Made in Richmond

Dear JR,

Part of me wanted to hold off on writing this as we’ve had a rough couple of days. I thought I should be in a better place mentally before documenting your latest month, but that would be a cop out. You’re a baby and sometimes things are hard. I think everyone should know that and be ok with it, including you. And mostly me.

This past weekend was filled with family visits. While it was wonderful to watch you interact with various grandparents and relatives, it’s been a bitch getting you back on schedule. The last three evenings have been spent with you fighting hard not to sleep, even though you are exhausted out of your mind. Blessedly, you still seem to understand that after your 7:30 feeding it’s for real time to turn in, and we rarely hear a peep from you.

Speaking of feeding, I must say I’m proud we’ve made it this far. While nursing still isn’t my most favorite thing, we’re still going strong, and I don’t have any plans to stop soon. You’re such a big, strong boy that I think we should just keep doing what we’re doing.

We spent some time yesterday playing with our friend Allison who is a physical therapist. I asked her to help me out with you a bit because you are completely uninterested in lifting your head while on your tummy. She showed me a few things to do with you to help, although the doctor said not to worry if you do this (or roll over) late. You’re such a chubba that it’s a lot of weight to move around.

You’re starting to grab for things a lot more. Whenever I change your diaper, you wrap your little fingers around my sleeve or part of your clothes. Rattles are hilarious and SO FUN in your opinion. Also quite tasty.

Eye contact is pretty constant with you these days. Lucky for you, you seem to have inherited your Dad’s heart-melting bright blue eyes. Those combined with your shock of strawberry blonde hair and insanely chubby cheeks make most adults indefensible to your cuteness.

One of the greatest thing you’ve started doing is smiling when I’m not looking at you. I’ll look over and see you gazing at me with a huge, gummy grin on your face. I always wonder what it was that made you smile like that. And it’s a smile different from any other you give to anyone else, a smile that makes my heart ache in the best possible way. It’s as if you’re thinking of some inside joke you and I share that no one else in the world knows about. I’d love to post a picture of it, but you won’t share it with the camera. So I’ll post this one instead:

Love,

Mama

I’m lucky enough to be home with JR on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Sometimes I take him into the office with me for a bit on those days, but usually it’s us doing our thing at home.

While I love the fact that I am able to work from home on those days, as he’s getting bigger and more and more alert, the days of him spending his awake time looking around bleery-eyed are gone forever. Now when he’s awake and wants and deserves to be engaged. As those periods of awake time are getting longer, this “work from home” thing is starting to turn into more of a “frantically trying to get things done during naptimes” thing.

Naturally, this shift in JR’s development effects how much work I actually get done at home. And then I get frustrated. And when I get frustrated, I become very disappointed in myself on lots of different levels.

So following the same idea as this post (back when JR was just 2 weeks old WHAT IS HAPPENING TO MY BAY-BEEE???) I’m instead going to focus on the awesome motherly things I did today. Because, really, in the grand scheme of things, that is what’s more important.

Here we go…

Books read: Harold and the Purple Crayon (4 times because he smiles like crazy when I read it), Strega Nona, a little bit of James and the Giant Peach, The Very Busy Spider (which was sent to us from my alma mater‘s alumni association – so thoughtful), and Goodnight Moon.

Songs sung: C is for Cookie, Little Potato, Three Blind Jellyfish, All the Single Ladies (he loves it, ok?)

Games played: Peek-a-boo, “I’m-Gonna-Getchoo,” and “Where is JR’s [name of body part here]? There is JR’s [name of body part here].”

Yes. Looking at it that way makes me feel so much better.

*JR seems to be what we’re going with, although I still call him Jackson from time to time. Usually when he’s screeching like two feral cats fighting in an alley crying really hard and needs a cuddle.

I know I didn’t do a weekend wrap up. This is because I must devote an entire post to what I did on Saturday. It was glorious and magnificent rolled up into one.

I woke up at 8am, 30 minutes later than usual, thanks to my wonderful, blessed child who normally gets up at 7:30 but decided to sleep in a bit.

We nursed, I ate breakfast and showered, he cooed, smiled, and pooped before being put down for his morning nap.

At around 10:15, my mother arrived. We loaded up her car with Jackson’s things, and by 10:30 they were off for a grandma/grandbaby day in King William. A grandma/grandbaby day that would last until FIVE PM.

After the small lump in my throat dissolved (because PLEASE DRIVE CAREFULLY THAT’S MY BABY IN YOUR CAR), Ross and I headed out to leeeeeeeeeeisurely run errands and leeeeeeeisurely eat lunch. We then came home and I settled in for a 90-minute nap that did not involve remaining 70% awake to listen to a monitor.

After some lounging and cuddling, we got ourselves together and headed out to King William to pick Jackson up. When we arrived he had just finished eating and was all smiles and coos.

We then left King William and headed to the Southside to meet Ross’s parents for dinner. Jackson was supposed to be napping during that time, but decided instead to stay awake through dinner, being charming and wonderful.

Dinner was followed up by a visit at the in-law’s house with some playing of the WiiFit before heading home.

See? What would be the point of even mentioning the other parts of the weekend? They would be so embarassed for not being as wonderful.

10 weeks in…

10 weeks out…

Biology is weird, guys.

(More new pics up on my flickr)

This is how the baby holds his arm while nursing. Just so I know he’s ready to clock me should I cut him off.

Dear Jackson,

You turned 8 weeks old yesterday, and already I can’t believe how much you’ve changed. I mean, seriously. Look:

Here you are on the Boppy at 5 days old.

And here you are on the Boppy at 7 weeks old.

WTF, dude?

You had a checkup yesterday. After you got weighed and measured (14 pounds and 10 ounces; 24 inches long), the nurses all passed you around to get a cuddle and go ape over your now-reddish hair and soon-to-be bright blue eyes. Quite the charmer you are, but not in an overt sense. You don’t hand out big gummy grins to everyone (just me and your dad at this point), but instead give people slight smirks while looking at them out of the corner of your eye. Keep it going with the aloof thing – it will play out well for you in high school because girls LOVE IT.

You got four shots in your chubba thighs yesterday. You weren’t too fussy last night but HOLY LORD what a day we’ve had today. Basically when you weren’t sleeping today, you were crying. Not hard, but just enough to let me know you were uncomfortable. Due to poor timing on my part, I also had to be out tonight, leaving someone else to wrangle you through this post-vaccination fussfest. Our good friends Allison and Sam came to take care of you – the first nonfamily to do so. From what they tell me, you did fine, you’re sleeping comfortably in your crib right now.

This month also marked my semi-return to work. It’s just two days a week, but I must say that I miss your little face. The first day was hard (for me, not you as you spent the entire day with your wonderful grandmother). The second day was much, much easier. While I do miss you, I think it’s good for me to get out of the house and have the opportunity to miss you. When I think about you while at work, it’s more about how much I love you, not about what’s next in the list of things I need to do to take care of you. Every parent should get that time I think.

You’ve found your thumb recently and you’re getting better at getting it in your mouth on your first try. A few weeks ago you would root around for it, grunting like a mad man. Now it just takes a few drooly attempts and you’re good to go. This achievement makes me oddly proud as I know you’re not going to be dependent on a pacifier. However, it will hard to hide your thumb from you as you get older. But I’ll take it for now.

The best development this month are the smiles and the coos. The grunts are phasing out (saved just for when you wake up and when you’re “working on something.”) You spend much of your naptime cooing and squealing, just to hear the sound bounce all over the room. And the smiles. OH THE SMILES. They make the spit up, poo-leaking diapers, and occasional fusses totally worth it.

Love,

Mama

This is how I feel after eating, too.

*I just realized that this post was titled “Wreckef” for an entire day. Damn iPhone and your itty bitty keypad.

Jackson is not a particularly snuggly kid, at least at this point. He already seems pretty independent – perfectly content to hang out on his own, more than able to settle himself down to sleep. Aside from the whole feeding and financing thing, he could probably take care of himself.

But then there was this evening.

Ross, Jackson, and I got home at about 5:15. I had picked up Ross on my way home from getting Jackson from his Thursday visit with his grandmother. As usual, Jackson was passed out in his car seat. I carefully picked him up and placed him in his crib so he could finish his late afternoon nap not crumpled up in a plastic chair.

And then apparently the world exploded.

That kid screamed. And screamed. And screamed. And then screamed some more. Of course I automatically thought he was hungry, but when I picked him up there was no nuzzling or rooting around – he wasn’t interested. I changed his diaper. He kept screaming. I checked his temperature. Perfectly normal. I brought Dad into the picture. He screamed harder.

I had no clue what to do. So I took him into our bedroom, turned all of the lights off, rested him on my belly, and rubbed his ears.

He was asleep in about 15 seconds.

And there it was. For the first time since he was born, I really felt like a mother. But not just any mother. Jackson’s mother.

We stayed that way for 45 minutes. Him breathing softly, in and out. Me still rubbing his ears and thanking God for putting this little man in my life.