Magic

Yesterday we had classic spring weather.  The type of day where if you were standing in direct sunlight, you were warm, but if you happened to stay in a shadow for a few minutes there was a chilly bite of kinetic energy in the air.  I love these kinds of days that briefly exist before the hot blanket of summer takes over.  I came home from work, put another layer of clothing on Jude and we went and hung out in the backyard.  These days are his first real experience with the great big outdoors and he is constantly in awe of the small things that I take advantage of on a daily basis.  I found myself slightly envious of Jude in that he is able to see such sheer beauty and magic in the smallest of small things.  I posted something of the like on Facebook stating that I wished I could see the magic in something so simple as a blade of fresh spring grass, as Jude does. My wonderful aunt/godmother (who is one of the most insightful and artistic people I've ever known) stated in response to my comment : "you ARE--just noticing his discovery of the magic returns it to you!" 

And as always, she's right.

HUGE milestone.

That's right, avid blog followers.  It's official.  The day we've all been waiting for.  Are you waiting with baited breath?  Can't stand the anxiety for one more second?  Alright then, here it is....




We would like to announce.





Jude finally has enough hair to make shampoo mohawks!!!!  Wheeeeee!!!!



Enjoy the cuteness of the photographic evidence (and also the last time a bath will take place in the kitchen sink as evidenced by the last photo, before the expensive camera was almost lost to a tidal wave).

Infertility Awareness Week

1 in 8 suffers from infertility.  Such a staggering statistic.  I'm aware and hoping this week that everyone suffering from infertility is blessed with their miracles.

The foods of Jude

We're becoming more adventurous with introducing foods to Jude these days.  I figure he's over 10 months old now so we've moved on from purees.  I hate that he gags on a lot of stuff and the paranoid mom in me just wants to stop harder foods altogether because I'm afraid he'll choke.  The pediatrician reassured me that gagging is a prevention of choking and to just keep working at it.  It takes practice.  Anyways, I wanted to start a list of all the foods, purees and not, that Jude has tried so far and whether he loved it or not.  I thought it would be fun to look back on these days when I'm arguing with him about all the reasons why he can't have a lollipop and cookies for dinner and think back to the days when a pizza crust was a really big milestone.  I think I'll continue to keep new lists as new foods are introduced.  If there is a heart next to it, he loved it.  If there's no heart, he spit right back out repeatedly, clamped his lips shut and tossed his head from side to side until I stopped coaxing him to try it again.  I wonder where his flair for the dramatic comes from.

Apples ♥
Pears ♥
Sweet Potatoes ♥
Carrots ♥
Green Beans
Peas
Squash
Blueberries ♥
Raspberries
Peaches ♥
Yogurt ♥
Puffs/Cheerios ♥
Yogurt melts
Bananas ♥
Pumpkin (don't even think about not putting some cinnamon with it, though) ♥
Mango ♥
Mandarin Oranges
Cheese (riccotta, Mozzarella) ♥
Pancake ♥
Whole Wheat Toast ♥
Oatmeal ♥
Pizza crust ♥
Spinach
Pineapple
Potato ♥
Brown Rice Cereal ♥
Plums ♥
Organic Cheerios ♥
Avocado ♥

10 months!

My newborn is 10 months old!  I really can't believe Jude is creeping along to a year old.  It's just too much to take.  Our neighbor has a 5 month old and she brought him over in the yard while we were grilling out tonight and it's just getting so hard for me to even remember him being so small!  I now understand why people get baby fever BAD when they're little ones encroach upon a year.  No worries, I don't have baby fever.  Yet.  Even if I did, I'm still breastfeeding and my body is so stupid that I'm sure we'll need treatments again and that's a no-no while BFing.  Anyways, time for the list of Jude's stats and likes/dislikes.  Here we go!

10 MONTH STATS
Weight: 20.5 lbs (40th percentile)
Height: 28.5 in (50th percentile)
Head: 17 3/4 in (50th percentile)

LIKES:
Playing with bouncy balls, plastic balls, actually any ball.
When his Mama walks into a room.
Cars.
Crawling while scooting something along the floor with his hand.
Fruit.
Hats.
Sunglasses.
Shopping.
Llama Llama Red Pajama and The Very Hungry Caterpillar books.
Anything Dr. Seuss.
His daycare teachers.
Seeing his friends at school.
Feeding himself.
Pizza crusts.
Taking items out of something.  (i.e. taking folded laundry out of the basket, taking all of the toys out of his toybox)


DISLIKES:
Sitting in grass.
A statue of Jesus at my parents house.
Being handed to someone new before he can get acclimated to them first.
Pretty much any green veggie.
Getting into his carseat.
When Mama leaves the room.

Happy Earth Day!

I love this day, I really do.  It's usually nice out and the world smells of rain and renewal.  I remember as a kid, we would always plant a tree or some flowers or something to commemorate.  While I thought about doing some planting today, I opted not, seeing as the weather in Nebraska this time of year is insane and I really just don't feel comfortable doing any planting before Mother's Day.  I've been burned too many times thinking there was no way a frost would fall.

My two favorite boys and I ran our Saturday morning errand to Babies R Us for some organic baby food (yay sale!) and then to Once Upon A Child for some gently used toys and clothes.  I adore that place.  We got Jude three pairs of Gap pants, a pair of Nautica overalls, a ball popper toy that he fell in love with at his friend Avery's house, a crib toy that plays music and nature sounds, and some baby window shades for the car for $45 total.  You can't beat that.  And I felt somewhat Earth friendly given the holiday and buying used.

Jude checking out the new toy. 

There's that camera again.

Wait, the balls come out of this thing?!?

I'll just take them over here.

And chew on them.

Well, I thought $6.50 was a good deal on this toy, but apparently I just got overpriced toy balls for Jude to chew on instead.

And to think, we actually were considering spending $40 on this crib toy, when we found a used one for $10!

Baby cold/ear infection = penguin humidifier is having to work some overtime in the nursery.

And apparently, this is waaaay cooler than a toy that tosses balls in the air and makes them speed down ramps.

Score on organic baby food today.  That's right, I don't make my own....I had every intention...no freezer space because it's full of breastmilk...don't judge me...another post to come on that hairy subject.

Kickin' it with the hubs on the back patio after the Judester went to bed.

A Lucky Bucket lager for him.  A glass of Relax Riesling for me.

Mason performing his whirling dervish on a spring night.

Leif panting per usual in the cool grass.  He spent the day at the groomer losing 20 pounds of hair.  Handsome boy, huh?

Baby monitor is blessedly silent.  For now.

Yes, please take my picture.  Sans makeup.  After a night of Jude wakings.  In bad light.  And make me promise to put it on my blog if I am putting one of you on there. Thanks.

The tree in the backyard that blooms once a year for about five minutes.

Okay, I didn't take this photo.  The hubs did, that's why it rocks.  Showoff.

Just one lonely thought this evening

The look on Jude's face when I pick him up from daycare;  the sheer joy and happiness that his Mama walking into the room brings him just makes it all worth it.

This is going to be a long, long week.

So, Jude's cold is a little more than that.  It's an ear infection.  Poor little man.  He's had a faucet for a nose since last week and he started running a fever.  Phil took him to the doctor today and it was confirmed he had an ear infection.  His first one.  Daycare has a policy where he can't come back until he is 24 hours fever free.  This happened on the worst week ever. 

Since I got my promotion back in January, I've been working on this huuuge project for our biggest client and I submitted it to them today.  Not only that, but I have to give a big presentation on a product enhancement to the company on Wednesday this week.  Sooo not the time for my little sweetie to be sick.  Thank goodness for family.  My dad will watch him for the morning tomorrow so I can at least set some things up in the conference room I reserved to go over my presentation. 

That's not all.  Phil rearranged his day to pick Jude up from daycare and take him to the doctor.  In his hurry, he slammed his middle finger in the front door of our house.  That was this afternoon.  Cut to this evening and the pain was pretty much unbearable, his finger and fingernail were black and it was swollen up to massive proportions.  He is currently at the ER.  I feel awful I didn't go with him, but Jude is in bed and we didn't want to wake him.  My mom is meeting him there to keep him company in the waiting room.  God love her.

So yeah, the first day of the week was a little stressful.  But, I got my project successfully submitted before end of business today, which is a huge weight off my shoulders.  Now I just have to breathe and relax about this presentation I have to give this week and again next week (to people in the company who know way more than I do no less).  And I thought dancing in front of audiences for years and years was nerve wracking.  No way, that was cake compared to public speaking.

Fingers crossed my boys pull through and are as good as new soon and that this week of stress flies by.

Eek. I take it back, I don't want to grow up!

Petri Dishes for Playmates

Jude has another nasty cold.

I thought we were maybe getting done with all this sickness.  I truly believed that his constant colds/illnesses were a combination of being so young, during the worst winter I can remember, combined with the fact that he goes to a daycare center and is around so many other young kids (or Petri dishes, as I prefer to call them).  The weather has just started to get warm and a sense of relief has come about that cold and flu season is nearing its end.

No such luck.

The first telltale sign that Jude is coming down with a nasty cold is eye drainage.  Ew.  It gets all green and gunky and seals his eye shut overnight.  Poor guy.  I have some drops that clear it up, but it's always the first sign that things are going south.  Congestion sets in.  Then the coughing.  Then the all night wakings.  At that point, our world becomes a sea of saline drops, nasal aspirators, cool mist humidifiers, and Boogie Wipes.
Our pediatrician has repeated over and over that the typical newborn/baby gets about 12 colds a year.  It seems like Jude constantly has one.  Hell, he was hospitalized for RSV for five days back in February.  I can't help but get sort of panic-y when he gets sick now.  Although the RSV virus was special, he ran a 102-103 degree fever the entire time and that was his first symptom before anything else.  He isn't running a fever this time.  Thank goodness.

I just hate when Jude is perfectly healthy and I go to pick him up from daycare and he is happily playing with a friend.  Then, the friend turns around to grin at me and all I can see is the river of snot pouring out of his nose and I know that Jude will have a cold in about 48 hours.  Ugh.

I guess it's the expected repurcussions in the glamourous life of a working mom who sends her kid to daycare.

He says "Ball"!

That's right.  He doesn't say "Mama" and the jury is still out on the word "Dada" (although Phil claims he's saying "Dad", it sounds more like "Datttt" and he says it to everything whether its his father, the dog, or the blinds in his room).  I thought I first heard him say "ball" ("bah") in church on Sunday.  He has this book that associates things with animals and on the first page shows a picture of a brightly colored ball.  The moment he saw the page he said "BAH!".  I thought maybe it was a coincidence and he didn't say it again when I showed him the page a few minutes later.  This afternoon, we were playing up in his room and one of his favorite toys is one of those cheap large plastic bouncy balls you see in giant bins in the grocery store for $1.79.  I'm sure it's manufactured in China using every questionable chemical known to man, but he just loves it so much.  Actually, now that I think about it, maybe I should search for a more earth-friendly, non chemical-laden one seeing as how he also loves to put his mouth all over it. ::cringe:: Anyways, he's learned that if he rolls it back to you, you roll it back to him and so on, and he just gets such a kick out of it.  I brought the ball down from the shelf to play with it and he grinned and said "BAH!  BAH!" excitedly.  Now, I wonder where the word "Mama" will be on this list.  Whenever I encourage him to say it, he looks at me like I'm crazy and then says "Datttt".  Sigh.

A Lovely Little Saturday

Let me just start off by saying that I most look forward to Saturdays with my little family.

Jude usually rouses for the day around 6:30/7 am.  Phil willingly gets up with Jude and takes him downstairs so I can catch up on some zzzzz's (since I'm the one that handles all nightwakings during the week).  Phil will then bring Jude back upstairs around 9 or so and we all catch a morning snooze in bed as a family.  It's glorious, truly.  We usually get up around 10, pack Jude and his accessories in the car, and make our first stop: Starbucks.  Now, since I'm breastfeeding, I try to limit my caffeine to one cup of coffee in the mornings and a soda in the afternoons.  Jude hasn't seemed to have any aversion to me drinking caffeine, but why push the envelope.  I used to be an awful caffeine junkie.  Seriously.  I couldn't function if I didn't have 2-3 cans of Diet Mountain Dew in the morning and at least 3-4 Diet Cokes in the evening/afternoon.  I can't even imagine that now.  I get a total buzz from my Grande White Chocolate Mocha on Saturday mornings.  It is truly the perfect ending to my week.  The first sweet sip of satisfaction.  Ahhhh.

Anyways, where were we?

Right, Saturdays.  So, after our fix of Starbucks, we'll run errands.  Usually Target is involved.  Sidenote on Target:  why is it that even if I stop in for freaking dental floss, I can never leave without spending at least $50.  Does that happen to anyone else or is it just me?  Ugh.  Target, why can't I quit you?

Well, this Saturday we were on a mission:

Get Jude an Easter outfit.

That's right, we were those people who hadn't yet gotten their little one a spanking new outfit for church on Easter Sunday.  So we headed to our favorite place in the whole wide world for children's clothing:  Village Pointe.  Where else can you find a Janie & Jack, Carter's, and Baby Gap all within a stone's throw of each other?  It's like a new parents' dream that actually came true!  If any of you know my husband, you'll know that I have a rare breed indeed:  one that LOVES to shop for kid clothes!  Seriously.  The man will drop hundreds of dollars in one afternoon if he were allowed to.  I wish I were kidding.  He gets this glazed look in his eye when he is coordinating outfits for the kid and doesn't even glance at the price tag.  Thank God he has the good sense to shop with me so I can reel him in, otherwise, I fear that we would be living on the streets.....but at least our kid would look cute.

As you can see, we had fun buying outfits for Jude and spending the day out in the sun as a family.  It's the simple days that are always the most poignant for me.  From kisses in bed for Mama to modeling some of the new couture out in the backyard at the end of the day, it was another Saturday I don't want to ever forget.

There really is no better way to wake up than your sweet baby nuzzling your cheek.

I don't want the paparazzi to recognize me if we lunch somewhere.  Oh, right, Mom's the paparazzi.  Nevermind.

Looking at hats (what else?) at Janie and Jack

Dad's..er...Jude's favorite store

Enjoying the outdoors

Surveying the sweater vests

Getting bored, but hanging in there like a champ.

Sale signs at Baby Gap never bode well for our wallets.

Carters, we salute you.

The workaholic checks the Crackberry.

Trying on a new shirt with his trusty cap.  It's all in a day's work.