Food, Ninja, and the big 30

Yum my applesauce hands taste so yummy to suck on.

He loves the applesauce.

Rice cereal is OK. But applesauce is better.

And the little ninja. We went trick or treating at daddy's work and we're planning on going to a couple of our neighbor's houses tomorrow night. We also hit up the Ward Trunk or treat. Pretty awesome first Halloween.

And David is now 30. Happy birthday! As of last Wednesday.

That's a lot of candles. :)

4 months

Yep that's right he's 4 months old today. For some reason it's just hit me today that Isaac is getting so old and big. I know it has been a gradual thing but i guess I've always thought of birth to 3 months as being a little baby and starting at 4 months babies aren't so little and new anymore. The thought is exciting and sad at the same time.

Isaac is now 15 pounds and 26 inches. He's growing well and learning to do so much more. He really is starting to be a big boy.

Likes:

Baths
Giggling when i kiss his belly
Spitting
Talking
Reading books
Listening to me sing to him
Grabbing anything and everything and then eating it
Kicking
Mirrors
His emperor chair
Watching Ray Ray
Standing

Dislikes:

Letting go of his rings for nap time.
I can't really think of many others. He still gets cranky but it's just because he gets sick of something not because he hates any particular thing anymore.

Basically he's just growing up. He still hasn't rolled over but i think he's starting to get close. We're debating starting him on some solid foods. On one hand i want to but on the other I think that doing so will make him grow up even faster. (can you tell I'm sentimental much lately?) I'm sure in the next few weeks we'll introduce some solids to him.

He's sleeping really well at night still. Some nights he sleeps through the night and others he doesn't but at most he wakes once so it's not bad. We still have nap difficulties but I've learned to deal with it and I know that he will start staying awake longer so naps will not happen as often.

I've decided that he doesn't look decidedly like me anymore. He's just him now. David thinks that he looks a bit like baby pictures of Jason (David's brother.) I can see that. What do you think Susie?

And to sum up my feelings of late here's a poem my MIL sent me today. Feel free to cry, i did.

Babies Don’t Keep
by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton

Mother, O Mother, come shake out your cloth,
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing, make up the bed,
Sew on a button and butter the bread.

Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I’ve grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue,
Lullabye, rockabye, lullabye loo.
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo

The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew
And out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo
But I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo
Look! Aren’t his eyes the most wonderful hue?
Lullabye, rockaby lullabye loo.

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow
But children grow up as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep!
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.

Remember these...

Appliqued a star to the back of the quilt. It was my first time doing applique and it was so much easier than I expected it to be. I used this tutorial.

It only took me 8 or so months to complete this quilt but I did take a few months off to get acquainted with motherhood. I love love love how this quilt turned out! By far the best quilt I've made. I'm not going to tackle diamonds again anytime soon though.

3 Months

After nap time cuddles.

His hands have found a new permanent residence in his mouth. His had pops up to his mouth all the time for sucking or chewing, even right after he's finished eating.

We like to have conversations outside. He is such a good talker. He has great social skills.

Ray ray is loving him more and more. He's started to get very concerned when he cries. He'll lay outside the door of his room while he cries a little as he's falling asleep. Such a good dog.

This is a face that we are seeing more of sadly. The little man started teething about a week ago and it makes him a little cranky, understandably. It's really sad to have him be in pain and cranky so much since he's usually a pretty happy guy (excluding nap time).

Friday was Isaac's cousin Jack's birthday. Yesterday was Isaac's three month day. They are 9 months and 1 day apart. Carolyn and I are looking forward to them being good friends and playing buddies once Isaac is a little bigger and older and once Jack stops trying to smother Isaac :)

This past month has been the best yet. We are still having struggles with naps (sadly I have a feeling we always will) but they have improved drastically from a month ago. He will go to sleep alone for naps and he seems to be crying a bit less now at nap time than in the past but who knows.

He's starting to use those hands a bit more. Mostly he sucks on them but occasionally he'll grab one of his colored rings and try to pull in to his mouth. He still has no desire at all to roll over.

Likes:
Baths (I swear sometimes he has a blowout or spits up all over himself just to get one)
Outside
Sucking/Chewing on his hands
Staring in the mirror (more at me than at himself but occasionally he'll give himself a big smile)
Cuddles right when he wakes up (that's about the only time he'll cuddle, otherwise he wants to be moving and looking at his world)
Avoiding naps
Being cute
Pacifier a little. He just can't seem to get the hang of it and keep it up. Last night he kept it in for and extended period of time for the first time and it was awesome but he hasn't been able to do it today. We'll keep working at it.
Music. He likes when i sing to him at nap time and he likes the music at church.
Books. (we have story time every day and Isaac loves it!. I know The very hungry Caterpillar, Oh the places you'll go and several other by heart.
Dislikes
Naps (in case you hadn't caught that yet)
Teething
Naps
Bottles (although he did take one for 36 hours while he was in the worst part of teething, guess it felt better on his gums.)
Naps (this might be more apparent to me right now because he is crying while trying to fall asleep)

Lately

We've been being silly in the bath.

I managed to do a little canning yesterday afternoon. This is the first time I've canned since having Isaac and it's so nice to feel like i have a little time to do something i love to do. Of course David was there helping with Isaac so that made it possible.

I love canning so much. And my favorite thing to can is jam. I've found that i have quite a talent for jam making and mixing fruit to make the most delicious flavors. If i ever wanted to have my own business it would be a Jam boutique. Too bad I never want to have my own business. I guess I'll just make delicious jams for my family and friends.

We've been enjoying the backyard. The weather has been wonderful and Isaac love to look at the leaves and listen to all the sounds. I'm so happy the fall is rolling in but I'm not looking forward to the day that it's too cold to go and lay on the grass with Isaac. Hopefully he'll be grabbing toys and playing a bit more independently by then.

Isaac has been growing and has managed to outgrow his hospital blanket. We came in one morning to find that he had kicked halfway out of it and the past couple days he's kicked entirely out of it. Time to pull out the bigger blankets.

Sharing Ray Ray's bed. I put Isaac in it after feeding him one time and ray ray jumped up and gave me this look that said "No this is my bed not his" but he still shared for a few minutes.

I've decided that Isaac does have a bit of a dairy allergy but not a really severe one. I think the only thing that really affects him is milk itself. I can have some cheese and it doesn't bother him but i can't have cereal in the morning (thus the jam) or cookies and milk or anything like that. I haven't bothered to try ice cream because i figure that will give him problems. But at least I'm not cut off from all dairy and hopefully he'll be OK with milk in a month or so.

I've also been reading like crazy. The past couple weeks have been dedicated to the Harry Potter series and i loved them! I'm glad i waited to read them until they were all out because I don't think I would have liked waiting a year or so in between books. And now i can't wait to watch all the movies. Perfect timing on all this if you ask me! I also am almost through the Hunger Games series as well and those books are awesome too! I think after this I'll have to take a week or so off of reading or my house will go completely to shambles and I'll never get out of my pajama's again. What can i say i love a good book! (Thanks Bridget for lending my some great books!)

Strong boy

I love this picture even though it's blurry because you can tell he's just having a blast!

Isaac loves daddy cuddles in the morning. He usually sleeps through the night until about 5:30 or 6 and then he wants to eat. Sometimes he wants to play a bit and sometimes not. Either way David takes him downstairs and helps him fall back asleep eventually and then David either sleeps or plays games or reads. It's their daddy, son bonding time. He's very sweet to let me get the extra rest! I just can't sleep with Isaac; every time he moves at all i wake up.

We started doing tummy time with Isaac propped up on a pillow instead of flat on his tummy. He enjoys it much better now. And it's so fun to see how strong he's getting. It's amazing that babies just learn how to do all these things with their bodies without anyone telling them or really showing them how to do it. It seems impossible to me that someday fairly soon he'll roll over and sit up, crawl, walk, etc. It's amazing that they just can learn those things without being taught. Almost everything we learn in life is taught to us by others but moving around we are able to learn to do on our own. It just blows my mind!

In other news I'm going to go off Dairy for a few days to see if it's bothering Isaac. I'm not sure if he has an allergy of some sort or if he just has some occasional rough patches with his digestion for no reason. He usually does just fine with everything but today he woke up from his nap with the saddest scream and then continued to cry in pain for 20 minutes straight. It seemed like he was trying to poop but didn't get much out. He eventually calmed down after a blessing and ate and pooped and was back to his normally cheerful self. So i guess I'll try no dairy and see if there's a difference and then go back on and see if there's a difference. I really hope he doesn't have a dairy allergy! Just looking at our menu this week most of our meals have dairy in some form. This could be really sad :( but not as sad as hearing him cry in pain for 20 minutes.

One and done

That's how I'm feeling right now. You couldn't pay me enough money to get pregnant ever again! These past couple days with Isaac have been super hard. Mr. I refuse to nap during the day is fast eating away all of my sanity! It seems like right about when one thing works to get him to sleep fairly well that he finds some way to resist it's charms. Nursing to sleep worked for a couple weeks. Crying it out worked for a few days. The latest to be kicked to the curb is putting the carrier and walking to sleep. This morning it took him a half hour walk to fall asleep and then he was up 30 minutes later. I tried swaddling him and putting him in his crib. He slept for 10 minutes then ate then slept 10 more minutes. Then cried and cried some more and 2 hours after i started trying to put him to sleep he finally fell asleep in my arms and stayed asleep for 2.5 hours. That was his only nap today. He just finally fell asleep again after another 2.5 hour struggle to get him to sleep.

Lest you're wondering why I'm trying to put a baby to sleep that wants to be awake let me assure you that he does not want to be awake. After and hour to an hour and a half he starts getting really tired. First zones out and then gets cranky. Then for the next hour to two hours i fight with him trying to get him to sleep. He is not fun then at all and there is nothing i can do to get him to sleep. I'd let him stay up all day if he were happy, I'd much rather not have this battle for hours on end. And before you all say i should be so grateful that he sleeps so long and well at night, first i am thankful and second i would trade uninterrupted sleep for decent daytime naps in a heartbeat.

If i knew what i was getting into i probably wouldn't have jumped on the have a kid wagon and I'll sure need plenty of convincing to jump on the wagon again because seriously this kid is hard but i know it could be worse and i'm not willing to make that gamble on another one. I don't know how all you parents of more than one child do it and parents of multiples i think you deserve to go straight to heaven!