What makes your baby laugh?

JJ is just a bundle of giggles. He laughs at anything and everything. Peek a boo is one of his most favorite activities and cracks him up. Looking at his own reflection in the mirror is quite amusing for him too.  He loves to play hide and seek…well mostly he hides, and I say, “Where’s JJ?” and pretend to look for him and he starts giggling. He’s super ticklish like his daddy too. Whenever I say, “I’m gonna get you,” he absolutely cracks up and starts running away from me. I must admit though, that although I really enjoy seeing his cute little face light up, that I really enjoy our quiet times when he’s just cuddled up next to me or we’re reading a book together. He’s growing up too, too fast.

It finally happened…

So we just got back from our massive driving trip…Riverside to Tahoe, Tahoe to Chico, Chico to Sacramento, and Sacramento to Riverside. We were all absolutely exhausted when we returned. Because we were gone for so many days, I had a lot of catching up to do. When I woke up this morning, I was trying to get a lot of work done. Because of this, I wasn’t giving JJ a whole lot of attention. Soon enough though, he found a way to get my attention. See, it’s normal for JJ to dig through the diapers and occassionally give me one (or two or three or four, for that matter), so when he brought me one as I was working, I almost didn’t think twice. However, I decided to take a look down. What did I see? A naked little baby bottom! That little stinker took his diaper off and handed it to me! After some laughing, I gave the little bugger some loving, put his diaper back on, went back to work and he was happy enough with it.

Happy Easter!

Well JJ got to experience his first Easter this year. He had to wait almost a whole year for this event to happen. He did NOT have a good time with the Easter bunny…I’d have to say it was an overwhelming fear/sadness/anger that he felt toward him.

Easter day was great. JJ started off the day in Sunday school with a few of his buddies, then came home to relax for a little while before heading over to Aunt Linda’s for lunch. After a filling dinner of ham, meatballs, olives, deviled eggs and pasta salad, it was off to the front yard for an egg hunt. Grandma Taylor filled a few plastic eggs with coins and taped them shut; then, they “hid” them. It was so adorable to see JJ walking around holding his Easter basket. He would find an egg, pick it up, shake it and continue walking. When he found another egg, he would drop the first one and pick up the second one. Stay tuned to my myspace (www.myspace.com/ucirvine2001) for the video of him doing his hunt. He looked so cute in his my first Easter onesie and bib. Nana got him a soft little bunny rabbit for my first Easter as well.

He was so exhausted by the time we got home, he fell asleep. Seeing as how he only napped 20 minutes in the first 8 hours of his day, I’m sure this nap is going to be a long one…..now the only other milestone we’ll have in the next few weeks is his birthday! Go JJ!!

Pictures!

Just thought I would let everyone know that John has a ton of pictures on Photobucket. Here is the link and all you do is pick the categories on the side to see the pics.

http://s248.photobucket.com/albums/gg181/jfj3rd/

More Milestones

So JJ is amazing us more and more every day. Yesterday John was in the bedroom and I was in the kitchen. JJ was laying on the floor. A couple minutes later when I went to go check on him, he had his hands holding on to the top of the exersaucer and he was standing on his tip-toes! I can’t believe he pulled himself up to a standing position. So I thought it might just be an isolated incident that wouldn’t happen again for a while. Well that wasn’t the case. Today he did the same thing on the couch. He wants to get up and go! Another thing he did today that I’ve never seen him do was when he was laying down, he put himself into a sitting position–an unsupported sitting position at that! I have myself an overachiever. I’ll try and put some videos up of my little guy doing all these new amazing things on my MySpace. I think it’s funny. He’s way ahead of schedule on his gross motor skills, but sheesh, can’t he catch up with the other kids his age on sleeping patterns? What I wouldn’t give for him to sleep through the night again. I guess he’s just got too much stuff to do so he doesn’t want to sleep.

First Time!!

Friday was a big day in our household. It was the first time we fed JJ solids. I decided to try oatmeal as a first food because I have had to eat it so much since we found out he was dairy intolerant I figured it would be safe. We sat him in our little Bumbo chair, put a bib on him, and started feeding him. We got a video of the whole thing. He loved it! It’s like he’s been waiting for it for a long time. He would take the spoon from my hand and put it in his mouth. He kept leaning forward like he wanted more. He loved it. I did notice on Saturday that he had a bright red rash on his booty, so of course I was all worried about allergies. However, the rash was gone the next morning and we have tried oatmeal twice since then and no more rash so I probably don’t have anything to be worried about. On Saturday I made some more baby food. I baked a sweet potatoe and steamed some carrots and then pureed and froze them. I can’t wait to try them later on. There’s a video of his first time eating on my MySpace page. It can be found at www.myspace.com/ucirvine2001 Enjoy!

Baby Love

I got the most wonderful welcome home today. Normally my little guy will smile at me when he sees me at the end of a long day, but today, I got a huge smile as well as a giggle. It was so precious. He’s into kisses now too and will kiss me whole mouth open. It’s really cute. Oh yeah, HUGE news…..he’s crawling. He was actually picking up his arms as he was moving today and he can get himself up into a half sitting position. He’s doing so much. I can’t believe my little guy is crawling 2 days before he’s 6 months. I love that little man so much!

The Incredible Edible Udder!

Our little one has a bad habit; can you guess what it is?

Every night daddy and I give into little JJ’s cravings for one more bed time snack… and one more after that… oh and another one after that!

I’ve read that at six months of age that he should only be eating roughly six times each day but I swear my son must have been paying attention to TV commercials in the womb where the actor / actress suggests eating many more smaller meals a day to help lose weight.  Unfortunately that means 9 - 10 feedings a day for our little guy!

The reason daddy and I give in is because he makes us feel bad for him right before bed.  It is as if he knows he is going to be going to bed and won’t get fed again until morning… accept that never happens that way because he certainly wakes up for a midnight snack or two! Anyways, the water works and the crying starts up and does not stop until he gets his way.

I long for the days when our little one will be breast feeding and eating other foods.  I can FINALLY have my husband get up in the middle of the night and feed him!  My husband on the other hand often has conversations with me about why I think he should wake up in the middle of the night with me.

Anyways, one bad habit we will have to break little John of sooner or later.

Lord give us the strength!

He fell!

Okay okay, so yesterday I felt like a bad  mommy. He was lying on the middle of our big queen bed and I was 5 feet away from the bed on the computer. I start to change the ink cartridge on the printer and I hear this thud! I turn around and JJ is lying on his back….on the floor right next to the bed. He had rollen over 3 or so times in the 2 or 3 minutes that it took me to change the ink. He wasn’t crying though, that is, until I looked over at him with a startled look. Then he cried, but not much. It definitely wasn’t a cry of pain or hurt, just a cry of surprise. I picked him up and held him for a couple minutes until both of us felt better. I guess this means no more taking my off of him for even a second when he’s on a high surface. This kid can move! I can’t believe how big he’s getting and how much he can do. He’s growing way too fast.

How Embarrasing!

So yesterday I was work subbing and I had my first experience pumping. It didn’t go so well. I pumped at recess which was at 10:40 am. The last time I had fed him was at 6:40, four hours earlier. Recess is 23 minutes from start to finish. After I got the kids out, I made sure the shades were drawn and the door was locked. I got hooked up and I turn around and see 3 kids looking through the shades. They couldn’t see me, but they kept looking. I pretended I didn’t see them and continued pumping. Well, they started knocking on the door. After about 3 minutes of this, I realized that they weren’t going to go away and I turned the machine off and fixed myself. They wanted to use the phone! Sheesh, all that hassle and that’s what they wanted. Needless to say, I couldn’t concentrate on pumping after that. A total of 10 minutes I pumped and got a whopping 1 1/2 ounces.

Fast forward to lunch time. Door was locked and shades were drawn. I’m having an easier time relaxing now and pumping is going easier. All of a sudden, I hear someone unlocking the door! The janitor had come to let some kid in who had forgotten his lunch. I turned around real fast, put my shirt down and pretended I hadn’t heard them come in. I waited for them to leave, but pumping didn’t work as well after they left because I was paranoid that the janitor had left the door unlocked and another person might come in at any time. After a total of 15 minutes, I got 6 ounces this time for a grand total of 7.5 ounces. Just about what he had eaten during day care that day. Adventures in pumping, I think I’ll call this new chapter in my life.