My favorite things...

Admit it.  Every last one of you is singing the song.

But no, I'm not going to inflict a video of my personal rendition upon you.

I'm just popping on between diaper changes to gush a little, and vent a little, and wowzers, have I really almost made it through seven whole months of parent-hood?

My favorite thing about JJ's recent developments has GOT to be his newfound ability to entertain himself in the cosleeper for half an hour in the mornings.  This affords me the unbelievable luxury of waking up slowly, rather than being yanked into consciousness by the shrieking banshee child.

There's also introductions to the puppy-dog, which are going AWESOMELY well.  John was a bit worried about how Lady (our Malamute) would respond to JJ, so he's been very cautious now that we have her back with us.  She is, I am happy to report, being a wonderfully behaved goggie around teh babbeh.  (Yes, I'm speaking lolcat/babytalk, sue me.)  She has shared Mommy-lap with JJ and given him his first doggie face-washing.  The look on his face, y'all, was priceless.  One of those "I need 24/7 video coverage of my entire house and yard" moments.

Despite teething issues, JJ is continuing to sleep decently most nights, thank God.  It's interesting, I can tell how comfy (or not) he is by how many times he wakes up at night to nurse.  Once = comfy baby.  Twice = iffy, might be teeth, might be just wanting to snuggle.  3x or more = Not. A. Happy. Camper.

Kiddo is getting HEAVY... haven't popped him on the scale lately, but I've had to let the waist on his diapers out another notch.  Kid's getting him a little belly.

The other day I ran across some pictures of me at this age, and now I can see how he looks like me.  It's nice, because mostly I think he looks like John.  Oh, he definitely got the red hair, but it's already as dark as mine, so I don't really hold out hope for it STAYING red as he gets older.  Dark dark brown with red highlights, though... that's gonna be some niiiice hair.

Oh, dear.  I'm gonna have to watch out for the little girls with this one, aren't I? *facepalm*

The progress toward crawling is a little scary in its pace, the little bugger is desperate to be mobile by any means fair or foul.  There's a lot of army-style belly-crawling, lots of wiggles and scoots, and rocking on his hands and knees, but he also pulls up to his feet if he's got parental fingers to hold onto.  Still thinking he might (mostly) skip the crawling stage and go straight to cruising.

He's fascinated with the handset phones, he figured out how to make it go "beep!" and hasn't allowed me a peaceful call since.  The little green light that says my computer is charged is also a source of obsession, and he's constantly trying to get his little hands on the cord.

So, I'm actually really glad that this post sat unfinished overnight, because this morning JJ wiggled his way over to Mommy, just so he could lay his head on my shoulder and snuggle.  *melt*

Oh yeah, and one more thing... this right here:

This is my favorite time of day.

Too Hot to Walk

It finally happened.  It got too hot outdoors to take my daily walks.

*pouts*

The universe is out to sabotage me, I swear.

"Yeah, always with the excuses."

No, seriously.  It's too hot.  I walk with JJ, it's been too warm for the Moby since mid-March, and with the canopy up on the stroller to protect him from the sun, he gets too warm, goes to sleep, and it throws the whole afternoon's routine off-kilter.  Off-kilter afternoon = late bedtime = CRANKY baby.

So for exercise, I am forced to resort to my stationary bike in the basement while JJ naps.

For outside time... *grins*

PHOTO BOMB!!!

Not even six months old,

and he thinks he's a CK model.

I mean, LOOK at that sprawl!

He thinks the laptop is fascinating.

Keeping those little fingers off my keyboard 

and trackpad is interesting, y'all.

He's watching his own image on the screen, lol.

Check out my little DUDE!!!

A "spinner" off the maple entertained him 

for a good fifteen minutes. 

Then he tried to eat it.

Nursing outdoors is SO relaxing.

Oh, chill, Mom, you can't see anything.

Heehee... it's cute now, but I can already see

that look coming at me dripping with teenage disdain.

"Mom... what are you doing???  Yeah, I'm cute.  So what?"

"Bored now."

(Tell me someone gets that and I'm not just a big nerd.)

The spray of dried up maple leaves he found next.

LOADS of fun!

And yes, the onesie reads "my way or the highway".

"WWAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!... Oh. Milk."

Okay, I'm crossing my fingers and hoping little man stays asleep long enough for me to post...

There he is... been down for a whole hour!!!

Nipple confusion, over-supply, under-supply, bottle preference, colic, reflux, all these and more have been bandied about between my husband and I over the last few weeks.  Somewhere around 3 weeks old, little JJ went from the most laid-back baby I've ever seen in all my born days to screeching banshee child.  Every waking moment, if he wasn't inhaling his milk, he was screaming.

We tried everything.   For a solid month.  All the doctors could say was "It's colic, he's fine, he'll grow out of it."   ARGH!!  Not what a mother wants to hear!  My baby was in pain, and the only thing I could do about it was try desperately to get him to either eat or sleep, neither of which he had any interest in doing.  

I've never been so stressed out & miserable.  

About two weeks ago, we discovered that the child who had been fighting and sometimes flat out refusing the breast for two weeks would take his milk just fine from a bottle.  In fact he did better with the bottle than at the breast... didn't swallow nearly as much air, burped easier, and slept better too.

Fantastic.  I'll pump.  I can do that.

Except I couldn't.  My little Medela Harmony is a wonderful tool, as is its heftier cousin, the Medela In Style Advanced.  Neither of them allowed me to express enough milk to keep JJ fed long term.  I kept up with him for the last two weeks, but just barely, and he was steadily gaining ground on me.  My production was coming up, but not fast enough, and the dreaded Formula was looming on the horizon... we even bought a box of Gerber Gentle as backup in case I couldn't get production up far enough.

I felt like the world's worst mother EVER.  

Then suddenly, three days ago, JJ decided he wanted to nurse again.  No warning.  I just woke up Saturday morning to find the little sucker (pun intended) firmly latched onto the milk bar, sound asleep.  I must have helped him, he's not even two months old, but I don't remember doing it, so yay for sleep-nursing!  Since then, all he's wanted to do was nurse.  Nurse nurse nurse nurse nurse.  To the point where he was literally sleeping at the breast.  I spent Saturday and Sunday sitting on our bed watching the first season of Ghost Whisperer (yes, I know it's cheesy, sue me, it's entertaining), and just swapping sides every time I started a new episode.   He's still a bit gassy, but the all-afternoon-&-evening attacks of the screeching banshee child have not yet resumed.  *crosses fingers*

He was bidding fair to do the same today, but finally went down about an hour ago and seems to be taking a decent nap.  If I get two hours of sleep out of him, I'll dance a jig in the living room, I swear.

The title of today's post?  No matter how loud the kid was screaming, if he tasted milk and that's what he was after, he would instantly lock onto whatever was in his mouth, be it tit or bottle, and go to town.  It's amazing how fast silence can descend in a house with a newborn.

Hmm... there has been cute stuff lately I've been meaning to post about....

Oh, right!  

All parents know about baby firsts.  Baby's first smile, birthday, cold, snowfall, etc.  Well, around six weeks we got baby's first "conversation".  He has been cooing and gurgling more and more lately, discovering new sounds almost by the day it seems, and one day when he cooed and I cooed... he cooed BACK!!!  He actually responded!  We went back and forth for almost three minutes that first time, and believe you me I squealed like a school-girl when he was done.  I picked him up and danced his little behind all around the living room.  His daddy thought I had lost my ever-loving mind.

Until last week when he did it for John too.  Then I got to stand there and grin while my husband did goofy things and made silly faces trying to get the baby to "talk" with him some more.

I don't expect I'll be letting John live that down any time soon.

Folks, I tried really hard to get it on video for y'all, truly I have, but little man sees that camera come out and he just stops whatever he's doing.  I did finally get him to smile on camera for me though... 

Whattaya think?  How handsome is my little dude!

I swear...

I was going to post today, because JJ has done some super cute stuff recently, but today has seen the return of the screeching banshee child, so I'm somewhat... occupied.