppy around him, but when he tips over he doesn’t really make any effort to sit back up.  He loves watching the dogs and gets excited when cars drive by too.

Jamison seems to be changing daily now.  He is so much more aware of his surroundings and interacts with us more and more every day.  He gets big cheesy grins as soon as he makes eye contact with any of us.  He’s constantly looking around to see where we are and what we’re doing.  He grabs anything within 2 feet of him.  He’s getting a lot better at feeding himself puffs and is working on his pincher grasp.  He nurses 4-6 times a day and usually has 3 “meals” with baby food containers or yogurt.  He drinks a bottle (usually around 4-6oz) before bed.  He’s in bed around 7:30pm and usually up between 6-8am.  His first nap is around 10am and it varies from 45 mins to 2 hours.  His second nap is usually around 1pm and sometimes he’s up after an hour and sometimes I have to wake him up at 3pm to go get Abbie.  Very rarely he’ll take a 30-60 min nap around 5pm, but I try to push him through until bed time usually.

Mark and I can’t believe we get to raise our littlest man.  He’s at one of our favorite ages and he’s so much fun, especially when he lets us sleep all night!  Mark spends half his time around Jamison gritting his teeth because he just wants to squeeze the crap out of him!  He really makes me want another one.  One more.  Hopefully.

Jamison at 6 months

Our little monker has already been here for 6 months!  That doesn’t seem possible!  I remember spending hours with him in the NICU like it was just yesterday!  He’s not a tiny little 8lb newborn anymore though, that’s for sure.

 

I moved him up to size 3 diapers a few weeks ago and they seem to fit him well.  He grunts a lot most of the time like he’s trying to poop, probably due to him eating more solids.  He usually eats at least lunch and dinner with us – has a jar of baby food at each, or oatmeal with fruit or something.  He’s not a fan of meats at all by themselves, but if you mix them with a fruit or veggie, he’ll eat them without gagging.  I’ve been giving him Cheerios sometimes and I give him the mum-mum’s to give him practice getting food in his mouth and he does fairly well with that.  I’ve also given him a sippy cup of water a few times and he likes trying to drink from that, but most of it seems to come right back out of his mouth.  He still nurses 4-8 times a day and has at least 1 bottle before bed.  Sometimes we’ll give him a bottle during the day if we’re out and about and he’s too distracted to nurse well, and a few times I’ve given him one in the middle of the night too.

 

He’s rolled front to back a few times more, but still nothing consistent.  He tends to just get mad when you put him on his tummy and I don’t do it all that often because of the kids and dogs running around.  It makes me nervous.  He can sit up pretty well if you hold his hands for balance, but he likes to lean forward and pretty much bend in half and then he gets stuck in that position.  He can pass his paci back and forth between his hands and he grabs at pretty much anything within reach.  He loves his baths still and loves watching the big kids, who fight over him ALL the time…  He loves touching the dogs and watches them pretty closely when they are around him.

   

Sleep is still our nemesis.  He is so sporadic in his sleep and I haven’t really gotten him on any sort of schedule yet.  I try to have him take about an hour nap or so in the morning and then a 2ish hour nap in the afternoon and then a 30min to hour nap in the evening, but that’s not happening every day at all.  He fights sleep like crazy most of the time.  Lately he has been sleeping until 2am or sometimes 4am and then I get him up and feed him, but other times he’s up every hour or two all night.  We just got his room mostly done – it at least has a door on it now – so I’m going to move him out of our room and into his own room to see if that helps at all.  I just got him down for his first nap in his crib ever.  It took him crying for about 15-20 mins and me trying to calm him down 5-6 times, but he eventually cashed it in.  We’ll see how long it lasts.  He’s still sleeping in the co-sleeper in our room most of the time, except for the few times Mark put him in his swing and then he slept it that most of the night.  We’re also going to start sleep training him some so he learns to go back to sleep on his own.  Right now he still relies on us to help him go to sleep most of the time.  I’m looking forward to him sleeping 10-12 hours at night and getting on a better nap schedule.

     

I’m pretty good at finding things to worry about and I spend a lot of time looking back on what I wrote about Abbie and Ben at these ages.  This month I’m concerned that he’s still not rolling back to front at all, and rarely front to back.  He’s not sitting up on his own yet at all.  He doesn’t babble as much as I think he should.  He makes gurgling noises sometimes and laughs a lot, but no baba,, gaga, mama, etc.  I know Ben started babbling between months 6 and 7 so we’ll see if Jamison starts this month too.

Edit to add:  We had his 6 month appointment today.  He’s 28” long (92%), weighs 17.8lbs (50%) and his head circ. is 17.8 (81%).  I also noticed today after he got his shot and squeaked for half a second that both of his bottom teeth had broken through finally!  And last night he spent his first night in his room in his crib.  Had to go in about 6 times but he stayed there until almost 7am.  Now he’s currently screaming in his crib fighting a nap.  Time to go plug him in again!

Falling into place

Life just seems to be flying by right now and we have so many changes coming up in a short amount of time.  It’s been a bit challenging, but everything seems to be falling into place.  It’s almost a bit scary and I’m kind of waiting for something to go wrong as it kind of seems too good to be true.

These past few weeks for my business have been really good.  I’ve gotten all 3 of my listing under contract in the last few weeks, while I was trying to get my own house ready to list at the same time.  One of the houses I listed had a full priced offer in under 48 hrs.  All three of them are due to close in May, along with a referral that I gave Sean.  It’ll be so nice to be able to build my work savings account before I stop working when we move.

We listed our house last Friday and 6 days later we also received a full priced offer on it, with a closing date that will work perfectly with our move.  Granted, we have a long way to go before we seal the deal, but it is encouraging (and terrifying).  There are 2 other houses in our neighborhood that have our exact floor plan that have been for sale for 48+ and 65+ days and are still on the market.  I truly think the sod we had installed (top picture) is what helped us sell the house.  We had 3 showings and they all mentioned how they loved the back yard.  It’s a relief to already have the house under contract, but I know we have a long way to go to closing.  Hopefully everything will work out.

 

Mark has been flying nights the past 2 weeks and has a few more weeks to go.  I HATE night weeks.  He goes in to work around 2pm and usually doesn’t get home until after 11pm.  With being almost 37 weeks pregnant, I don’t have a lot of energy to make dinner and deal with the kids by myself, and they have SO much energy.  I lose my patience with them a lot and then I feel guilty for doing so.  Nights seem to go so much smoother with Mark around and it’s really tough for me now without him most nights.  Seems a lot more bearable when he’s around anyway.  Luckily Mark’s brother gets here on Monday and then for the next month we’ll have guests, so I won’t be alone doing night time routines anymore.

It’s still a little weird to me that in the midst of all of this other stuff going on, we’re going to have a baby sometime in the next few weeks.  I get a little nervous about his birth when I think about it.  Hopefully he won’t have issues after he’s born because of my diabetes.  Today my numbers have been all over the place (with my highest reading yet at 213….) and it makes me worry about him having issues with his sugar or breathing after he’s born.  I’ve talked to a few dietitians today and my normal one said she thinks it’s all the stress.  I’ve been trying to drink more water as well, since that’s supposed to help lower blood sugar.  I think I always get more nervous about giving birth the closer I get to having babies.  And now that I already have 2 kids and know what it’s like, it adds to my nervousness.  I’ve heard lots of stories from friends about what has gone wrong with their births so I’m not as naive as I was when I had Abbie.    I’m hoping my good luck hasn’t run out with everything else going on, and that the birth will go smoothly and baby #3 will be healthy.  (And we’ll actually come up with a name shortly after he’s born.)

I’m really hoping after the move and after I’m not working outside the home any more, I’ll be able to keep up with this blog more often.  I feel like Benji got a little bit jipped since I didn’t blog much at all last year and I haven’t done much this year either.  If everything with my job and selling our house goes well and according to plan, I’m going to be upgrading my dSLR again (and keeping up with the tradition of upgrading it every time we have a kid), so I’m really looking forward to that and hopefully I’ll be able to take my photography to a new level.  First things first though!

Bumpdate: 20 weeks

 

   

How Far Along? 20 weeks

Size of Baby? 10” head to heel, about the size of a banana

Maternity Clothes? Yes.  I LOVE my pregnancy leggings with the stretchy band that goes over my belly.  However, I need more longer shirts/tunic because I get really self conscious if I wear leggings with anything that doesn’t cover my butt.

Weight Gain? Almost 10lbs now.  Yay.

Stretch Marks/belly button? No change.  I have them.  They’re not going away.  Hopefully I won’t get too many more.

Baby’s Sex? He’s a boy!  I had a good feeling in previous weeks that he was a boy, but I was still hoping like crazy that he was a girl.  The deal was is this baby was a girl, we could talk about being done.  If it was a boy, we’re definitely trying for one more (so I can have 1 girl and 3 boys, of course).  Either way, I’m still excited.  I hadn’t been feeling him much so when we saw the heartbeat and that he was doing well, I was so relieved I didn’t really care what she said it was.

Sleep? I’m getting more pelvic pain when I try to roll over, but overall, I can sleep pretty well.

Food Cravings?No new cravings really.  Usually nothing sounds good, which is annoying.

Best Moment This Week? Finding out the sex last week, and that he is doing well.  It’s a relief for sure.

What I am loving? Going through all of Ben’s old clothes to see what I have and what I need.  If this baby had been a girl, I would have been set on clothes because Abbie was born in May also.  However, Ben was born in December and this baby will be born in May, so they’ll be almost exact opposite seasons for the first year or so.  But… I love to shop for baby clothes so I’ve been having fun picking up things I find here or there on sale.

Movement? Finally I’ve been feeling him more often, which is a relief.  I found out at our ultrasound that I have an anterior placenta (the placenta is almost exactly in front) so it’s thickness blocks me from feeling his kicks very often.  I do feel him up high though, and on the sides sometimes when I’m laying on my side.  And when I have to pee I can feel him bouncing on my bladder, but not usually in the front.  And it’s not been hard enough yet than Mark could feel it either.  Hopefully soon!

What I’m looking forward to: Mark and Abbie being able to feel him move also.  Abbie asks all the time when she’ll be able to feel him move.  We’re going to paint the nursery this week too, and I’m excited about that.  It was one of the last rooms left in our house to paint.

Other Updates… I feel like I’m carrying this baby higher than my other two.  It’s already a little hard to breathe at times because I feel like he’s up in my ribs, which I don’t remember with the others.  Makes me a little nervous because we still have a LONG way to go.

 

The pictures below were a few of the outtakes from our gender announcement photos.  In the one on the left I told Abbie to act upset, which she didn’t want to at all.  She didn’t understand why I wanted her to act upset, so I asked her to do it for just a few and then she could cheer in the others.  Realistically, Abbie is most excited about this baby and she is very happy it’s a boy, which is interesting.  She’s been asking for a baby sister for YEARS – like since been was born – and the last month or so, she’s said she wants another baby brother.  I asked her before we went in to the gender ultrasound (both kids were with us) what she wanted the baby to be and she said boy right away.  I asked her why she wanted a boy since she already had a little brother and she said she wanted two little brothers.  Mark said she did her happy dance when the ultrasound tech told us it was a boy and she’s constantly talked about what we’ll name him and she picks out toys of hers that she wants to wrap and give to the baby when it gets here.  So the picture on the right is a better representation of how they actually feel.

Ben at 21 months

I feel like Ben is changing daily lately.  He’s definitely getting a mind of his own, which is fun, but then not so fun at times too.  His vocabulary is probably up around 200 words now.  He’s still way behind where Abbie was at this age, but he’s rapidly improving.  He’ll say things like “daddy go bye-bye”, “open/close it”, “more cereal please”, etc.  Sometimes he says things and we had no clue he could say them – like elephant.  We saw an elephant statue and a Thai restaurant today and he was pointing at it saying “eh-fant”.

Another thing new for him this month is that he says your name to get your attention.  “Daddy.  Daddy!  PAIN!!!!”  I was sitting on the couch the other day reading a magazine and he was sitting on the floor near me.  He said “Mommy!” a few times and when I looked up he clapped his hands and said “YAY!!” for himself.  He wants you to do it with him, which is ADORABLE!

Ben can jump easily now, with both feet off the ground.  He can feed himself with a spoon fairly well and he gets mad if everyone else at the table has eating utensils and he doesn’t and he’ll say “poon peas”.  He’s learning how to drink from a cup and he will ask for water, milk or sometimes juice.  He knows when he poops and will go bring you a diaper so you can change him.  (Maybe I should potty train him soon?)  When we’re leaving the house, he almost always goes and finds my sandals for me and brings them to me without me asking him to.  He starting to boss the dogs around, which is funny and he’s starting to fight back when Abbie starts bugging him.

He’s VERY attached to his lovey and paci and while he was sick this month, I let him have them downstairs since he was sleeping on the couch where I could keep an eye on him.  So then he wanted to have the things with him ALL the time, and it was a bit rough breaking him of that.  Now he knows that paci and lovey stay in his bed so he’ll go throw them in there before he leaves his room and say bye to both of them.  I don’t really want him to get older.

I have Ben in swimming lessons right now.  He goes twice a week for 30 mins each time for 4 weeks.  This week is his last week and he still SCREAMS during the lessons the whole time.  I think part of it is that he’s cold.  Little dude doesn’t have much body fat on him since he’s built just like his daddy.  And although he’s crying the whole time, he is learning.  He will reach under the water by himself now to get the rings on the bottom.  He can kick his feet, which he didn’t do when he started.  And if she drops him in the water by the edge of the pool, he’ll bob up and knows to turn around and grab on to the wall and then monkey himself over to the stairs to get out by himself.  He didn’t do any of that when we started.  The other day I was watching him and he monkey over to the stairs by himself and I smiled at him.  He was crying, but he still clapped for himself when he saw me smile at him.  It was so cute!  And he’ll cry but he’ll still reach for Ms Kasie (the teacher) and then give her high five’s and fist bumps, even through his tears.

I just can’t get enough of this little guy sometimes!  <3<3