I can’t remember if I already mentioned this or not, but for all the preggers out there, this tool is AWESOME.  We used it to time contractions when my labor with j started.  It was helpful because it was really easy to use, and you don’t have to think about it too much (which is good when you’re trying not to obsess over early labor signs.

We were trying to relax and be BAU during early labor, so I would just yell out to Josh, “Ok – press the spacebar!!  Having one now….” ….or when they got worse on Saturday evening, I would just wince and bend over in pain and Josh knew that was body language for “PRESS THE $@!*^ SPACEBAR NOW!!!!”

I know we’re kinda geeky in our house, but I think this is a neat tool to use, ESPECIALLY if you are kinda just lounging at home (or with a laptop readily available) and want to time ctx, but not focus on the whole stopwatch-counting-the-seconds-you’re-in-pain ordeal.

The only room for improvement --- it’d be awesome if you could use the timer via mobile phone.

 

Contraction Master

We gave Jackson his first veggies over the weekend – a few bites of carrots.  He loved ‘em!  We had the cameras ready and waiting for the funny facial expressions, and he didn’t give us any!  That boy loves some food…

 

…so now we have bright orange spit up, instead of the white, easier to clean & disguise, stuff before the era of carrots.

Cup Drinking
Jackson had his first experience with drinking from a cup this week.  Even though the pediatrician recommends waiting until 6 mos before introducing any juices, we decided to give him some diluted apple prune juice to alleviate some bm issues.  It was quite funny to see him with the cup.  He seemed to know exactly what to do to drink from it, but didn’t like the taste of the juice, so he kept up a cycle of going all for the cup, then pulling it away, spitting out the juice, and making a sour face…and then back at it again! 

First Vegetables
We started the veggies this week – with carrots.  Will do a separate post on that soon. 

Car Seat
It’s on to the convertible car seat!  We had purchased the Recaro Signo a month ago for my car, but it didn’t fit too well (it’s rather large, especially so rear-facing), so we decided it would be the seat for Josh’s SUV, and I would get a less expensive one for mine.  We installed it in Josh’s car this weekend, and took a test ride to see how it went.  We had a few kinks and things we didn’t like (and again, concluded that child car seats are the most complex and frustrating devices).  The harness belts were a bit hard to adjust rear-facing and the buckle cover didn’t seem to stay fit as well as I would like.  But other than that, it’s great (and I have a feeling I would find a few issues with any seat).  Jackson seemed to enjoy the ride, at any rate.

Fussy Baby
We’re back to having fussiness issues with Jackson again….it seems to build slowly over several weeks after we institute a new “treatment” (like the recent formula switch), and then all of a sudden get to the point where I realize it’s excessive and likely an indicator of physical discomfort.  He is pretty much done for (and largely inconsolable) after 4:30 or 5:00 every evening.  Which sucks considering that’s the only time we get to see him during the week!  He doesn’t cry the entire time, but is pretty fussy, and needs a lot of direct attention to be content (and often our attempts fail).  I’ve made him a pediatric GI specialist appointment for this week to see if the fussiness is GI related….since he’s had so many issues already, and I’m tired of going to the pediatrician for it.  He’s also had a ****slight****** fever over the last week, so I might make a sick appt to see if there’s anything going on there (ear infection perhaps??? even though he hasn’t had a cold recently and has no other symptoms now…).  Or it could always be teething.  I loathe ambiguity.  I need to know what it is making this baby cry and cry every night!  And I need to know the solution to the problem!!

Next Week
We’re taking a short trip to Raleigh to visit Chez Ami – Jackson might end up in their catalog, website, or promotional materials for an upcoming line of clothing!  We know one of the employees of the company, and she offered to show them Jackson’s picture, and they liked him and want to get some pictures during their upcoming photo shoot.  So we’re heading to Raleigh for the fitting this Friday.  Very exciting!  (and I promise not to go beauty-pageant / agent mom!)   :)

 

BTW – “the tooth” never came back, so I am officially a loser.

 

Fun Pictures / Videos from This Week:

This was messy, but just too funny.

He puts his foot in his mouth now – kinda gross, but it makes me laugh too.  I’m easy, I guess!

This is Jackson’s “camera” face – if he realizes we have the camera on him, he does this one.

J & Mocha – they had a lot of fun playing together the other day (well, Jackson had a lot of fun pulling at her face & ears, and Mocha had a lot of fun licking Jackson’s face & searching for spit up)

Mom & Jackson hangin’ out in the kitchen

I came across baby smash a while back on one of the parenting blogs I read – I was instantly impressed.  Such a simple application, and it transforms something we already own into a fun toy for the little ones.  And hey, they want to bang on the keyboard and mouse anyway, so this program has a dual purpose in protection…it sure would suck if baby J somehow accidentally deleted all my blog posts or canceled his 529 or something else equally disastrous! :)

We haven’t let Jackson play with it yet, but his increasing interest in banging and grabbing everything in sight had us wondering if he would enjoy it.  So Josh opened up the application and gave j access to the keyboard. 

He was rather intrigued with the sensations and sounds he produced banging on the keys…and once he discovered there were correlating sounds and images with his banging, he became even more fascinated with his new activity.

 

 

Here’s a video of some of the fun:

So is this where I make the obligatory “awwwww, look at our little aspiring developer????” joke? :)

Our awesome friends, Adam & Hannah, graciously extended an invitation for us to join them at their family beach house near Pawley’s Island / Murrells Inlet, SC.  So we headed out on Thursday evening.  We had to go through Raleigh to pick up Adam, since Hannah couldn’t come down until Friday evening, so we had a good long ride.  But it actually wasn’t bad at all – Jackson was content the first hour before he fell asleep and he slept the whole way, except the couple of times when we stopped, and even then he wasn’t fussy.

We went out to the beach on Friday for a few hours.  Jackson seemed to be mesmerized looking at the ocean and waves, and he did love stomping his feet in the water too.  It was super cute :)

Hannah & I went shopping on Saturday at the outlets nearby.  The traffic was annoying, but we both scored some good deals at J Crew, so it was worth it!  The guys were sweet enough to take care of Jackson while we went out, AND they planned and executed a home-cooked crab leg dinner for us.  Awesomeness!  It was soooooooo good.

All in all, we had a fabulous time!  Thanks so much Adam & Hannah!!!

 

 

Here are some of the pictures from our trip ---

Getting ready to go for a walk

 
Jackson & Adam havin’ a laugh

Stompin’ around in the water

 
Playing in the water

My two favorite guys!

Fun at the beach

 

 
Adam with his crab hands…and Hannah with a “I don’t know this man” look on her face :)

The most exciting thing from last week was our beach trip with Adam & Hannah, but it deserves its own post, so I’ll get to that soon!

Quick updates on Jackson:

He’s such a Daddy’s boy!  He’ll give me smiles & laughs, but nothing like when he sees or plays with Josh.  It’s so cute!

He’s into EVERYTHING!  Even though he’s not mobile yet, he still manages to get into everything.  He grabs hair, faces, jewelry, and anything else within his arm span!  I have a feeling we are going to have our hands full once he’s able to get around.

The Disappearing Tooth – The tooth we saw (Stephanie, Josh, and I saw it! it was there!) is no no longer in Jackson’s mouth.  So it’s either a disappearing tooth, swollen gums over the new tooth, or some weird white bump that went away. If it doesn’t show back up in a few days, I think I’m officially a dork for jumping the gun on the first tooth bit.

Laugh it Up!  Jackson laughs a lot now, and he’s starting to get a sense of humor.  I can usually make him laugh with tickling (hands & feet are easy spots), but he also gets going when we play games, make goofy faces or noises, or scare him.  And he’s also just started watching our faces and he’ll smile and laugh if we’re laughing at something else (like TV or another person’s funny stuff).  It’s so neat when I catch him watching our faces when we’re not paying attention directly to him – you can just see him analyzing our language, emotion, and expressions and learning about communication through observation.

Some pics from the week:

 
Going for the shoe laces…

So much fun to untie them!  So much fun, in fact, he did it over and over and over! :)

He loves to grab his feet now…and has been known to put them in his mouth on his more flexible days.  Ick!

Jackson is 5 months old today!  He weighs about 17.5 lbs – not sure on height (too hard to measure at home!).  He’s still a solid chunk ‘o TALL baby.  Here’s a comparison:

3 months old
18 lbs (97%)
25 in (86%)
** these measurements were taken at home, so I’m not sure of the accuracy

 

5 months old 
17.5 lbs (68%) ** measured @ home, so not sure how accurate **
Not sure of height (was 26.5 in last month, at 95%)

Growth Charts:
 

Current Developmental Milestones:

• Still really smiley (more so in the morning than later in the day)
• Laughs more and more often
• Loves to be scared (like “boo” or something similar)
• Can sit unsupported for short periods of time
• Holds head and chest up well and for lengthy periods when on tummy time
• Still sleeps through the night (11-12 hours straight) & usually naps well (2-3 45 min – 1.5 hr naps)
• Scoots and creeps a bit on the floor (back & stomach)
• Holds a cup as though “drinking” from it
• Eats rice cereal 2 x per day (in addition to bottle supplements); soon to start vegetables
• Teething – maybe?
• No longer cries when we leave the room for bed or nap times!

UPDATE – The white spot is gone!!!  I’m going to feel like a total dork if it was a bump or ulcer or something random instead… Googling around on the intarweb is not giving me any info.  Blarg.

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

Jackson has his first tooth coming in!  We noticed it the other day, and he’s had a few minor teething signs of late. 

Here’s a picture – it’s the white spot on his bottom gums.

Daycare

Jackson had his first daycare experience at my employer’s child care facility this week.  He went in on Monday & Tuesday, and did exceptionally well.  He was talking and smiling with the teacher as soon as we went in the first day, and wasn’t upset at all with us leaving.  One thing that was really neat that the child care center does is leave a quick note saying how the day went and what he did – and they sent pictures to me via email while I was at work!

There were notes detailing how Jackson’s days went, which I loved, but my favorite line was from the blurb on Tuesday’s sheet -- “Outside he laid on the mat looking all around.  On the mat he smiled & cooed with Elizabeth.”  What a little flirt!  So funny.

Here are some pictures of j at daycare:

 

First Tooth!

I suspected teething a few days ago because Jackson was gnawing a bit more intently on his hands, toys, and teethers, and also was a bit more fussy than usual.  The next morning, I happened to look at his gums, and sure enough, there was a little white spot where a tooth has broken through on his bottom gums!  I wiped at it, because at first, I thought it might have just been some food.  But it’s a tooth, indeed! 

I’ll try to post a picture soon.

Pictures / Videos from this week:

 
The result of Josh playing with the label maker (Jackson often has what we jokingly refer to as “milk mouth” – too gross to describe in written text, but just take our word!)

Laughing, happy Jackson 

 

Some of the juicier raspberries –getting borderline flatulent! 

Coming up next week:  Seeing how/when this new tooth comes in.  And a trip to the beach with Adam & Hannah!

Please forgive our blog, missing pictures and all.  I’ve been in the middle of a photo sharing showdown (have we been here before??) over the last several months, and still haven’t made an ultimate decision on which one I want.

I was originally enamored with Phanfare, and we signed up right away.  Then, almost a year into our subscription, they completely changed their business model (going towards a social networking scheme), created a new version – 2.0 – and removed many of the features we enjoyed.  So we switched to SmugMug, at Josh’s insistence.  I used SmugMug for a while, but found it too customizable (I liked the simplicity of Phanfare) and didn’t like the site’s design, compared to Phanfare, among some other features (categorizations, uploading most notably).  SmugMug makes Josh all giddy inside though, because as a developer, he loves the fact that he can write code to integrate with our account / photos (like tweaking the categorizations, creating a site entry login, etc). 

Then – a couple of months ago, Phanfare finally realized that they were making some mistakes with 2.0, and they issued a notice to current customers indicating they were reinstating some of the 1.0 features.  So, like an ex-girlfriend with a weak wounded heart, I went back (again, does this sound familiar??).  I was still on the 1.0 platform.  But last night, I was upgraded (without notice, with my account disabled for 24 hours, and all my photo links now broken) to 2.0.  I was eager to download the new desktop app, and check everything out.  I immediately noticed the desktop app looked like CRAP.  Something, as Josh put it, “they should be embarrassed about.”  The text / logos are fuzzy and hard to read, and they now have the thumbnails and images to download as you go through them, which caused many delays and fuzzy images as I was searching through my albums. 

Then I go to make my newest blog post, and something just didn’t look right.  The pictures were from my lower quality camera, but I’ve used some from there before….and yet the images looked less sharp with the 2.0 Phanfare.  So we started doing some comparisons.  Here’s what we noticed:

Phanfare 2.0 quality

SmugMug (and similar to Phanfare 1.0 quality) – SMALLER & yet better quality!

Apparently it is too much to ask for a photo AND video storage site (original, hi-res downloads / backups available), that will allow for external linking (for the blog of course!) AND works smoothly and has a clean simple design.  We have been, and are still willing to, pay for these services. 

So it’s back to figuring out what I want to do with our pictures and videos again…..leaning towards SmugMug but we’ll just have to see…