HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Josh continues to be a happier baby during the day and at night. Phew! :) We bought him a Tigger costume for Halloween a few months ago because all he loves to do is jump. And finally Halloween was here so we could put the costume on.

All the little ones at daycare were dressed up. They were all SO cute! And you know it is purely for the mom's enjoyment. Jim dropped off today and said that he got yelled at by the other mom's dropping off because he wasn't hanging around. "Typical Dad, just drop the off and leave!"

We had a block party at work - basically a get to know your new office building / coworkers. We had a Halloween theme of course and so I dressed up as The Bride of Frankenstein. Everyone was calling me Elvira... so I put on the face makup... It was quite funny because very few coworkers recognized me. Many would do that awkward smile and eventually walk away because they definitely could recognize my voice... but it looked nothing like me. HA HA!

We got home around 4:30pm just in time for the trick o treaters. This year we had a few more kids which was fun! Then at 6:30 Jim, Josh, Hilo and I went to see the neighbors. I wore our friend Josh's adult size Tigger costume and carried Josh around. Josh was definitely laughing at me. He is really into Peak a Boo and so with the hood up on my costume he thought that was what we were playing. It was hilarious.

Now we are back home and Josh is chilling upstairs in his crib - all by himself, awake, and not screaming. THANK HEAVENS! :) This is the 4th night in a row now!!!

Time to make our own rules...

So the last month has been up and down with Josh. Last time I wrote, he had come down with a stomach virus. Which both Jim and I eventually came down with that following week. Overall though, he has been much more fussy on a regular basis. We still get happy Josh in the morning... but even daycare was starting to notice how fussy he was getting. I finally felt like someone else was noticing and it was not just me. After a month of phone calls to the doctors office and a few visits... I didn't feel like things were getting better or that the doctors really were listening. I felt like he was so hungry and didnt' have any more to give him... so cereal was the recommendation. But he refused eating cereal (both rice and oat). And I mean refused! But still they urged me to continue b-feeding and avoiding solids until he was six months. I argued that I thought the b-milk was making him more fussy... and that formula might be better. They said the opposite. The month of sleepless nights was finally breaking Jim and I. After a weekend at my parents, I finally decided to start him on formula. I had also heard vegetables that start with "p" can help gassy babies. So we did that too.

He enjoyed the prunes - much like he did the cereal the first time. And we mixed half formula and half bmilk. He guzzled it right on down. This past weekend we started going up from 5 oz to 6oz and then 7 oz a feeding. He just kept on guzzling. On Sunday he drank 6 7oz bottles and had 3 servings of prunes. He was happy ALL day long and went to bed without a fuss at 8:30 pm.

Him sleeping until we woke him up at 7am Monday morning - PRICELESS.

So to all you new moms out there... trust your instincts. If something isn't working... try something new... don't be afraid to try. Every baby is different.

AND I AM OFFICIALLY QUITTING with B-FEEDING!!! WAHOO!

A nice weekend home...

Not much happened last week... we enjoyed coming home from work, having dinner, and relaxing on the couch. We were definitely in need of some R&R at home. On Friday morning, I dropped Josh off at daycare like usual. About 20 minutes after I had sat down at my desk I got a phone call from daycare saying Josh had just thrown up. She said if he does it again, they will need to send him home. I figured he was moved to much after just eating... but definitely not normal for Josh. About 5 minutes went by and she called again saying I needed to come pick him up...

It was a beautiful day... so I was excited to have an excuse not to be at work... but then I started freaking out. I would say this was the first time I felt scared to be "the mom". He definitely had the flu... as everyone else in his room had already had it this week. I don't know how to handle a vomiting baby... Do I hold him over a bucket? the toilet? can I give him 7up/crackers/chicken broth?? obviously I knew the last few are out of the question since he has barely had cereal up until this point. I picked him up and he looked completely normal.

About 15 minutes after I got home with him I had finally sat down on the couch with a bucket, towel, and some water. I heard some horrible rumbling... and I ran into the kitchen with him as he coughed/gagged... I held him over the sink just as he let it all out. It was horrible! The poor little man had it coming out of his nose! And of course he was crying too... just like his mom does! :)

We only had a few rounds of it... maybe 5 total all weekend. But it lasted all weekend. We tried getting him to take some pedialyte on Friday without much luck. Saturday we mixed in some apple juice and he took down 3 oz like there was no tomorrow. That night we added in some cereal... everything was great Saturday night and it had been about 6 hours since he vomited.

And then it happened. The next "I am officially a mom" item on the list. While I was watching Oceans 12 and holding Josh, I felt some rumblings in the diaper and almost threw up from the smell... I carried him to the changing table gagging the whole way. Jim thought this was hysterical. I pulled off the diaper to find one of the messiest/stinkiest diapers I had seen ever. And then it happened. Mid wipe... He exploded some more... It scared me so bad that I screamed which definitely didn't make Josh happy. So I have a sick, crying, diaperless, little man, one clean hand, one hand covered in the smelly stuff, a husband who can't stop laughing, and a dog who won't stop trying to get the messy diaper. It was AWESOME!!!

That night ended with laundry, a bath, and some more pedialyte for Josh. YUCK!

Today Josh was doing better so we tried the breastmilk. Not so much. That only stayed down for about an hour. So the rest of the day has been more pedialyte/apple juice/cereal. This afternoon he started making faces while eating cereal so I think that indicates he is fianlly feeling better. The pictures are of his new favorite face. He scrunches up his nose and breathes in and out of his nose... anytime Jim or I do this he will copy us. It reminds me of my baby brother Jack. He used to do this whenever he was really excited about something. Too funny!

I am SITTING!!

Josh continues to get bigger and bigger. He is 16 lbs and so so so close to sitting on his own. He can sit for about a minute now and play with a toy. But shortly after that he falls over to one side. As for rolling over or crawling... does a little rolling from side to side... and doesn't have any signs of crawling...

He used to love eating cereal, but now doesn't want anything to do with it. I am not sure what that is about... but this has been going on for 3-4 days now. Hmm. We tried Oat cereal at daycare for the first time. They said he took a while to finish it... and it required some fun noises.

He is back to sleeping better at night. We finally went with the 5 minute Ferber method. We went in after he cried for 5 minutes. This would usually last about 20 minutes tops before he was asleep. Every once in a while we still have to do this but the rest of the time he goes to sleep watching his mobile.

Joshua's First Plane Ride...

This weekend we went to Dallas for my cousin Debi's wedding. We stayed with my best friend Jennifer and her boyfriend Mike for the weekend as they lived about 2 miles from the winery where the wedding/reception was. I was a bit nervous about the trip, mostly the flight. We left early Friday morning. The day started out rough with an hour delay leaving WI due to storms in MN. That first leg was pretty manageable. Josh nursed while we took off and then slept the remainder of the flight. We sprinted to our gate in MN to catch our flight to TX and just missed it literally. They were pulling the jetway away from the plane just as we got there. So we had a 3 hour wait until the next flight... bummer! It was good though because we were able to get some food and let Josh nap.

During this time I also realized how similar Jim and I are. I asked him for some cash to get a magazine... he said to get him a scientific america magazine. I came back with three magazines total... scientific america, discover, and popular science. Yep. We are both nerds.

The next flight was similar... but this time Josh flirted with the lady across the aisle. She enjoyed it and so did her hubby!

We arrived in Dallas around 4 pm and met up with my family at the hotel. Everyone was lounging in the lobby and having some cocktails. Later that night we went to the grooms dinner at a steakhouse and eventually went to Jenny's house. We met Mike her boyfriend and stayed up way too late talking about life...

Saturday we hung out at the hotel again and then that evening went to the wedding. Josh wore a new outfit he got from his Great Aunt Deb and Great Uncle Chris... it was SO cute. He didn't mind wearing the hat, but loved chewing on it! We sent him home with Jenny so he could get to bed and Jim and I could have some fun. It was a blast! It was the smallest wedding I have ever been too... only 50 people. It was very intimate and beautiful. There was a bet placed early in the night between my Uncle Paul (the father of the bride) and my brother Joe on whether or not we would finish the beer he bought. Let's just say everyone tried to help my brother win that $100. We didn't win the bet... atleast that is what Paul claims... but we had a very very good time trying!

Jenny picked us up from the hotel around 1am. She said that Josh was very good and a happy little boy. Mike fed him a bottle and spent some quality time with him watching football... Jen has some really cute pictures of them! We didn't get to bed that night until about 3 am and had to wake up at 5:30 am to get ready for our flight back. YIKES! We were tired! :)

Josh was a little tougher on the flights back. Jim had to stand for a good portion of the leg to MN... bouncing Josh to keep him happy. The last leg to WI he zonked out for the entire flight. It was perfect!

That afternoon we crashed for a good 2 hours... and then went to bed around 9:30pm. It was so nice to get 7 hours of sleep!

NO MORE FAMILY TRAVELING FOR THIS MONTH!!!! YIPPEE!!!

Routines

Shannon - you probably don't want to read this one... (Josh's Godmother who demands I pick him up anytime he cries!)


I spent some time reading up on sleep/fussyness/cereal early last week. One of the things that caught my eye was establishing a routine for your little one. It also mentioned that traveling with baby can really affect their mood. I also read about the Ferber method. Apparently between 4-8 months babies will get accustomed to their sleeping routines. So if you rock them to sleep at night - they will want to be rocked later on - say 1-2 years old. And the habits that are formed during this time are extremely hard to break as they get older. Hmmmm....


We had a pretty solid routine, however it was drastically changed whenever we went out of town. Most of you know that we were out of town just about every weekend since August 25th. So we would get a very good routine during the week, but then on weekends it would change.


The other "Ferber" advice called for some tough love, i.e. "Letting them cry it out." I told Jim we had two different methods of administering "tough" love. The first option is to build up the length of time you allow them to cry before going in to comfort them. So you start with 5 minutes... and then add 2-5 minutes each additional time you need to go in there. The second option is what I call "Go big or Go home". This is where you let them cry as long as it takes them to fall asleep. And gradually they will get so tired out they will fall asleep on their own. Each time after this - they will cry less and less in theory because they will give up sooner.


Jim's response. "I am all in."


So last Monday, Jim and I set out to establish a routine and focus on keeping that routine. That first night we let him cry... I only lasted 30 minutes... (basically the time it took me to unload and reload the dishwasher as well as change the laundry) then I went up there and picked him up for just a second... layed him back down and he passed out.


The next night was a little less crying. And this continued until we left for MI. We tried as best as we could to keep the routine. I think it might have worked! He is back to only getting up once a night... YEAH!!!!