Three Amazing Years

Three years ago today, Corey and I were getting married at the Seawatch Restaurant overlooking the beautiful Wailea shore. During the ceremony, as I was reading C a note I written him, an obnoxious local drove by shouting "Don't do it!"

Three amazing years later, I'm so happy that we didn't listen to this local's advice - these have been the most wonderful three years...even better than I ever could have imagined. C is the most fabulous best friend, husband and daddy I could have ever asked for and I can't wait for many more happy years to come.

Happy anniversary, Corey - I love you!

Night Away from J

Last night marked the first night both Corey and I were away from Jackson and I'm thrilled to report that it went very well for all involved!

Our friends Matt and Christy were getting married at the amazing Seattle Tennis Club so we'd lined up my parents to watch J while we attended the wedding and reception. Then, a few weeks ago, we decided to take my parents up on a previous offer to watch him overnight so we could get a full nights sleep / sleep in. With our 3-year anniversary coming up this week, and no other plans to celebrate it, and our plans to be out late at the wedding anyway, we decided to get a hotel downtown (which actually turned out to be the hotel that many of the out-of-town wedding guests were in) to stay after wedding.

It was the first time we'd been away from J together and while I had complete confidence in my parents, I was concerned that J would give them a hard time. I'm so happy to say that he did GREAT and took several 2-hour naps, slept 9 hours overnight and gave them plenty of smiles to repay them for being such great babysitters.

In addition, he learned a few new tricks in the short 20-hours we were away from him - he can now hold his thighs up / pull his legs back when you change him as if he's trying to help keep his legs out of the way (he started to do this right before we left but improved while we were away), he grabbed his feet for the first time, and appeared to be trying to pull his feet up to his mouth. It's amazing how fast he changes and learns new things, which is even more evident when away from him for a night.

This morning, we couldn't wait to get home to see him, and Roxy as well, so after sleeping in until about 8 a.m. (that's "late" for us these days!), we grabbed a quick breakfast at 5-Spot and headed home to our little fam.

We had a wonderful time celebrating with Matt and Christy on such an amazing summer day, dancing the night away, hanging out with some of Matt's college friends after the wedding, and having the opportunity to spend some quality time together in honor of our upcoming 3-year anniversary. Thanks again to my parents for watching Jackson for us!

3 Months

Jackson is 3 months old today and I honestly have no idea where the last three months have gone. Seriously I've blinked and our babe has changed so much more than I could have imagined and with only two weeks left of maternity leave, I've been cherishing every second with him even more than before.

Here are some 3 month highlights:
- Slept through the night (i.e. 9-10.5 hours) three of the last five nights.
- Happiest in the morning (like mommy!) and is VERY talkative during this time.
- Weighs just over 16 lbs (nearly double the size he was when he was born!).
- Turns towards voices and noises and will sometimes turn towards you when you say his name.
- Tracks us and Roxy as we walk across a room.
- Neck strength improves almost daily and he needs much less support when sitting or being held.
- LOVES to "stand" (with our support, of course) - the proud face he makes when doing so is priceless.
- Also loves to look at himself in the mirror.
- While he still doesn't love tummy time, he doesn't mind it quite as much as before.
- Drools up a storm and chewing on his hands or our fingers whenever he can find them.
- Enjoys playing with the toys that hang from his bouncer - he tries SO hard to pull the handles on his own, which make a little birdie twirl around, and has been able to get the bird to spin several times on his own.
- Wears more and more of his 3-6 month clothes and has started to grow into his shoe collection (which is expanding rapidly, since he loves shoes as much as mommy and daddy).

Sleepy Head - Part 2

As I mentioned previously, we've been working to transition Jackson from his bouncer to his crib for naps and we've also been trying to help him give up his catnaps in favor of longer naps. I'm excited to say we've made HUGE progress on both fronts over the past few weeks.

For all three daytime naps, he's been in his crib for almost the last two weeks. The key was finding the right timing to put him down for a nap --- he needs to be drowsy but not too tired and thus too cranky. I also started a nap time routine so that he starts to understand when it's time to go to sleep. I swaddle him and then rock him for a few minutes until his eyes get nice and heavy. Then I drop him off in his crib and let him drift off to dreamland. So far, it's been working pretty well. We still put him in his swing or bouncer for his evening nap as that tends to be his more fussy time and when he seems the most tired and we want to ensure he gets some good napping in, which both of these guarantee.

As far as longer naps, he's had some FABULOUS naps the past three days and I really hope he keeps this up rather than going back to the 43-minute catnaps. Yes, I had them timed down to the minute - for nearly every nap over the last 3-4 weeks, he would wake up fussing or crying at 43ish minutes. Don't get me wrong - I wouldn't mind if he was a cat napper and woke up rested, but he was waking up clearly still tired and was fairly cranky.

After scouring the Internet and reading several sleep books to find a resolution, I learned that he was probably having trouble transitioning from one sleep cycle to the next during his naps. (Side note - they actually have a name for this napping issue --- the '45-minute intruder'.) I had no idea why, since he is able to put himself to sleep for naps and at bedtime (we try put him down drowsy but awake so that he knows that it's up to him to fall asleep) and obviously during the night when he wakes up since I'm assuming that when he sleeps 8-10 hours overnight, there have to be some wake-ups in there that we aren't even aware of.

Turns out it could be because he's overtired when he goes down for a nap, just a phase or there could be something distracting him from falling back asleep. Since I've played around with the times I put him down for a nap, I didn't think it was that he was overtired, and since it doesn't matter where he's sleeping, whether it's light or dark, etc, I didn't think it was from any specific distractions. So I figured it must just be a phase and based on what I read, it sounds like it's something most babies eventually outgrow. After trying some suggestions I read about - like trying to soothe him back to sleep as soon as he makes a peep at the 43-minute mark - he suddenly started sleeping much longer over the last three days and waking up less tired and fussy (and an added bonus is that I have been able to get more done)! I did have to occassionally help soothe him a bit if he woke up in the middle of the nap, but he went from getting about 3-4 hours of naps per day to 5-6.5 hours --- he's had several 2-hour naps, a few 1-hour naps and a couple 1.5-hour naps!

Yay for naps that help J wake up happy and yay for being a more productive mama! Fingers crossed he keeps it up!

Apparently the nap time routine works on Roxy, too...

Sleepy Head

Not sure if it's a fluke, but Jackson has slept well past his normal 4 a.m. rendezvous the last two nights! Yesterday, he woke up at 5:45 a.m. to eat, and then went back to sleep until 7:45 a.m. Today, he slept until 7:15 a.m. after going to bed at 9 p.m.! (Side note: He had a slight crying attack around 10:30 p.m. - do babies have bad dreams / nightmares? He woke up so suddenly and was crying so hard, it took us both bouncing him to calm him down before he could fall back asleep so I have no idea what else it could have been. This has never happened before - normally, once he's asleep for the night, we don't hear much from him until he's ready to eat.)

That means he went 11 hours between feedings and he got 10 hours of sleep - wow! I thought for sure he'd be up closer to 6 a.m., since, when I happened to wake up at that time, he'd make little sounds in his sleep every now and then as if he was about to wake up. And the best part is that instead of screaming when he woke up because he was hungry, he was babbling to himself --- that's a first, too!

Here's how we found him when we went to get him up. When I put him down last night, his head was under the mobile...

Fancy Footwork

In the last few weeks, Jackson's chubby thighs have been able to start bearing enough weight for him to "stand", which he loves. I think it's the change in scenery and a change from what his legs are normally doing (kicking nonstop). It's so cute --- he gets this look on his face like he is so proud of himself for tackling a new skill. And he loves standing in front of a mirror so he can look at the other cute baby who is also learning to stand.

He gets tired pretty quickly and his legs start wobbling, which makes it look like he's dancing. Corey and I find this very amusing.

Can't wait until he can stand on own - I'm sure he'll be very proud of himself then, too.

This is from the Fourth of July, which I think is one of the first few times he tested this out.

This video is from today.

My Point of View

In order to continue to help Jackson build his neck strength for sitting up, and later crawling, we've been doing lots of tummy time. He gets pretty angry when we put him flat on the floor on his tummy, so I've been finding other fun ways to get him on his tummy, like propping a pillow underneath him and then laying on the floor at his level with toys and lots of funny faces, putting him on my shins while laying on my back flying him around like an airplane, etc.

Today, we spent some time lounging on the couch and "talking" to each other (read cooing back and forth) and I happened to have my phone handy to capture some video when we decided to do some tummy time.

Not the best video, and not too much going on, but thought you'd like to see what tummy time looks like from my perspective and why I happen to love it so much.

A Day in the Life of Baby J - Part 2

I happened to come across my blog post from early last month with Jackson's schedule at that time and was shocked at how far he's come in just a few short weeks.

Here's a look at his current schedule:

6:45-7:15 a.m. - J wakes up, followed by first feeding, followed by wake time (he's typically up for 1-1.5 hours at a time), followed by a nap in his crib (he's currently struggling with catnaps - trying to figure out how we can extend them, as he's clearly tired when he wakes up after ~45 mins; however he will not go back to sleep, no matter what we do)

10:15 or 10:30 a.m. - Second feeding, followed by wake time or a walk with the BOB, followed by a nap

1:45ish p.m. - Third feeding, followed by wake time, followed by a nap

5ish p.m. - Forth feeding, followed by walking Roxy with J in the Bjorn, sometimes followed by a nap

8 p.m. - Bedtime routine (fifth feeding, PJs, book, swaddle, cuddle / rock / sing for a few mins)

4ish a.m. - Sixth feeding

As you can see, we've moved up J's bedtime - while it means less cuddle time with him at night (during which he was usually sleeping anyway), it's been great to have time to ourselves to get things done and get to bed a bit earlier for our beauty sleep. We've also started bedtime and naptime routines to help make putting him down to sleep easier so he knows what's coming and starts to get tired at those times. So far, since we started these about two weeks ago, it's been going really well.

We have been able to get him down in his crib for his first nap, but the subsequent naps have been harder as he's overtired after the cat naps and when he's overtired, it's hard to get him down to sleep anywhere we put him. But, we'll continue to try and he'll hopefully outgrow the catnaps at some point, as well.

It's been so nice now that he's been sleeping about 7-8 hours straight at night and it's been much easier to do more throughout the day (i.e. run errands, go on walks, etc), now that he's going longer between feedings and on a fairly predictable schedule each day.

Looking forward to seeing how his schedule changes over the next month and whether we see the same sort of drastic changes we saw over the last month - fingers crossed he'll be fully sleeping through the night! (A girl can dream, right?)

Lots of Laughs!

On Tuesday night, Jackson was a bit fussy during family cuddle time on the couch, before it was time to get ready for bed, so we decided to have a dance party to help perk him up. We turned on some of my favorite tunes, I grabbed J and we all started singing and dancing around the living room.

I'm not sure which one did the trick, but Corey whipped out some moves that obviously impressed J since he surprised us with a few belly laughs! We've heard some slight giggles when he smiles and while he's sleeping, but these were actually belly laughs and were absolutely adorable. I immediately asked Corey if he'd just heard them too, which he had, and then asked him to do whatever moves he had just done again in order to get some more laughter out of J. Of course, he didn't actually know what moves he'd done, but you can bet we'll be dancing a lot more in order to try to get some more laughs out of our man!

Layered Southwestern Salad

My parents recently got Corey a subscription to Cuisine at Home and we always find tons of recipes that seem fairly easy and super yummy. We haven't had much time to try many new recipes lately, but we were finally able to try out a recipe from the August edition this past weekend - the Layered Southwestern Salad with Black Beans and Corn. It was the perfect dish to bring with us to a BBQ at our friends' house to celebrate the the Fourth of July.



Here's the recipe:

For the corn, melt:
- 2 tbsp. unsalted butter
- 3 cups fresh corn kernels
- 1 tbsp. chipotle chiles in adobo
- 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
- 2 tbsp. fresh lime juice
- 1 tbsp. minced lime zest
- Salt and pepper

For the vinaigrette, whisk:
- 1/2 cup each olive oil, lime juice, and orange juice
- 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
- 2 tbsp. white wine vinegar
- 1 tbsp. each minced lime zest and seeded jalapeno
- 1 tsp. each minced garlic and honey or agave nectar

Toss:
- 1 can of black beans
- 2 cups diced green bell pepper
- 1/4 c. seeded, minced jalapeno
- 12 oz. cherry tomatoes, quartered
- 3 cups shredded pepper jack cheese

For the corn, melt butter in skillet over medium heat. Stir in corn, chiles and cumin. Cook until softened but still firm, 3-5 mins. Add 2 tbsp. lime juice, 1 tbsp. zest and season with salt and pepper. Set aside to cool.

For the vinaigrette, whisk oil, 1/4 cup lime juice, orange juice, cilantro, vinegar, 1 tbsp. zest, 1 tbsp. jalapeno, garlic, and honey, and season with salt and pepper.

Toss beans with 1/3 c. vinaigrette in a bowl. Toss bell pepper and jalapeno with 1/3 c. vinaigrette in a separate bowl. Toss tomatoes with remaining vinaigrette in a third bowl.

Layer salad ingredients in a 2-quart bowl in the following order: beans, peppers, corn, cheese, and tomatoes.

We served the salad with pita chips since we thought a sturdy cracker would work best.

Dinner at Discovery Park

Jackson and I were very excited that Corey had a three-day weekend for the Forth of July. Having an extra day allows us to squeeze lots more quality family time in, which we took full advantage of this past weekend. The weather totally cooperated, so in between fun BBQs, we were able to sneak in some walks, naps and even a dinner date for three at Discovery Park.

J had never been there and it had been over a year since C and I had been, so it seemed like the perfect destination to enjoy the sun and chow down on food from Paseo.

Even though it got a bit cool when the wind kicked up, we had a great time getting out of Ballard for family date. And you can't go wrong with yummy food!

'Fro-hawk

Our son has quite the crazy head of hair - Jackson honestly could have used a haircut the moment he graced the world with his presence. And since then, it's been growing like crazy - so much so that Corey was able to style homeboy's 'fro into a mohawk after his bath earlier this week.

I can't believe I have a 10-week old baby with a mohawk! We better start looking for infant hair stylists so we can tame the 'fro before Corey has any other ideas...