Jackson is 8 weeks old today!
We had a fairly busy week. On Tuesday, we ventured to uptown Charlotte so some of my coworkers could meet Jackson. We were there for several hours, and visited people in two different buildings. It was quite an adventure! I was glad to catch up with my admin friends (hi Lauren / Christy / Pam / Connie / etc!). I was surprised at how pleasant he was --- considering he was held and cooed over by lots of people. On another note -- being at my workplace was a stark reminder of a world I'm about to return to --- I only have two more weeks at home with the little guy before we start a whole new routine. And I'm not looking forward to my first day back at work, which will likely involve unpacking all my stuff (our entire floor moved to a new location while I was out on leave). :(
On Friday, Jackson took a day trip with his Grammy to visit Maw Maw White and the others at the nursing home. I'm sure he loved being the center of attention for the day. And he took a trip to the credit union too. Grandparents are much less anxious about taking him in public than we are right now.....we're always worried he'll have a crying session (even though he rarely has inconsolable moments).
And yesterday we had a visit from Amy & Joel for a few hours; they stopped by on their way to visit
Liz & Rex in Concord. I was so glad to get to see the Ames, my (former) "Roomie!" and daily-email-partner-in-crime (although haven't been as good with that since the little man arrived --- I promise to be better soon!). We had a couple of good "that's what she said"s and lots of laughs about random stuff. Josh tsked me and reminded me to not be the "yaaaa gotta see the baby!" people from Seinfeld
....so I had to pull myself out of baby mode! Haha :) And I'm betting Joel & Josh traded lawn / computer tips, as usual. Or maybe they were talking about what great wives they have when they went off to talk in the office.....I'm SURE that's what it was!
As far as development -- Jackson is still changing every day! I think the most noticeable thing this week are his sleeping patterns. He seems to have had a breakthrough with sleeping better. It could be the new techniques we're using to help keep his arm movements from waking him:
- The double swaddle at night -- this works great at keeping his arms away from his face / head, which kept him from going to sleep. He would easily break out of one blanket, and the velcro ones were annoying and he could often break his arms out of those too.
- The diaper-pinned-armholes of a sleep blanket for day naps -- found this tip online. The sleep blanket is a great quick way to cover him up for a nap, but again, his flailing arms kept him awake! So we've pinned up the armholes to keep his busy hands inside the blanket. We've only done this for a couple of days, but it seems to be working great!
We broke a few night-time sleep records this week, and one night he slept 8-9 hours before a feeding, and then didn't wake again until the morning! He's also consolidated his day napping, and is consistently sleeping in the crib for those also (versus the random play yard / carrier naps previously). Today he had 4 solid naps, ranging from 30 min to 2 hours. I'm crossing my fingers these trends continue! I keep reading that larger babies develop mature sleep habits earlier, so I'm hoping that's the case for our big 'un!
Next week we're looking forward to a few things --- Jackson's officially 2 months old on the 17th, he has another well-child medical appointment, and Adam & Hannah are visiting!
Here are some of the pictures / video from this week:
Why are big sunglasses on a little person so funny?
Playing with Auntie Amy
Video -- he's always really talkative and happy after he wakes up in the mornings :)