8 Months!

Jay is 8 months today.

Wow!

I literally *just* got used to telling people he was 7 months when they asked and now... 8 months!

Time is just flying it seems!

"Look at me, in my big boy car seat!"

We put him in his big boy car seat yesterday! We haven't been using the carrier much lately anyway, aside from carrying him to and from the car, so hubby decided we should just use the regular car seat now instead. Seems to be a smooth transition so far!

Jay's learned how to pull himself up this month and as long as there's an object near by that's solid enough, he'll pull himself up to his knees and then his feet to stand.

We think he's going to skip the "official" crawling, as he seems quite content with military crawling and boy does he go! He's gotten quite fast this last month!

He also took a few steps last weekend while holding onto things. I was laying on the couch, daddy was laying on the floor with him when he crawled over to the edge of the couch by me and pulled himself up to his feet. Holding onto my hand and using daddy's legs like a railing, he took a few steps from the couch to the coffee table! We were so excited for him!

We're also counting his 1st official word as "hi", as he said it to both of us several times the other night! We've heard him say a few words here and there, but he never really repeated them like he did the other night when we tried to get him to say them again.

He has 5 teeth now, with a 6th one on the verge of breaking through at anytime now and he's been chewing his snacks and other little pieces of food we give him to try, so he seems to be getting the hang of chewing!

We have to watch him like a hawk when he's eating his bottle, as he likes to sneak it out of his mouth and squeeze the nipple to make the milk spray all over the place (and his reaction to it hitting him in the face every time is quite hilarious!).

He currently still eats 1/2 a cup of rice cereal with apple with 1/2 cup of formula plus the remainder of the 8oz bottle used to mix the cereal for breakfast. For lunch he eats a 2.5oz jar of chicken and apple puree with 4-6oz of formula. Dinner is a 3.5oz jar of veggie and meat puree (either vegetable beef or sweet potatoes and turkey) with a 3.5oz jar of fruit plus 4-6oz of formula. And before bed he gets a bottle where he drinks anywhere from 4-8oz depending on his appetite. He's turning into quite the little eater!

He's still sleeping well - most night falling asleep between 11-1130pm and sleeping til 930-11am, depending how tired he is. He also takes an early afternoon nap (usually by 1pm he's asleep again) for 30-60minutes on average and then a late afternoon nap (usually sometime after 5pm) for nearly an hour on average.

We went last week to get some fabric so my mom can start working on his 1st Halloween costume (not telling what it is yet, but it is Star Wars themed!)

A mini work vacation

I've had the past few days off work because my parents went up to Door County and so I have no one to watch Jay really when hubby and I would both be working so Little Man and mommy have been having fun together!

Today was a good day - did a bit of shopping and Jay was a pleasant little shopping buddy for the most part!

We had some stuff to get at Target and while there, we passed the $1 section near the front and I got him a plastic orange pumpkin bucket for trick or treat - he LOVED it and played with the whole time we were in the store and didn't want to give it up for the lady to scan it! He also threw a bit of a fit when we were riding in the car and he dropped it and couldn't reach it and of course I was driving so I couldn't get it for him either =(

He was a flirt at all the stores we went to though!

For dinner, hubby and I went got sushi and Jay sat in a high chair while we ate (we tried letting him sit in his carrier, but he got mad when he realized we were in a restaurant and he wasn't in a high chair at the table, lol...). They have these little plastic cups you can put soy sauce or other sauces in - we gave Jay a cup and a pair of chopsticks to keep him occupied while we ate. He didn't care much for the chopsticks but OMG he LOVED the little plastic cup! It was just the right size for him to pass back and forth in his hands and he had a blast playing with it, carrying it with him to the car, playing with it as he rode in his seat and then playing with it at home!

Also, while at home and I was putting groceries away in the kitchen Jay was crawling around on the floor when he decided to pull himself up to his knees, holding on this walker. Then, once he was on his knees, he continued to pull himself up into a standing position, where he then proceeded to play with his Winnie the Pooh figures that were on the walker tray (which btw, in the few weeks he's had those things, they've taken quite a beating! lol...). Eventually the walker moved, but, knowing it would happen, I was right there when he started to fall and kept him from it happening.

He's getting to be so big! Hard to believe he's turning 8 months old in just over a week - I *just* got used to telling people he's 7 and a half months old when they ask!

He "crawls" (which for his the military crawl, but boy is he fast at it!) all over the place now and discovered today that he can drop toys down the stairs by sliding them through the rails of our metal gate!

Thursday hubby took off work a bit early and we met him for lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings, which Jay usually enjoys (restaurants have started giving him the kid's menu too, which is funny as he usually destroys the paper ones, lol...) and then he joined us at the indoor playground, which Jay seemed to really like having us both there doing something fun with him outside the house (that doesn't happen too often, aside from our Friday night trips out to dinner and Walmart). He played a bit more this week than he did last week (last week he stayed glued to me and just sat and watched the other kids play). We got him climbing and crawling a bit, smacking around the squishy noodles that hang down in one part of the baby play area and he had a blast hanging onto the safety netting too!

He also seems to have taken a liking to The Wiggles, much to his daddy's dismay, lol... when The Wiggles "Wiggle and Learn" segment comes on during the Sprout's Sharing Show I know that's a good 5-10 minutes where I don't have to hear him screaming to get out of the playpen when I'm trying to get ready to go out as for some reason it completely catches his attention! lol...

He's growing up so fast though! He regularly holds himself up on the edges of the furniture now too, like the couch and the coffee table... my baby's growing up! Not quite sure how I feel about this, but I guess he can grow up to be about pre-school sized, then he can stay mommy's little guy forever! =D

7 months already!

By the time this is posted, Jay will officially be 7 months old!

Being a cutie with "uncle" Steven

7 months... wow! It's September already... where did summer go?!

Jay's been sitting up, playing with his toys pretty well these days and can stand by himself with minimal spotting. He also LOVES tearing into my (already read) magazines that live under our end tables. It's official - our front room, while I would have liked to have kept it as a nice living room, is actually just a nice family room since we spend a lot of time up here as it's carpeted for Jay to play on and his toys keep finding a way out of his room into here (he has almost no toys to play with in his room as they're all currently residing in the family room, lol...). He was moving along quite well in his walker tonight too, speeding back and forth across the kitchen. He gets mad I won't let him pull over the trash can though (it's got a pop-up lid so it has to stay out).

He LOVES shows with puppets in them too, I've noticed - for some reason they catch his attention and he'll just sit and watch them the whole time they're on the screen.

Crawling under the coffee table

He loves to jump too - lately he's been quite the jumping jack, if you stand him up (and hold onto him) on a flat/hard surface he'll often start jumping like crazy, lol...

He can't completely crawl properly yet, but he does this military-like crawl where he pushes and pulls himself all over the place. This afternoon I left him sitting with his toys in the family room while I went in the kitchen to get his dinner ready. As we're in the separation anxiety phase, he soon realized I left the family room and started crying, so I called to him from the kitchen so he would know I was just around the corner. I went to go get him to put him in his high chair and there he is, doing his form of crawling and halfway between where I left him and the kitchen, like he was coming to see where I went, lol...

Sitting in the shopping cart like a big boy!

He enjoys trying new foods/tastes too - he got some ice cream cake at my birthday and loved that, daddy let him lick a cool ranch Dorito and he liked that, he liked the candy daddy let him lick tonight... we gave him a little bit of plain steamed rice which he seemed curious about. He also eats the Gerber Graduates Puffs in Strawberry Apple for a snack sometimes too (my friend let us try the banana organic ones her little girl eats - he didn't seem to like the banana flavor too much though, despite him eating banana baby food). He loves Apple and Strawberry and Grape tasting things though!

He likes to make some pretty funny noises too - his latest enjoyment is rapidly smacking his lips and the noise that makes, daddy taught him that and he gets such a kick out of other people doing it after he starts doing it, lol...

He also likes "playing" with blocks - ie: you build them up, he knocks them and makes them go "boom!" He's also riding in shopping carts now like a big boy - he LOVES being able to sit and see everything at his eye-level rather than ride in his carrier on top of the cart (which by the way, he's almost too big for his carrier now too - he has less than 5lbs til he's over the weight limit!)

Playing blocks with mommy

He also seems to understand teeth brushing, as we added that to his bedtime routine recently - he knows when I put the toothbrush to his mouth to open up for me =)

And also, I noticed tonight, when his head was back while I was changing him that his top 2 front teeth are in! The right one is all the way through and about halfway fully in while the other you can just see the tip of the whiteness broken through! So 7 months old and 4 teeth already! I knew he was getting a few more in soon, as he was really tired earlier this week and the last day or so he hasn't been finishing his bottles completely either like normal.

A day in our regular routine goes like this:

• Jay wakes up between 930 and 1045am, I change his diaper and bring him over to our bed to snuggle with me for a bit, putting on PBS (Sesame Street is on from 10-11am so he usually watches that while I hold onto him and close my eyes for a bit longer, sometimes he falls back asleep too).
• By 1130 or so he's wide awake and hungry so we get up and I fix him a big bowl of Gerber's Rice Cereal with Apple (2 servings in his bowl) and the remaining amount of formula in his bottle (a full bottle is 8oz of water with 4 scoops of Enfamil Premium Powdered Formula and the cereal is mixed with about 1.5-2oz of that).
• He eats all his cereal and then we sit down on the couch and watch some Clifford the Big Red Dog while he eats his bottle. Sometimes he falls back asleep right after his bottle, other times he'll stay awake, playing with his toys til about 1/130pm before falling asleep for his 1st nap.
• On days I work I'll wake him up about 3/315pm so I can get ready for work and we can leave around 4pm when I drop him off at my mom's.
• He usually takes his afternoon bottle around 4/430pm.
• Usually he takes another nap in the early evening while the rest of the time he plays.
• Between 7 and 8pm he eats dinner - 1 jar of veggies, 1 jar of fruit, and a 6oz bottle.
• After his dinner he plays some more, sometimes he'll take a short nap, hubby and I usually eat around 9pm (hubby goes into his 3rd shift job around 10pm and if we eat too early he gets hungry again shortly after he gets to work - eating at 9 usually holds him over for the night).
• Jay takes his medicine between 9 and 10pm, as I don't like to give it to him too close to meals in case it upsets his stomach. 
• We play for a bit after daddy leaves and then a little before 11pm we start getting him ready for bed - change his diaper, let him pick out his jammies and put them on, turn on his scent melt plug-in and his nightlight, brush his teeth and we sit down and he eats his "bedtime bottle" (8oz) while watching The Goodnight Show on Sprout. If we're lucky he falls asleep before finishing his bottle or right after, otherwise, we try to keep him calmed down, reading to him if need be before putting him down if he's still awake past 1130pm.

A weekend of news

This weekend has been full of new things for us.

He was beating the table too, like "Give. Me. Pancakes!"

Friday evening I had to work and didn't get home til a little before 11pm as the store was pretty trashed and there was only 2 of us to pick everything up. We always go out for dinner on Fridays but since it was so late we opted for something 24hrs and instead of our usual choice of Denny's for late-night diners, we went to IHOP as I had a coupon for a free entree. It was time for Jay to eat his bedtime bottle too so I picked him up out of his carrier and started feeding him as we waited for our food, but he was too excited about sitting up at the table - we decided to try letting him sit in the restaurant's high chair and well, he seemed to enjoy it!

Saturday they didn't need me to go into work, so after putting away all the groceries we bought at Sam's Club that afternoon (which I LOVE shopping there!) I played with Jay in his bedroom for a bit while daddy went into work. I've had a container of my old blocks in there that I brought over awhile back from my parent's house, however I hadn't really went through and thought they were all 1 type of block but turns out I had some soft plastic ones and some wooden block blocks in there too! I cleaned em off and gave em to Jay and he seemed to enjoy them! He also sat up with no support and played with them for a good 15-20 minutes too! He did that on Friday as well and seems to be getting better at sitting by himself!

He also pushed the empty diaper box in the photo below across the room, while "military crawling" the whole way - he's getting sooooo close to actually crawling, as he's got the stance down but then resorts to the military crawl where he drags/pushes himself instead, lol...

This photo also cracks me up as it's got him and Tiger having a stare down too (and no, she wasn't getting ready to pounce - she had been sitting/laying down watching him and got up to stretch, lol...)

Oddly though, bedtime the last few nights have been rough - you can tell he's tired as he's rubbing his eyes and getting all fussy, but he DOESN'T want to go to bed. I'll hold him and try to get him to snuggle and calm down... read to him, sing to him... and he's fine til you put him the crib and then he freaks out! It's been 3 nights in a row now - unless he's completely passed out when you put him down, he doesn't want to go to bed and we have to just let him cry it out til he wears himself out enough to fall asleep. I hate letting him cry it out, but nothing else seems to work! I think part of it is the separation anxiety but still... mommy always comes for him when he needs me and he knows that deep down.

Separation Anxiety

I'm glad Jay's bonded to me, my mom and hubby, but this whole separation anxiety milestone he's reached... I'm not a fan of it!

He started getting upset the other day anytime I would leave his eyesight for more than a split second (like to go around the corner to put his empty bottle on the kitchen counter or a 30sec trip to the bathroom to empty my bladder).

Well the other day he REALLY freaked out.

I had to get ready for work so at first I put him in his crib while I went to do my pre-shower stuff (ie: brush my teeth). He didn't like that and started fussing after a moment or so. Now usually when I take my shower I've been putting him in his pack n play lately since he's gotten too big for his bouncy seat (which we moved to our storage room this week - how sad!), but since he didn't seem to like being in the crib I figured I'd take a quick one and let him play in his walker in the kitchen since he seems to like playing in there anyway and the main area of the kitchen is confined enough that he couldn't squeeze the walker anywhere unsafe, plus he can't really get into too much yet as far as the drawers and cabinets go.

So I put him in it, explain I'm just going to take a shower and will be out shortly and for him to play.

I no sooner step in the shower and he starts freaking out in the kitchen on the otherside of the bathroom wall (you would think by now that he would establish that when the water in the bathroom is running and mommy is nowhere to be seen that that means mommy will be back soon after the water stops). I hurry and wash my hair and shave part of my legs, although his screaming and crying is getting worse - it almost sounded like he was having a panic attack as he had cried and screamed so hard he was gasping for breathe. If you didn't know better you would think he was being brutally tortured in the next room, he was freaking out so bad.

So after spending only 5-10 minutes in the shower I quickly hop out to check on him, fearing the worst that maybe he flipped the walker over or something - he hadn't moved from the spot I sat him in and as soon as he saw me he was all smilies like his freak out never happened!

My mom noticed the other day that he started flipping out at her house when she was letting him play in his Johnny Jump-Up there and went out his eyesight for a moment to put something in the kitchen.

Ugh... and I hear this is just the beginning too, with it getting much much worse.

I didn't have time to take a shower today before work, but I think if hubby's not around I'm going to have to bring his walker into the bathroom with me or set it in the hallway outside with the door open (the hallway there is carpeted and his walker doesn't move on carpet) so he can see I didn't disappear.

6 Months!

Today Jay is 6 months old.

Half a year old.

It really doesn't seem like it's been that long! Since having him, it seems like the months have just flown by - honestly, where did June and July go?! They both flew by so fast and now it's already August!

Since my last post, he now has 2 - TWO! - teeth! That's right, Jay now has both of his bottom front teeth now and I'm pretty sure he's working on a few more, the way he's been gnawing on everything lately!

His 6-month check-up isn't til next week but I'm positive he has to weigh AT LEAST 15lbs, if not more - he's getting quite heavy for me to carry him in his carrier!

Rockin' his shades

Today we're going to try giving him a sippy-cup and see how he does with that for dinner, along with his usual fruits and veggies.

The other night I was sorting and storing his old clothes that he no longer fits in... looking at the newborn size stuff he wore those 1st 2-3 months... they're SOOO tiny compared to how big he is now!

I also got the rest of our photos developed so we're all caught up on our life in pictures. I filled an entire 200-photo album of Jay's first 5 and half months! Ooops! Oh well!

Happy half birthday, Jay!!! Mommy & Daddy love you!

It *finally* happened!!

Today my sister and I took Jay to go see the new Winnie the Pooh movie, as my sister has ALWAYS liked Winnie the Pooh and I'll admit, the new movie looked cute (I was always a Tigger fan). Technically, his 1st movie in the theater was when we saw Thor with my in-laws on Mother's Day, however Jay slept that entire trip to the theater.

He did pretty good today though - he was awake when we went into the theater and the trailers were already playing... as I went to unbuckle him from his carrier to sit him in my lap I noticed he was starring at the movie screen all wide-eyed - it was funny! He laughed and grinned a few times and stayed awake during the Disney short at the beginning (it was about Nessie the Loch Ness Monster) but he fell asleep about 10 minutes into Pooh. He let out a cry when he woke up, but was fine as soon as he opened his eyes and realized mommy was there and where he was and watched the last 10 minutes or so of the movie. There were mostly toddlers in the theater and I think I saw 1 other baby, a little older than Jay.

Afterwards we stopped at Sam's Club to pick up kitty litter and a tub of ice cream (because we keep eating the smaller tubs too fast! doh!) and while walking down the book and movie aisles I found some with characters that Jay would recognize like Curious George and Dinosaur Train and got him laughing. While he was laughing I noticed a little white bud/bump on his bottom gum and proceeded to see what it was...

...he finally had a tooth break through!

It hasn't fully come in yet but it's definitely more progress than just his gums hurting as there's finally some visible proof! It's his front, bottom left tooth, which is surprising as his top front right ones seem to be where his gums hurt the most!

Dropping my sis off at my mom's house earlier, mom told us they had the free 8x10's from our church pictorial directory shoot available for pick-up last Sunday and since she didn't know when we would be there next she got ours for us.

 

I'd say it turned out pretty well!

Long Weekend & Jay's 1st 4th of July

This past weekend has been a busy one for sure!

Ketchup bottles are yummy!

On Thursday we dropped Jay off with a suitcase of his own at my parent's house as had a mommy and daddy getaway for a few days up in the Twin Cities area as my childhood best friend was getting married on Friday. Gotta admit, waking up Friday morning without my snuggle buddy to snuggle with was a bit weird, not to mention my body's used to him as my alarm clock most days!

The wedding wasn't until the evening so we had the whole afternoon to kill and ventured out for a bit and made a stop at the Mall of America, where hubby had never been before! We need to make a trip up there when Jay's a little older as I recall the aquarium being really neat, he'd be in awe of the mini-Legoland and of course the indoor Nicktoons theme park (which by the way, I was disappointed to learn that it's no longer Camp Snoopy but now it's Nicktoons Universe! Booo!!).

The wedding was in downtown Minneapolis at the Mill City Museum and we drove right past the Metrodome - home of the Minnesota Vikings - in which its roof caved in last winter from so much snow! It looked still under-construction too. The wedding was really beautiful and her dress definitely looked like it was made for her as it looked so pretty on her! The ceremony was outside in the courtyard ruins, unfortunately it did rain a little bit for the last 5 minutes or so, but fortunately it didn't pour until later in the night when we were having the reception dinner inside. It was nice to get to see her family again too - her oldest brother I hadn't seen in nearly 20 years, when he left for college! Her parents still live just a few streets over from my parents, so I've occasionally seen her mom out walking but it was nice to get a chance to chat with them, even for a brief minute or so! I'm glad we went!

It was nice to get away with just hubby, but I did start missing Jay and was looking forward to picking him up. He had a big grin on his face when we went to get him and he 1st saw us though! Mom said he did fine, save for when his gums started hurting, but he was all happy to see us again and spent most of the evening snuggling with me.

Sunday night we had a cookout out just us 3. The neighbors next door were having people over too, including one of the neighbors that used to live behind our house (he stopped over to collect a ball that had gone over our fence, and commented how he was so used to the property being vacant for so long!). Hubby had purchased some fireworks stuff when he was up in Janesville for work last week and lit about half of them off. Jay did okay with the ones that just made lots of lights, but he didn't like the ones that made high-pitched screeching noises at all! The neighbors had stuff they were lighting off too so we were taking turns, lol... they had one they lit for the grand finale which lasted about 2 minutes, but including the screeching ones, which freaked Jay out so we had to take him inside, as he got too scared!

Little Mr. 4th of July!

Watching fireworks with daddy

Monday was the 4th of July and Jay's 5 month birthday! Hubby and I both got stuck working. Hubby and Jay had a cookout with my family while I joined up with them after work and ate what was left. We joined my mom and cousin and went downtown to the same spot we sat last year for the fireworks. Jay started fussing in the car for no apparent reason and daddy carried him while we walked downtown which seemed to keep him calm. For the most part he sat and actually watched the fireworks, only getting upset twice. The first time was when the stupid girls wheeling a cart of glow-in-the-dark stuff caused a pedestrian traffic jam right behind us and I think someone bumped Jay trying to get passed, as he started crying out of nowhere. He settled down a few minutes later though and continued to watch (and grab daddy's face as the lights were making his face light up, lol...) until the last 10 seconds when the grand finale occurred, with the fireworks shooting off constantly - it scared him and he started freaking out so I held him to me with my hand covering his outside ear as he buried his face into my chest. He was fine and all smiles after it stopped! LOL...

I'd say Jay's 1st 4th of July went pretty well!

Baby... talk?

I think I'm going crazy and hearing things.

I was sorting through our mail & Jay decided
he wanted a piece of mail to call his own, lol...

Last night, as I put Jay down in his crib for the night he was all being squirmy wormy trying to settle in. Not expecting a response I asked "Hey buddy, where do you think you're going??" He turned his head, looked at me and I SWEAR he said "Up" before going back to squirming around!

Completely baffled me!

I texted hubby, once Jay got settled and began drifting off to sleep, to tell him and much to my surprise, he told me he coulda sworn he heard Jay say "momma" the other day when he was with him on the couch while I was in another room!

How crazy is that?! Jay'll be 5 months on Monday and we both swear we've heard him say a word!

I did a search online and they say that words like "mama" and "dada" and other 2 syllable sounds/words can be heard as early as in the 4-6month age range, so I guess it IS possible... but still! Wasn't expecting that!

***************

I also *finally* find something that helps his mouth when his teething pain becomes unbearable - baby tylenol! I had asked the pediatric urology specialist if stuff like baby motrin was fine for him to take for him gum pain and he said yeah, so I stopped at Target the other day to pick some up. The closest they had was the generic baby ibuprofen - I ran into one of the pharmacists though, explained what I was looking for and why and she suggested the generic baby tylenol at the lowest dosage amount would be best, as the ibuprofen is only for high grade fevers.

I went to pick him up from my mom's as she was watching him while I went and got my Mother's Day mani-pedi that morning and he was fussing in pain cuz of his mouth, having trouble drinking his bottle, so I gave him some and it seemed to work immediately, as he finished his bottle with ease and just kinda vegged out with no fuss for several hours! I gave him another dose later in the evening, as the pain seemed off and on all day (he was having a real bad time earlier that afternoon but it hadn't been 4 hours since his last dose so I couldn't give it to him yet, poor kiddo!) and once again, it seemed to work like a charm for his mouth pain!

***************

This weekend should be interesting - hubby and I are dropping Jay off at my parent's house for a few days tomorrow once he gets home from work as we're going to a wedding up in Minnesota this weekend.

This'll be Jay's first extended stay away from mommy and daddy... as much as I wouldn't mind a getaway with just myself and the hubby, I know I'm going to miss Little Man and that it's going to be weird not having him with us for a few days - I'm still debating about just taking him with us!

Anyways... I hope everything goes okay and he doesn't give my mom too much of a hard time. We'll be gone roughly 48 hours, as the wedding is on Friday and we need to be back in town before 5pm on Saturday since hubby couldn't get the night off work. He's only been away from us overnight once and that was when we were moving and he was getting a bit anxious and antsy to see us again within 24hrs and was extremely confused that night when neither my husband or myself came to pick him up from Grammie's...

And he flipped again!

Hubby's  been on vacation from UPS (his 3rd shift job) all week this past week and so he's been spending more time with Jay, working on him flipping.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, he can flip from his tummy to his back and is doing it regularly.

This past week hubby's been putting him on the floor on his back, trying to get him to work on flipping from back to tummy... and this morning he finally did it!

He's been close for weeks, trying ever since he started flipping the other way. And this morning, while I went to go make his rice cereal, hubby watched him in bed and he flipped back to tummy twice!

Hubby said he did it this afternoon too while I was work... unfortunately I have yet to see him do it (I've only seen the aftermath), as he couldn't quite get the final push over when we had him on the floor to show me tonight. Hopefully I will soon though!

His main hang-up is getting his arm that's underneath him straightened out, as he often rolls back onto his back when trying to pull that arm out from under.

He's also eating his sweet potatoes regularly - the first and 2nd night, for dinner, he ate half the jar and then the 3rd night he ate the whole jar!

So proud of him!

As far as the insurance fiasco, I spoke to a lady the other day who was real helpful and she talked to her supervisor about the fact that when I called on March 17 and asked that I was told the children's hospital in Madison was in our network so they said they would look into and pull the call and find out what happened and told me that and why and get back to me about it sometime this week. She also looked it up and was able to confirm that there are no pediatric urology specialists in our network within 30 miles of us so she told me what we can do is apply for Gap Exception Coverage so that we can get the in-network rate for whoever we see for that as there is none nearby in our network that we can go to. When I called to apply for that they told me it has to go before a review so we won't know til sometime after his appointment on Monday if they'll give us the in-network rate or not, but I guess we'll just go and find out and see. Hopefully they will though as it's not like there's a closer option for us.

They also seem to be finally giving me actual hours at work this week, plus they've used my on-call hours twice this week as well, so I'm working like 3 shifts a week now, up from 1! Guess I'm doing something right!

And call us crazy, but Jay sorta has his own smartphone now! Hubby's day job is working for a premium Verizon Wireless retailer and he got a Droid Incredible that can't be activated to use as a phone as it's missing an ESN or whatever. But you can hook it up via WI-FI to download apps and watch videos and do stuff online. Since Jay loves the Multi-Touch Visualizer app as well as watching Sesame Street videos on Youtube, we made sure those are both on there. It's pretty amusing, lol...

Night Terrors and Teeth

As I mentioned previously, we believe Jay is teething and has been for almost a month or so now - it's been quite the adventure!

I wanted to hold off on the Baby Orajel until we had some idea where the tooth was coming in at rather than rubbing it all over his entire gums and making his whole mouth numb. We've been lucky that up until this point he's only been drooling like a faucet rather than the vomit or diarrhea or fever I've read some babies get when teething. Well, that dang tooth better be coming in soon as today he's constant diarrhea! It hasn't been much each time but I've changed his diaper more today than ever before - usually he only has 1 decent-sized poopy diaper a day, today there's been some liquidy diarrhea in almost each one! I've been changing it right away too as it smells rancid and sounds like a mini-explosion in his diaper when in fact it's actually not that much. I hope this doesn't continue the rest of the time he's teething - we'll be going through diapers like crazy!

Poor guy though, he's not too fond of teething rings yet, only sucking on them for a minute or 2 before it hurts. And I've tried Baby Orajel the past 2 nights... last night it seemed to help, but tonight, the second I got my finger in his mouth to rub it on the area where we think the tooth is coming in (the front top right) he started sucking on my finger thinking I was giving him some food to taste. Needless to say, he didn't like what he tasted on my finger! We're dealing but I wish this tooth would come in already, I hate seeing him in pain like this - the only comfort that seems to work is snuggles and letting him suck on his fist or burpie cloth or bib.

Because of the teething though he's gained a great interest in people's mouths and teeth! His latest thing is staring at your mouth and teeth and then sticking his hand in there to check out the teeth as he seems to realize he doesn't have them but everyone else does. Tonight he gripped onto my teeth and tried pulling them out, lol...

He's flipped over a few more times - hubby got him to do it a few times tonight, so daddy's finally seen him do it, and I got him to do it for me again last week. Seems like he's getting the hang of it and right on track for his milestones.

He ate most of his bowl of rice cereal today with little fuss than usual, which is a relief! I'm hoping the doctor says we can start him on actual solid foods at his 4 month check-up on the 8th. I think he'd take to that better as the rice cereal is probably pretty bland with not much taste. He seems fine eating from a spoon though. I figure we'll start him on sweet potatoes, then the mashed peas, carrots, etc before introducing the fruit as my mom said once you do fruit they'll prefer the sweetness of it over the veggies.

Another thing I thought I'd mention that I need to remember to ask the doctor about is night terrors.

Jay's had least 4 episodes that I can recall now since he was born and he's just under 4 months old. He'll be sleeping and all of a sudden he'll just start shrieking, like he's trapped in a nightmare. I try to hold him and rock him and comfort him and call his name, telling him to open his eyes and that mommy's here, but it takes a good few minutes before he snaps out of it and then he's fine. One occurrence was when my mom was watching him at the house while we were getting all moved in - freaked her out a bit.

Curious, I did some research and came across the Night Terrors Resource Center page, run by a guy who also suffers from them and decided to do his own research on the condition (for over 20 years) to help others.

There's some interesting stuff.

He does say though that it can occur in babies even at birth, contrary to some belief. They say most times the sufferer doesn't even know they had an episode until someone tells them and it usually occurs about 45 minutes into the sleep cycle. They'll "wake up" startled, screaming or crying, no idea where they are or what's going on. It can last roughly 5 minutes on average but sometimes longer and no matter what you do to console them it doesn't make a difference until they snap out of it on their own. In children they say the best thing to do is just comfort them as much as you can; if they wake up the next morning and have no recollection of the episode, don't tell them about it as it'll likely just scare them.

He also says it's possible it is genetic, which if that's true, in Jay's case it makes me wonder as there has been a handful of times where hubby "wakes up" in the middle of the night, sweating, breathing hard, frantic and scared, unsure of what's happening. He usually goes back to sleep in a matter of minutes but it has creeped me out a few times. I recall his dad telling me he'd occasionally have episodes like that when he was really little, claiming to see a demon or something in his room. Another thing with the night terrors is that sometimes people do think they see a person in the room with them that isn't actually there. If hubby has the occasional night terror, it's possible that's what that could have been when he was young.

It's definitely interesting and worth checking into more! I hate it when it happens though, as Jay's usually asleep in my arms, it's usually been about 45 minutes and he just shrieks for a good few minutes until he actually wakes up and is perfectly fine like nothing just happened.

He flipped!

Just a quick post today, however we've reached a milestone!

Last night I put Jay down in his crib after daddy came home and fell asleep as he just wouldn't settle down in my arms and I wanted to go to sleep. I figured I'd put him in the crib and read for a little while until I heard him quiet down and go to sleep (he was babbling and scooting around I could hear).

Well I finished a chapter in my book and he was still  being noisy and now a little fussy so I went to go check on him - that's happened before where it turned it out he just popped his binky out of his mouth and was fussing cuz he wanted it back in.

At first I was little confused as to how he scooted himself 45-90degrees from where I had laid him down on his tummy (as I've mentioned before, Jay is a tummy sleeper). He was all smiles too and then it dawned on me - he was on his back, not his tummy how I had left him!!

He flipped himself over somehow!!

I stood there for a moment telling him how I proud I was of him, that he flipped all by himself... and then I flipped him back over so he could go to sleep and he was fine, passing out within minutes - I think he was just fussing and being all noisy to get my attention to come see what he did! LOL...

We have to wait and see if he does it again, this time when we're around to see him in action!