Fun with Our Phones Monday #3

Linking up once again!

 

On Tuesday my mom had to serve Jury Duty so I requested the day off work as she's my babysitter when hubby's at work and she most likely wouldn't be done til 5 or so. I also had to go downtown as I had to turn in our tax assessment "complaint" forms to the public administration building by a certain date. I find a parking spot and whadyaknow - I'm parked right behind one of my parent's vehicles! I was a bit confused as to why my mom was parked in a 1 hour spot... we no sooner cross the street and are heading up the block to the public administration building when we spy my mom walking towards us down the block! She offered to walk with us up to the office and as we're waiting to get in the elevator... my dad comes out! How weird! Apparently he had some stuff he had to do there as well and turns out I had actually parked behind him and not my mom. She didn't know he was there either - it was too funny!

I often sit with Jay on the couch in our family room on the main floor and we high ceilings althroughout the house. Tiger loves that she can jump on top of our hanging cabinets in the kitchen and the interior wall of our kitchen doesn't go all the way to the ceiling so Tiger can easily reach it from the top of the cabinets! I was laying on the couch with Jay one afternoon when I looked up and saw Tiger chilling up above us - too funny!

My Dallas Cowboys "wired star" game day earrings arrived Thursday afternoon... in that giant box you see there! Yeah, I was a little confused as to why such a tiny item was in such a big box! I was expecting maybe a small padded envelope or something! lol...

As a gift to myself (but we'll say it's from Jay) for my birthday I had this necklace pendant made from The Vintage Pearl. I had seen them before on various blogs and in various giveaways but it wasn't until I saw there was a discount code in last month's issue of Parent's Magazine that I decided to get one made. Based on the photos online, you'd think it was a pretty decent size, however it is a lot smaller than I was expecting, but I still love it! I was debating about getting this one, as Jay and I often read "Guess How Much I Love You" before bedtime some nights, but opted for this "Dainty Drops" one instead. I figure I'll add a charm and birthstone for each child we have.

 He decided to completely crawl under the coffee table the other day - before he's just reached over the edge but never completely climbed under it. This time he did and seemed to be having one going at daddy's notebook before mommy took it off him, lol...

 I get What to Expect's emails daily and last week they mentioned taking your kiddo to the playground. We've had decent weather lately (not scorching hot, but not cold either) and I don't know why the idea to take Jay to one didn't dawn on me sooner! The article mentioned baby swings, sandboxes, slides, etc so I decided that since Jay was all mine on Saturday (daddy had to work alllllllllll day and I already was scheduled off work) that I would take him to a playground since we had some errands to go out and run anyway. He really seemed to enjoy the baby swing, as he swung for a good 10-15 minutes, just watching all the other kids run around. I also assisted him in sliding down part of a slide but he seemed a bit unsure about that one.

 

Jay's first Cowboys game day!! I decked him out in his little Cowboys gear - onesie and socks (and later in the night bib and bottle).

We went to Sam's Club, all decked out in our Cowboys gear, and picked up a few things in the afternoon before the game, such as hubby's beer (a 24pk of Sam Adam's Octoberfest. At Sam's it's basically $1/bottle, which is how I was able to get hubby sold on the idea of joining Sam's - no, it wasn't the diapers and food in bulk, it was the beer, lol...) Jay was a bit confused as to why there was an entire other seat next to him in the cart though - he kept waving his arm there all like "uh... guys? What's supposed to go here?" It was pretty funny!

 Game day photos with mommy and daddy! We're misplaced Dallas Cowboys fans, living in Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers territory - I'll root for the Bears so long as they're not playing Dallas or in a playoff race with them, but you'll never see me like the Packers.

He fell asleep for a bit prior to the kick-off, waking up screaming 20 minutes later when daddy started cheering loudly (ie: yelling and screaming) at the TV. We had a mini football party with 6 of hubby's friends coming over to watch the game with us. It was fun times, despite me being the only female, lol...

Eventually Jay sat and played in his walker for a good bit of the game, but we did catch him watching the game and commercials for a little bit =)

Thank God for Sprout!

I am sooooo glad we get the 24hour PBS Kids channel known as Sprout - Jay LOVES it!

I know and have read about some parents who don't let their babies watch any TV, however I need something on in the background for noise as I can't stand silence and we noticed that Jay was sometimes watching the TV when it was on so we figure that if it's going to be on, might as well put something somewhat educational on so if he does watch it maybe he'll absorb some of it and we won't have to worry about it being anything inappropriate.

Anyways, he started watching Sesame Street around 3 months old after he 1st saw Elmo in Barnes and Noble and was instantly drawn to the stuffed animal. He doesn't always watch all of Sesame Street but he does seem to pay attention more when Elmo's on.

I looked up what shows Nick Jr, Disney and Cartoon Network plays and really weren't impressed (there's not really much anymore on those channels for really little kids) and so I opted to let him watch PBS instead - you can't go wrong with Sesame Street and the rest of the shows on there seem to be pretty appropriate too (save for a few shows that seem to appeal to slightly older kids, such as Electric Company, Ruff Ruffman, Wild Kratts, WordGirl etc). WordWorld, while a cute show, is hit and miss with Jay - he'll watch it somedays and other days he just won't have any interest. Same with Super Why, Thomas, Caillou and Dinosaur Train. Sid the Science Kid and Martha Speaks both bore him right now. He does seem to like Clifford (which is usually on while he's drinking his 1st bottle of the day), Barney, Curious George and Arthur (which are usually on when I'm getting ready for work and he's stuck in his Pack n Play).

On the weekends it was a bit tougher though, as Sunday mornings PBS plays the more older kid shows and on Saturdays there just isn't much good on for kids nowadays (which is sad as I remember Saturday morning cartoons being AWESOME in the late 80s and early 90s... now ABC is the only channel with a 2hr block and the Magic School Bus is the only decent show in the line-up!). When Jay stayed with my parents for Thursday through Saturday trip hubby and I took up north for a wedding at the end of June and beginning of July my dad realized Sprout is on the basic digital starter line-up and I've been soooo glad for it!

It's nice to have something little-kid friendly on in the evenings, especially when he's eating his bedtime bottle and it's been great on the weekends too, as they show Sesame Street on there also.

Nina and Star
hosts of The Goodnight Show

The Goodnight Show with Nina and Star starts at 5pm and replays at 8pm and 11pm, so we usually catch the last hour and the first half hour around bedtime. It mixes the Sprout hosts teaching stuff with kids shows and other fun songs - we usually watch The Berenstein Bears, Driver Dan's Storytrain, the Rubba-Dubbers, the Nurdle Gurdle Aquafresh tooth-brushing song, a Jim Henson's Pajanimals song, Chica and the day's host from the morning's Sunny Side Up Show announcing the day's birthdays (he LOVES the Chica chicken puppet and watches her whenever she's on) and the commercials for the afternoon Sharing Show with the Patty the pig puppet (again, Jay LOVES the Patty puppet and watches her too whenever she's on).

Chica with the morning Sunny Side Up Show hosts Danesha, Sean, Kelly and Liz

On the weekends we usually catch the last hour or so of the Sunny Side Up Show with Chica and the 1 of the 4 daily hosts they rotate each week and sometimes Sesame Street at noon. In the afternoon we usually catch a little bit of the Sharing Show - he really likes this show called The Mighty Jungle which has... puppets! I swear, anything with puppets Jay will just sit and watch, lol... Bob the Builder is also on the Sharing Show and he seems to like that one too.

Patty from the Sharing Show and the main characters from The Mighty Jungle

She's ALWAYS crying about
something!!! WHY?!?!

The only show I really CANNOT stand is Angelina Ballerina. Now on Fridays, PBS plays a newer version of the show, but the version we often catch during the Goodnight Show is the older version and oh my gosh... I swear that mouse cries about something in EVERY episode - I have yet to see one where she doesn't cry about something. It gets really old and annoying. Fortunately Jay doesn't seem interested in her. I know a lot of parents complain about Caillou whining a lot, and while I notice he does whine from time to time, it's honestly not every episode like Angelina and her crying.

I also find the DirtGirlWorld show to be slightly creepy too, the way it merges actual people's faces and expressions with animation... soooooo creepy!

These guys creep me out with their big heads and realistic faces & expressions!

I know, I'm a horrible parent for letting my 7 month old watch TV... oh well, it works for us and honestly, while the TV may be on, he's usually playing with us or his toys half the time or eating or falling asleep so it's not like he's sitting glued to the TV like a zombie, it's just background noise and sometimes when something catches his attention (like whenever there's puppets on) he'll stop and watch for a few minutes.

Fun with Our Phones Monday #2

Linking up again this week to show off my photos =)

Yesterday, Jay's 7 month birthday, was a fun day for us. Daddy had a fantasy football draft with some of his co-workers from UPS so it was just me and Little Man for a good bit of the day.

Saturday night our baby monitor stopped working correctly (more on that in a separate post), so I had to go out and get us a new one. We also stopped at PetCo so I could get one of those pet hair glove things as Tiger's been shedding like crazy the last few weeks (this past weekend I think I vacuumed up enough cat fur and dander to make my own cat!). Jay really enjoyed the pet store! There were quite a bit of people walking around with their dogs so he was looking at all of them, he got to see lots of fishies and was really watching the turtles swim! The local humane society had a side room with some kitties for adoption too so we walked by and looked at the kitties in the window and we also saw some small birds too. He LOVED it!

We also stopped at Babies/Toys R Us to get a new baby monitor (which they jacked the price up over night too, as the one we wanted was showing online to be $26.99 Saturday night but when I pulled it up in store it was back up to $44.99... grrrr... yay for coupons though!). We stopped and looked at toys too and Jay saw some Winnie the Pooh figures in a set that he got all excited for. I let him play with the box in the cart and he had fun, but eventually fell asleep... on it! lol... it was pretty funny!

Anyways, onto the pictures!

Jay climbing under the coffee table, trying to get at the books (which are no longer there now because of this, lol...)

Riding like a big boy in the shopping cart at Target

I randomly decided to braid my hair in braided pigtails, lol...

 Playing with his blocks and Baby Einstein's turtle

I spelled his name with the blocks =)

 

He noticed I was taking pictures

 He found one of my braids and decided to be ornery, lol...

Trying out the shopping cart cover at Walmart, blinking due to the flash, lol... not sure why we bought the shopping cart cover - half the time we don't use it, we just wipe down the cart with a wipey real good first... this thing is a bit of a pain to put on, not sure how I'd juggle Jay and putting this thing on a cart by myself.

Hubby came home with some Wonka candy the other day - apparently they're now promoting the Willy Wonka book on their packaging now... kinda funny, but neat at the same time that they're plugging a book on a thing of candy!

Watching Sesame Street while mommy puts his shoes and stuff on

He fell asleep, in the shopping cart at Toys/Babies R Us, gripping onto the Winnie the Pooh figures he wanted, lol... prying the box out of his hands without waking him up to check-out was quite a challenge!

1st Carmel Apple Spice cider from Starbucks of the season! Hubby and I get a few of these every fall. This is the only thing I ever frequent Starbucks for, as the closest thing to coffee I'll drink is McDonald's Iced Mocha Frappes.

 We brought his walker downstairs while we watched our HBO shows tonight so he could move around and play with some toys (like his new Winnie the Pooh ones there). Between True Blood and Entourage we flipped it over to Sprout, which he's watching here.

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.

Jay welcomed September with a thud

Jay greeted the month of September with a THUD this morning as he fell off our bed and onto the floor =(

Jay playing with his blocks and Baby Einstein's turtle

Poor guy... that's the 3rd time he's gotten hurt this week, as he banged his head on the back of his changing table earlier this week while my mom was changing him (which is the 2nd time now that he's whacked his head while getting changed as he won't lay/sit still...). Then Wednesday night, while we were playing in his room with his blocks he was sitting up but fell over on me, his face smashing into my glasses and giving him a little scratch on the side of his face...

...and then this morning.

Every morning he wakes up between 930-1045am and usually lays in bed with me and we snuggle as he watches Sesame Street and mommy gets a little more shut-eye (he usually lays on my chest with my arms around him or next to me with my arm around him). This morning though, he was laying next to me and got away. I heard a loud thud, opened my eyes and as he started screaming it registered that he was no longer in the bed. I sprang up out of the bed and ran over to the other side and there he was, face down on our laminate floor, crying at the top of his lungs. I quickly picked him up, checking to make sure there wasn't any blood. His teeth were still intact, his nose didn't seem broken, I felt his ribs and they all seemed okay and once he calmed down (he was snuggled up on me bawling for a good minute or 2) I bent his legs, knees, arms, elbows and wrists to make sure they didn't hurt and weren't broken or sprained either.

I also called hubby to see if he thought I should take him to get checked out - just as he said the time Jay whacked his head on the shelf above his changing table, he reminded me that babies fall time to time and that as long as I checked him out and he seemed to be okay then not to worry about it, just keep an eye on him and see if he behaves like his normal self. I called my mom to see if she knew what signs I should keep an eye out for and Googled as well. No vomiting or seizures and I kept him up for a couple hours before letting him take his nap just in case he had a concussion or anything. He was a little clingy the rest of the day but other than that he seemed like his normal self, so that's good!

Fortunately our bed is only like 3 feet high, so it could have been worse. I think he was just more scared than anything as he's never fallen like that before. Well I guess you could say he learned why we don't let him get close to the edge and always pull him back when he crawls/rolls too close to it! Gotta say though, I was pretty scared at the time though and felt sooooo bad for it happening as it could have been prevented.

Fun with Our Phones Monday #1

Okay so I realize it's now officially Wednesday (although since I haven't gone to bed yet it's still technically Tuesday in my mind!) but since it was my birthday and we wanted to have fun evening hubby took Monday night off and well, I forgot, lol...

Anyways, I first saw this link-up last week via some bloggers I recently started following and decided I wanted to start participating in a weekly post again since it's been awhile and well, I'm always taking photos of Jay at least throughout the week if not other random stuff we see while out and about =)

 Showing off his Robot jammies I bought him from work and of course he's wearing his bib as a cape - I call these his "Super Jay" pics, lol...

Since Jay now has a pair of jammies for every day of the week I've been letting him pick out which ones he wants to wear but putting them all in front of him and whichever one he grabs first is his selection. We've been doing this since he was a newborn, giving him options and letting him "pick" - I think it's good for him and gives him a little bit of independence and lets him express his personality.

I went in to check on him before we went to bed and found him laying asleep like this in his crib! I'd say he looks quite comfy!

 Last Thursday I was over at my parent's house, hanging out after work as I had to pick Jay up anyway and my sis's boyfriend decided he was going to make pizza for dinner and invited me and hubby to join as the pizza was quite huge! We hung around for a bit too and I snapped some cute photos of Jay. The 1st one he's got his eyes closed cuz of the flash (oops!) and the 2nd one he just looks mischievous!

 My birthday ice cream cake from our family cookout we had at our house on Sunday! 2 candles on 1 side, 7 on the other (cuz we don't own 27 candles, lol...)

Jay snuggling with his daddy after all our birthday guests left and his sugar high from the bit of ice cream cake he had finally wearing off (kiddo was literally bouncing all over the place, lol...)