a new cap

First of all, I have to apologize for not giving a shout-out to Aunt Rachel yesterday on her birthday. We called to sing to her, but Jack wasn't in a very talkative mood. So, happy birthday, Rachel. Hope you like your present--it should be there this afternoon.


Second, I had to post early during Jack's afternoon nap rather than tonight, because while we were window shopping on Upper Street after lunch with the Sanderses, Stacy found the most adorable hat in the world, and I just had to get it for Jack. It's still a little big, as you can see, but it was way too cute to pass up.



Horrendous night last night, with wakes at 11:30, 1:30, 3:30, 5:30, 6:15, etc. Woke up Ben (after he got home), was very not fun for me, and it didn't sound like Jack was enjoying it much either. I'm hoping this is just the final remnant of his recent illness. And that it will go away quickly...

a sitting-up baby

Last night was an especially rough night, with an 11 p.m. bedtime and wakes at something like 1-1:30, 4-4:30, 7:30-8:15, and then up for the day at 10. He's still not yet what you would call a good or even average night sleeper. The other moms in our prenatal class told stories of their babies regularly sleeping 8 hours or more by 3 1/2 months. One of them then even had the nerve to complain that she was "so exhausted." She wasn't even breastfeeding any more at the time, so she wasn't implicitly required to get up in the night each time her son did. I was not amused. Jack has thus far slept more than 6 consecutive hours precisely once. It's been at least 7 months since I've slept more than 5 consecutive hours. This is what they do in Guantanamo.

Despite that, the morning started with a wonderful whole-family cuddle session when Ben brought Jack into our bed when he woke at 7:30. I've got to hand it to them that my boys know how to snuggle.

The big news of the day is that this afternoon Jack did his first solo, hands-free sitting up session that lasted more than 2 seconds. It was amazing. Then he repeated his feat, which was more amazing. Then he let me capture it on camera, which just goes to prove what a wonderful baby he is.

I was searching around for fun new activities to do with him and decided to look to Dr. Sears for suggestions. I was flipping through the six month old section (his half birthday is Saturday for those of you who don't regularly keep track) and came across pictures about the progression of sitting up poses. When I realized Jack was at an age where he really should be able to sit up by himself, I thought I'd give it a try. Since (1) we have hardwood floors, no rugs, and very unpadded carpet, and (2) this baby loves to stand up, I haven't done much sitting up work with Jack. The shorter the distance his head would have to fall to hit the ground, the happier I am.

So with The Baby Book in hand, we headed for Jack's crib. A few leg adjustments later and he was propping himself up with his hands. When I brought a toy out, he then reached for it without even realizing that he was balancing himself, and he managed to stay upright! Super adorable.

I'm assuming the frequent, ravenous wakes had something to do with Jack's unwillingness to eat solid foods the past few days. This morning he and I both got a little too excited that he wanted to eat, and he ended up going through the better part of three food cubes. About 2 hours later, as he was waking up from his afternoon nap, the contents of about one of those food cubes came back up again. Then again this evening, Jack took a page from my projectile vomiting days, and half a milk feed came up again, very unexpectedly. I'm assuming that these are isolated incidents of overeating-induced sickness, and since he was so giggly and playful immediately afterwards and didn't really look sick, I'm not very worried. Still, I'm glad he's now a tummy-sleeping baby so I don't have to worry about him getting sick again in the night and choking.

Tomorrow we're planning on a morning coffee date at Stacy and Kaia's before heading to an indoor play gym with Stacy, Kaia, and one of Kaia's grannies. With the goal of not being a walking zombie through all that, I'm now headed to bed, in hopes of getting more than 5 or so hours of sleep. Total.

a cookie baking day

Today was one of those days where the stereotypes about London weather were dead on. It was the type of gray, drizzly day that cries out for staying in all day, baking cookies and reading library books while drinking herbal tea and listening to Norah Jones. Oh, and lots and lots of cuddly napping. Given the weather and my sorely aching quads (victims of Sunday's overzealous postnatal strength training effort), baby yoga plans were quickly scrapped, and Jack and I accomplished the napping with glowing success all morning.

Unfortunately we had to leave our bed fort this afternoon and venture out to the Southbank where there was a great trunk sale (is that a British phrase or an American one? I get confused now) on a particular luxury item that will be a perfect Christmas gift for a hard-to-shop-for relative. I think it was worth it--but just barely. Jack seemed content in his Bugaboo, under the raincover, which made me wish for the millionth time that there were Bugaboos for adults. I was walking back over the (formerly) wobbly bridge looking at St. Paul's and realized I don't really dislike London like I did last year at about this time. Don't get me wrong (and please don't freak out Mom, we won't stay here forever, or even any longer than we need to), I'm not totally sure I actively like or prefer living here, but sometime this summer I grew out of the active dislike of London.

Then we came back for an afternoon of cookie baking, while I told him all about how Nonna and I always used to bake cookies and go to the library on rainy days. Since we've just gotten a few orders from American food importers in, we're flush with big jars of peanut butter, so we decided to make peanut butter cookies. In lieu of the library, I considered going to the book store down the street, until I realized that Jack has an entire bookshelf full of his own books, many of which we haven't yet read. That's in large part because I've jumped the gun a bit on his reading level and have tons of non-board books (which just aren't tasty enough for Jack), but also because he has a few favorites that seem to satisfy him quite well for now. So we had several read-throughs of his favorite book, "Little Fish," which is about a little rainbow fish who runs into sea creatures of various rainbow colors in his efforts to his find his mummy, which are (spoiler alert) ultimately successful. When I just couldn't stand any more Little Fish, we delved into a bug-counting book that came in a lovely package we received from Grammy and Granddad today.

Jack is now refusing all solids again, including sweet potatoes. Despite my best efforts to further water them down, he acts like the food is too thick and is making him gag. I really need help from Ben, who is amazingly adept at getting Jack to eat anything, on this one, but his work hours have been nutty again this week. Hopefully we'll be able to give solids an early morning try again tomorrow.

Oh, and I forgot to mention in yesterday's post that Jack is now so wiggly that Dr. Hay kept referring him as a "little dynamo." Yes, my calm, observant, Zen baby is now back to being as active as he was in the womb. His new most dangerous trick is flipping over onto his stomach while we attempt to change his diaper. Makes me very glad we have a European-style changing table (baby faces changer rather than being on his side) that lets Jack roll over without flying off the dresser.

Trial post

Last August, my dad astutely pointed out that as of April 13, 2007, I am no longer Jessica. For the foreseeable future (and then some) I am now "Jack's mom." This morning I was thinking yet again about how I need to restart journaling so that I can remember little moments in Jack's life, when I realized that this would be the perfect opportunity for a blog. I can't promise regular updates, but I guarantee I'll post to it more often than I put pictures up on Snapfish. Maybe this will get me more in gear on that, too. Uh, but probably not.

Jack is finally getting over the awful virus that he came down with last Tuesday. We went to Dr. Hay (our normal pediatrician) this afternoon (finally), and had a very nice visit. My OB, Dr. Erskine, recommended Dr. Hay by saying, "I especially like him--he's very gentle." She's so good. I can't possibly think of a better way to describe him. He's a super-friendly expert with children whose only grandchild, a 3 year old boy, still lives in South Africa, a fact I just learned today. The way he talked about his grandson I couldn't help but think about Pops and how he glows at the thought of Jack.

At any rate, Jack's much better, his antibiotics (which I was chagrined to learn were probably unnecessary, making me one of those bad moms whose fear leads to stronger viral strains that make all of us worse off) will be gone by tomorrow morning, so we may venture out to mom and baby yoga with Stacy and Kaia.

Little progress to report on the food front. He ate almost a whole banana this morning, but he's refusing most foods other than bananas, apples, and sweet potatoes mixed with copious amounts of breastmilk. I've tried mixing other foods in with his favorites, but the only others he'll even consider so far are zucchini and sometimes butternut squash. Plums and avocados were definite no-gos, and when I tried to feed him parsnips he looked at me like I was nuts. The grandfatherly peanut gallery has already been heard from on the wisdom (or lack thereof) of feeding Jack parsnips, so I can do without repeats of those comments. Carrots are on tap for trial later this week.

This post has set the bar a little high--most of my posts won't be nearly this long--but I had a little time now and wanted to get off to a good start. Miss you all.