Six Months

Two weeks ago Jesse reached the big six-month mark. He no longer feels like a little baby to us. Each month I think to myself, "This stage he is at is the best...I don't think it could get any better than this". And each time I am wrong, because each new month proves to be more fun and exciting than the last. Here's what Jesse is up to at six months:

• He is sitting up really well. I still surround him with pillows just to be safe, but he rarely falls over. He really loves sitting up and being able to select the toys he wants to play with (or rather, chew on). He is noticeably more content by himself now that he can sit up.
• He can get up on his hands and knees for maybe a couple seconds, and will scoot around the living room like this.
• We noticed his first tooth coming in a week ago, and the second one is now visible, too. Thus, he wants to chew on EVERYthing in his reach. Our hands, our legs, strangers' fingers, high chairs and tables at restaurants (yuck!), keys, and of course, all his toys. Unfortunately, the teething process does seem to be causing him quite a bit of pain. We had three pretty awful nights this past week, where he seemed to wake up constantly for much of the night. We couldn't get him to settle back down, which is unusual for him. We must be pretty dense parents, because after three nights of this, it finally hit us that his teeth were probably the culprit. We gave him some Tylenol the next night before bed, and we didn't hear a peep out of him until 5 a.m. Tylenol works wonders! I also got him some teething tablets to use during the day and in the middle of the night if he wakes up, and those seems to be helpful, too.
• He still loves his books. They kept him happy many a time on the long ride down to Houston. His favorite now is probably "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" and he never fails to smile at the goldfish. We've been going to the library and checking out lots of board books for him so that we aren't reading the same ones over and over and over again.
• He still loves being sung to, as well, and he especially likes songs with motions, like the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "Where in Thumbkin?". I can also turn on "Wheels on the Bus" in the car if he starts to get fussy, and he immediately stops crying.
  
• Bedtime these days is anywhere between 6 and 6:30. He really can't make it any later than that without being super cranky. He usually wakes in the morning between 6 and 6:30, although this past week it has been earlier because I think his mouth is in pain and the medicine is wearing off.
  
• He's still taking three naps a day, but I can tell that he is getting better at stretching the time between his naps. Right now, two of those naps are fairly short (45 minutes) and one (either the second or third nap) is longer (anywhere from an hour and 15 minutes to two or two and a half hours).
  
• He's become quite a babbler and says lots of "ma ma" and "da da" and "ba ba", although I know he doesn't yet associate any meaning with those sounds.

At his six month check-up he weighed in at 19 pounds, 12 ounces (90th percentile) and measured 27.5 inches (also 90th percentile). He's still a big boy, but his growth is slowing down a little bit, which is good news, because we are starting to feel a bit decrepit around here from hauling around all that weight.

I'll end this post with a confession: I think I may have officially qualified for the bad Mom of the year award this past week. Wednesday morning I sat Jesse way back in the corner of the couch and sat down right next to him. As I proceeded to check my e-mail, I looked away and next thing I knew I heard a very loud THUD and Jesse had landed on the floor in front of the couch. He must have basically somersaulted off, because of where his head landed. I felt SO BAD. He cried a little, but I honestly was shocked that he didn't cry anymore than he did. I called James freaking out and he came up from downstairs, but by the time he got here, Jesse was all smiles and giggles. Let's just say that I learned my lesson, and won't be taking my eyes off of him for even a second now. It could have been much worse than it was.

A Day at the Beach

On Friday we drove down to Houston with James' parents to visit Katie, Jeremy and Benjamin. Lisa and her boyfriend Steve also met us down here, but they drove separately since Lisa had to be back earlier for summer school. Saturday morning we got up early and drove about two hours south to Surfside Beach. It was fun to see the two babies' reactions to the ocean. Since it was so incredibly hot, we only stayed a couple hours, but it was just enough time to take a dip in the water and enjoy the beach from underneath the beach umbrellas. Jesse had just fallen asleep as soon as we pulled up to the beach's parking lot, so he was a little bit foggy when we first arrived. His initial reaction looked a little apathetic, like this:


I think the combination of sleepiness and the intense heat was just too much for Jesse. He looked so lethargic laying on the beach mat, that he didn't even gripe about laying on his tummy for so long. He did seem to (somewhat) enjoy playing in the water a little bit, though.


Jesse crashed again once we got out of the water. He usually doesn't like cuddling like this, but he was so worn-out that he didn't complain.

Funny Moments

Jesse has found himself in some interesting situations lately:

1) This is how I found him after a nap on Thursday.


He has begun rolling over in his crib, which means more interrupted sleep for us these days, because he rolls over onto his tummy and gets really upset. Last night he slept great, but Thursday night we got up nearly 10 times between the two of us to turn him back over so that he'd stop crying. Unfortunately he has only performed the tummy-to-back roll twice, so he's not so wonderful at getting himself turned back over. And of course, sometimes he just gets plain stuck, like you can see from the picture above.

2) Here he is this morning under his play gym. I think I had to fix it for him five times because he kept knocking it over with his legs.

First Father's Day

We had such a great day Sunday celebrating Father's Day. My treat for James was supposed to be a trip to Rick's Bakery, but we were welcomed by an empty parking lot and a sign that says they are closed on Sundays (this is our second failed attempt to eat at Rick's--they are also closed on Memorial Day we found out). We went to Panera instead, and it was fun to sit outside there and enjoy our pastries and coffee, and Jesse was pretty content until the very end. Then we went back home and got ready for church and snapped some pictures outside before leaving.



Church was a little different than usual, because we were signed up for nursery duty, which meant being in the newborn room during the service. It turned out that besides Jesse, there was only one other child, so we got it pretty easy. That also meant that we were there to make sure Jesse got his nap, which helped him to be in a good mood that afternoon.

After church we ate lunch with my parents. Jesse got a little fussy at the end of the meal, so my Mom put him on a blanket and entertained him on the floor, and he surprised us all by rolling over from his back to his tummy. Of course, my Mom was the only one who saw the whole thing. I only saw the very end of the roll, and my Dad and James didn't see anything. Later that evening my parents watched Jesse while we went to help out with VBS, and he rolled over three more times! He decided today that he would allow me to see him roll over, and I think he is quite proud of his new trick.

I am so thankful for the wonderful Daddy that James is to Jesse. He is so good at playing with Jesse and taking care of him. We've really been trying to enjoy this time we have here in Fayetteville before James begins grad school in the fall, because I know that his life is going to get much busier with all the demands of school. Most Dads don't work so close to home that they get to see their kids at lunch everyday, and we are trying not to take that for granted right now. I'm also grateful for my own Dad and the influence that he has had on my life, as well as the love that he has for Jesse. Becoming a parent has definitely given me a new appreciation for my own parents and all they did for me as I grew up. Enjoy the pictures from our photo shoot...it seems that Jesse hasn't quite figured out the whole looking at the camera thing. In this case, I think the yard was really distracting to him.

Five Months

I can't believe Jesse is already 5 months (and two days) old! It seems like he is changing so very quickly right now. For one, he's still getting bigger and longer. I don't feel like his growth has been slowing down yet, but it should pretty soon. At least, that's what I've been told. Unfortunately I haven't been really good about taking pictures each month to make comparisons, but I do have two pictures of Jesse on the same blanket, one today and one at almost exactly one month, so I thought it would be fun to show how much he's grown since then. I realize that you can't see all of the blanket in today's picture, but it still gives an idea.

I have a feeling Jesse's about to conquer some big things in the near future. We've been suspecting it for a little while, because his sleeping at night hasn't quite been what it used to be, which I've heard can happen when babies are trying to master a new trick. It started with him waking up around 4 a.m. and just making happy sounds for 10-15 minutes and then going back to sleep. We never had to get up because he never got upset, so this was more cute than it was annoying. In the past several weeks, though, he has begun "waking up" anywhere from 1-4 times a night (although last night he slept through with no problem). I say "waking up" because he doesn't actually seem to be awake (we are really the only ones who are waking up). His eyes are almost always closed and he is just screaming, arms and legs flailing and sometimes he is up on his side with his back arched and neck bent back like he is trying to turn over. We (actually, it's James about 80% of the time) go in there, put his pacifier back in, put our hand on his chest, and he stops crying.

Yesterday and today Jesse was able to stay in the sitting position by himself for about 5-10 seconds. It'll still probably be a while until he's good enough that we can safely leave him by himself, but it's exciting, because I think he'll like the new view. I was a little surprised because he is still quite top-heavy in his bumbo seat (well, technically ours is a bebepod, but no one knows it by that name) and always seems to lean to one side or another in it.

Home #6

In September we will move into our sixth residence as a married couple, and this doesn't include all the times we've lived with parents during transitions. Whew! That's a lot of moving!

This past week we were assigned an apartment through graduate student housing, and I thought I'd share some pictures of our new abode. We don't have pictures of the inside yet, but here's the outside of our building, the playground, and the "tot lot" (a fun indoor play room for kids that I'm sure Jesse will love, especially in those cold winter months when he won't be able to play outside much).

Lots of people have been asking us if we're really excited about moving, and we definitely are, but we both feel really content where we are right now, here in Fayetteville. It's funny, because with all our other moves we have always grown impatient waiting to get on to the next stage. When we were living in Fayetteville and still in college, we were impatient to graduate and move to Dallas and begin our training for Wycliffe. When we were in Dallas we eventually got impatient to be back in Fayetteville so that we could finish raising support to head overseas, and then when we were back in Fayetteville, we wanted so badly to be in Bulgaria. Then when we were in Bulgaria we realized how good we had it back home; we faced lots of hard things like culture shock, not being able to communicate like we could back home, and ultimately realizing that Bulgaria wasn't where we needed to be long-term.

Even though it took a huge step of faith to come back home, not knowing what was next, it's been cool to see God putting together all the pieces for us. If you had asked us where we would be right now this time last year, we never would have guessed any of this.

I'm sure that as the time draws nearer for us to move I will grow more and more excited, but for now I am trying to make the most of the time left here in Fayetteville, because I know how much I'll miss the family and friends we have here once we leave.

Memorial Day Weekend

I already blogged about our outing to Devil's Den this past weekend, but we had some other exciting events, too.

Jesse got to meet my friend Allison for the first time, since she was in town for the weekend. He wasn't being super cooperative for our picture. I think he had a meltdown right after this one was taken.


We also took Jesse for his first "swim" on Monday. He took to it pretty well, considering how cold the water was. It didn't seem to bother him at first, but once his belly got wet he wasn't very happy. I hope that once the water warms up a bit he will enjoy it a lot more. I'm also looking forward to taking a water babies class with him later in the summer, which should be lots of fun.