A Must-Share Story

We all know how much Jake loooooves his books (and if you don't know, stop by my house...I'd be happy to let you read him book after book after book for a little while!) and last night after I got home from work, we started the marathon of reading. One of his favorite books is called Mirror Me and one of the pages has a big picture of a sun with a face and the caption says "The sun has a sunny smile-say cheese!".

So last night, we weren't reading that one (yet) but we were reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar....and we came to a page with a picture of a sun, so I read the caption in the book then said the line from Mirror Me ("the sun has a sunny smile...") and as soon as I said it, Jake sat straight up in my lap, looked at me, looked at his book basket, looked back at me, then scrambled off my lap. First, I couldn't figure out what was wrong....then I realized that he was reaching in the basket for Mirror Me!! Sure enough, he brought it over to me with a big smile on his face. :)

Here he is, sharing his book with Gracie...and the dishwasher.

Gentle touches!

Trying to teach Jake gentle touches on Gracie....and some other stuff (pretty long video, Brian got a bit carried away):

Mad Skillz.

Here are some videos of Jake showing off his "bah" skills :)

(and in the first one, poor Gracie gets nailed in the head with said "bah")

Breaking up is hard to do.

Breaking up with breastfeeding, that is.

As a general rule, I didn't really talk about my breastfeeding relationship with Jake to a lot of people, aside from my mom, mother in law and a very few close friends (and during a few breastfeeding catastrophes, my "internet friends") :) it's not that I was at all embarrassed by it...it's just that to me, it was a private thing between myself and my son.

But now that it's come to an end, I felt like I should write something about it, just to reflect on how far we came. It was a rocky beginning for us....since I was on the magnesium drip for pre-eclampsia, Jake felt the side effects of that in his first few days of life and he was (what the lactation consultant referred to him as), a lazy sucker. He would latch on perfectly and it would appear that he was eating, but he was actually just hanging out, kind of moving his mouth (and normally falling asleep) In order to fix this problem, we spent 3 days doing (as Brian called it) "suck training": I would pump while Brian fed Jake previously pumped milk with a syringe; after he got a few gulps that way, Brian would hand him to me and I would feed him from there. Thankfully, this only went on for 3 days until he got the hang of it....if it had gone on much longer than that, I'm not sure if I could have stuck with it. I was exhausted, physically and emotionally...and the routine that I just described took almost an hour and Jake was eating every 2 hours. It wasn't very pleasant.

But---we got through that and his weight started picking back up and everything was back on track. There were still times that I was tempted to quit...mostly those times were at 3am when I had been up for the 4th time that night feeding him and felt like I hadn't slept in days, or during his growth spurts when he would literally nurse every hour, on the hour for days at a time. I'm not sure what kept me going, to be honest....I had set little goals for myself (3 months, 6 months, a year, etc...) and every time I met one of those goals, it just seemed easier & easier, so I stuck with it. Plus, anytime I saw a can of formula in the store and saw how much money we were saving, that gave me more incentive to stick with it :)

After those first few weeks, it was pretty much smooth sailing with just a few bumps in the road....I had a clogged duct that was pretty painful when he was 2 months old, thrush from antibiotics he was on when he was around 6 months old and mastitis just recently when I started the weaning process.

Fast-forward to January....I knew that I was going to wean after he turned a year and when the time finally came, I was ready. I was ready to be done with my pump at work and just ready to let my little baby move on to the next step in his life. I had braced myself for the worst (he was quite the milk machine, I thought he would have a hard time) but he seemed to get over it pretty quickly. I started by dropping bottles at daycare, figuring it was easier since I wasn't with him at that time and he's so busy there, he'd be less likely to notice. They said he did ok overall...the 2nd day of no bottles one of the babies was getting a bottle in a rocking chair & Jake stopped what he was playing with, went over and sat down in front of the chair & just watched, looking sad :( But, one of the other teachers came over & snuggled him for a few minutes in another chair & that seemed to be all he needed...he was back to playing within a few minutes.

I'm pretty sure I miss it more than he does at this point....even though I was ready to be done, I still had a hard time letting go of what seemed like the last "baby" thing that I had to hold on to. He's such a little boy now in so many ways, but holding him in my arms while nursing him made it feel like he was still an infant, like a whole year hadn't passed yet. I know there's a whole lot more to look forward to and I love all the new things I see in him everyday....but I still like to think back to those times when it was just Jake and I, snuggling on the couch together for a late-night feeding (but let's be honest-I'm grateful that I'm now sleeping at 3am!), or enjoying those last few minutes before bedtime at the end of the day. I'm grateful to have been able to make it to a full year and I appreciate anyone who offered advice and support, especially Brian, who was my biggest cheerleader....he's an amazing husband in many ways and there was no way I could have stuck with nursing if he hadn't been so supportive.

I know there are quite a few moms and moms-to-be who read my blog, so if you have any questions about breastfeeding or weaning or anything, you know where to find me via email :) I'm happy to help out in any way that I can.

Jake is a busy boy.

Jake has been so busy learning new things, I haven't been able to keep up with posting them so I figured I'd put them all in one big summary. It seems like every time I turn around, he's doing something new, it's amazing how fast he's picking up on things.

*He waves (and says) "bye-bye" when someone leaves...sometimes he'll even do it if he sees you putting your coat on.

*When you're putting on his shoes or socks, he'll lift his foot up so that you can put it on

* He says "ball" (though it sounds more like "bah") and if you ask him where the ball is, he'll go find it & bring it to you (and he will roll it, throw it and kick it)



*He will sit down when you ask him to.


*He is a dancing machine.


*He loves for you to sing and do the motions with him for "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" and "The Itsy Bitsy Spider".

*He signs "more" when he wants more food and "all done" when he's finished eating...here he is demonstrating "more":



*He plays peek a boo with a blanket


*If you put him on your lap & ask if he wants to ride the horsey, he'll grab your hands & start bouncing up & down (GG taught him that one!)

*He is a book-a-holic, which is just adorable. He will bring you book, after book, after book...hand you the book, then turn himself around to sit down in your lap :) His favorite books are the touch & feel, ones with flaps and ones with the sound buttons on the side.



*He can stack his nesting cups, up to 3 on top of each other

*He will try to climb on top of or into just about anything...like this laundry basket:



*He has a BFF at school. His name is Dominic & according to the teachers, he & Jake are inseparable...they eat all of their meals together, nap around the same time and play together the rest of the day. Dominic is almost 6 months older, but they say that Jake keeps up very well! Brian & I have made up a whole scenerio about them including the fact that they have formed a baby clique and refer to each other as "Dom the Bomb" and "Jake the Snake".


*He has a favorite teacher at school...whenever Miss Denise leaves the room, Jake gets upset and tries to follow her out of the room. Miss Denise was on vacation for a few days and when she came back last week, Jake was playing with a toy when she first walked into the room...he proceeded to throw the toy behind him, stand up & run across the room to her and give her a big hug. It makes us feel good to know that he likes school so much!!

*You may remember my post from a few months ago where Jake was eyeing up the food all of the other babies...my prediction of him turning into a food thief came true. Last week, he stole half of a banana right off of his BFF's tray and shoved it in his mouth! Fortunately, Dominic forgave him.

*He's showing a bit more interest in the shape sorter....obviously, he still doesn't know which shapes are which yet, but if you point to the slot it's supposed to go in to, he can manipulate the shape to be able to fit in and drop it into the bucket.

I think that's about it for now :)

Evolution of a Mohawk

June 2008 (my first 'hawk)

September 2008 (channeling his inner Jeff Reed)

January 2009 (this particular mohawk was given to him by one of his teachers at school!)

February 2009 (getting a bit long!)

Here We Go Steelers, Here We Go! *clap clap*

Things that were heard in our living room during the Super Bowl:

"Honey, calm DOWN, you're going to have a heart attack...or wake the baby up!" (me to Brian, on several occasions)

"OUCH! Watch it with that thing!" (Brian to me, when I would accidently whip him across the face with my terrible towel)

"What? What does that mean? Why is the ref making a triangle above his head? What's going on??" (me during the safety they got from the holding call...clearly, I hadn't seen that one in football yet!)

"GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! KEEP RUNNING! GOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!" (Both of us during Harrison's interception)

"Oh my God, feel my heart...I think I'm having a stroke." (me, by the end of the game)

"OMG, my shoulder is killing me...ouch, it hurts to even move my arm. I think it's from waving the Terrible Towel!" (me the next morning...which you could take 2 ways: I'm either a really dedicated towel-waving fan, OR I'm just that pathetic & out of shape)

Needless to say, it was a very exciting game to watch! The excitement for us began earlier in the evening, as we got Jake ready for the game.

But I don't think anyone was more excited than Gracie:

Weekend Update

We had a somewhat eventful weekend (eventful for us anyway!)....Saturday night, we went over to have dinner with our friends Neal & Whitney. They quickly got a crash course in babyproofing once we unleashed Jake into their home :) They were also nice enough to get Jake birthday presents, even though they had been unable to make it to his party. Here is he hanging with them & enjoying his new gifts:

By Sunday, we had a lot of snow on the ground but it was pretty warm that day, so we decided to head outside & let the kids play in the snow.

After feeling embarassed about the shirt that I put on her, Gracie spent the rest of the time outside running around like a maniac and sticking her face directly into the snow. I'm not sure what she was hoping to accomplish.

Jake went down our very small hill twice on the sled with Brian...the 1st time he seemed ok ...the second time, not so much. So that was the end of the sled riding for the day.

After that, we came in & got everyone dried off and settled...we then spent the rest of the day hanging out & getting ready for the Super Bowl that night....stay tuned for the next post about that :)